How to Regrow Your Grocery List and Get Free Food

With little ingenuity and creativity, you can grow a cheap vegetable garden for free from the groceries you already buy. In this post, I aim to teach you how to grow your grocery list for free without buying a single vegetable seed. The more you know, the more you grow!

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Buy Organic to Regrow Your Grocery List

It is best to buy organic when you can since regrowing organic vegetables have a higher success rate. Therefore, it is important to pick healthy organic vegetables to regrow your food.

Organic foods regrow best since they have not been chemically treated to prevent new growth and sprouting, which is ideal for regrowing a new vegetable.

How to Regrow Your Grocery List

Knowing how to regrow the vegetables you have chosen to regrow is key to success in the garden. I will share my tips and tricks that can help you regrow the vegetables that I have regrown successfully out in my garden over and over again without buying a single seed. I am quite sure these are the basic vegetables that are regularly on your own grocery list.

The vegetables I have chosen for this project are vegetables that are easy to regrow for a continuous harvest and are considered survival foods and are shelf stable for your pantry.

Let’s go over the best vegetables to regrow your grocery list.

Best Vegetables to Regrow Your Grocery List

Potatoes

Regrowing potatoes is very easy. Buy some nice organic potatoes on your next shopping trip. Be sure to buy a few extra potatoes to allow them to sprout in your pantry. Keep them away from direct sunlight to prevent green growth, which is a toxin that can make you sick.

Weird eyes on your potatoes? You know what I’m talking about. You buy a big bag of potatoes and they just chill in your pantry wondering if you will ever get to use them. By the next time you see them, they have sprouted many new eyes and you freak out. Yeah, you know what I mean.

However, do not freak out because this is a great sign that you can turn those potatoes into new potatoes by planting them in your garden. They have become seed potatoes, which are very precious little golden gems that your pantry can ever possess for your survival garden. You will then never need to add potatoes to your grocery list again.

Chitting Your Potatoes

Some people chit their potatoes before planting them. I never do that so I skip that process and just plant all the sprouted potatoes whole in rows out in my potato garden. To me, chitting potatoes takes extra time that I do not find necessary nor do I find it to be more successful at harvest time.

If you do want to chit your potatoes, cut them in portions ensuring each piece of potato has at least one to two eye sprouts on them. Put them out to dry out and harden to form a scab to protect the insides before planting them into the ground. This process takes longer, but some people prefer that method.

Many times, I have successfully planted whole-sprouted potatoes in rows and received a bountiful potato harvest within four to five months later with gorgeous and delicious huge potatoes!

After harvesting your potatoes, set a nice amount of potatoes aside in a shallow box to allow them to sprout again for the next round of planting.

Sweet Potatoes

You can regrow an entire plant by planting the entire sprouted sweet potato. One sweet potato can produce about fifty new plant sprouts, which can produce a nice harvest for you!

Unlike potatoes, sweet potatoes need a warm humid environment to sprout and your kitchen is often the perfect place to sprout them. Most people put their sweet potatoes on skewer sticks and place them in water to grow sprouts.

However, I skip that hassle and just place my sweet potatoes whole into shallow dishes in my kitchen with a little bit of shallow water and allow them to shoot sprouts over the entire sweet potato. I then can just plant the whole sprouted sweet potato in my garden in rows for a massive free harvest. This is great for many side dishes for Thanksgiving!

With a massive sweet potato harvest from just a few potatoes, you will never need to add sweet potatoes to your grocery list again.

Garlic (one head grows 10 to 12 garlic plants)

Garlic is probably the easiest crop I have ever grown! I grow a year’s worth of garlic (a massive harvest) each year without buying a single garlic seed. One head of garlic can produce 10 to 12 garlic plants, which to me is amazing! And I started my wonderful garlic garden by buying garlic from the grocery store!

Typically, I try to keep at least 500 garlic cloves in my fall garden bed each year, which produces a year’s worth of garlic for my family. To do this, all I need to do is plant about 50 heads of garlic from what I save from each harvest or the grocery store. You will need to do some math to configure how much garlic your family needs to plant that amount per year.

If you buy garlic, buy extra to plant during the fall season. Once you buy your garlic, you can save some for planting that following fall season to achieve a nice sizeable garlic harvest the following summer.

Growing Garlic Bulbils

Garlic can be grown as a perennial. I love growing a regularly massive garlic bed to harvest in the summer, however, I also love growing garlic plants around my small cottage homestead in the form of garlic bulbils.

Garlic bulbils are tiny garlic seeds that can be planted into the soil in spring in areas where you want the garlic to produce consistently. Growing garlic from bulbils helps me keep garlic plants around my cottage homestead in areas where I can harvest garlic whenever I want.

Also, planting the garlic bulbils around the perimeter of my cottage brick home and around the fruit trees, help me fight against annoying garden pests that cause harm to my fruit trees and prevent bugs from coming into my home from the strong garlic perimeter presence planted around my home.

Growing garlic bulbils requires a two-year growing season. Plant garlic in areas that you plan to not harvest in short term and allow garlic to grow in its perennial nature to produce garlic bulbil seeds that you can harvest in the spring.

Growing garlic as perennials in certain areas of your garden can help massively produce your free garlic production for a massive harvest each year and you will never have to buy garlic ever again! Plant garlic cloves or bulbils in an area you plan to designate permanently for your garlic harvest. Plan for at least two growing seasons for your garlic to begin to produce free garlic on its own for you.

Growing Garlic as Perennials

When you set aside garlic plants to allow them to go to seed, you will soon have yourself a perennial garlic garden. Garlic produces seeds called garlic bulbils, which drop into the ground to reseed themselves for a continuous garlic harvest that you get to reap and enjoy. This effort is far worth your time to produce free garlic for your cooking needs and you will never need to add garlic to your grocery list ever again.

Onions

Have your onions sprouted some green shoots? If not, allow a few of your onions to shoot up some greenery to plant in your spring garden. A few weeks before spring, allow some of your onions to sprout. Mine naturally do this in my pantry! Then follow these simple steps to regrow more onions from your store-bought onions and never put onions back on your grocery list ever again!

Most onions when they sprout will shoot up three individual green sprouts. To divide the sprouts, carefully begin to take the onion apart without disrupting the onion root sprouts. Cut the green sprouts from the onion and divide them into three parts according to how their roots can divide, keeping their roots intact.

The best way to do this is by carefully peeling each layer down to the center sprouts in the middle, ensuring you do not cut off the end roots. So be sure not to start cutting your onion as you normally would.

You can dice up the onion and use it in your dinner recipe on the day of separating your onion shoots.

Once you separate your onion shoots, plant them in separate containers if your garden is not ready. Otherwise, go ahead and plant them directly into your garden.

Dried Beans

Dried beans are so simple to save and grow. When you buy your beans of any type, save several of them for planting in your spring garden. They will sprout and grow wonderfully producing fresh new beans for you to harvest. My favorite and consistent beans that I regrow are green beans, black beans, black-eyed Susans, and pinto beans. These are the types of beans that I use often in my home-cooked meals, so plan for what type of beans your family uses most and grow from there.

Keep your dried beans in a separate container for planting and for the amount you plan to plant for that year.

Dried Peas

Save some dried peas for planting new plants and continue to harvest free peas every spring. Since your spring garden consists of a few small spring crops, this allows you to grow your spring harvest into a massive harvest.

Be sure to plant a ton of pea plants of your favorite variety (mine is snow peas) and get a massive pea harvest every spring. Since you can extend your spring harvest to other areas of your garden designated for your summer crops, which are not needing the ground space quite yet, go ahead and plant a massive pea harvest before the time is up for summer crops.

Potatoes.
Sweet Potatoes.
Garlic.
Onions.
Dried Beans.
Dried Peas.

Summary

I hope I have inspired you to try regrowing some of the vegetables and herbs you shop for on your grocery list.

If you were encouraged by this post, I invite you to check out my FREE Self-Sufficiency Academy for fun free printables, planners, and charts.

ENTER MY FREE SELF-SUFFICIENCY ACADEMY HERE

I invite you to check out some more of my posts!

10 Ways to Save Money on Groceries During Inflation

SOS Mix is Essential for Your Survival Pantry

Best Foods to Stockpile for Survival Now: Prep Your Pantry

Stockpiling MRE Meals for Survival: Prep Your Pantry

Blessings,

The Off Grid Barefoot Girl

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