Grocery Store Gardening | Written by Litda S. Tuy

There was a time where I wanted to grow a plant that I didn’t make it’s start from a seed, bulb or anything I could get my hands on conventionally. I wanted an exotic plant for myself so I could talk about it to my friends and do a little garden bragging. Sugar cane, lemongrass, sweet potatoes are all easy items to pick up from your grocery store vegetable isle but with a little experimentation, all three of these grocery store items can be turned into an indoor plant for cooking and eating. 

All three of these plants can be grown in your apartment, the only problem is that they grow almost too well and may become a problem if you are worried about your plants taking up too much space. On the upside, you have a great conversational piece and something to give away to friends that you have actually grown yourself and can teach your friends to grow.

Lemongrass is an Asian herb which is used in many dishes in countries such as Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. In order to prepared lemongrass for growing, buy a bunch of lemongrass from the store. Be sure to select “young looking” lemongrass and avoid stalks that are too dry and yellow.

To prepare the lemongrass leave the roots untouched. You will need to trim and discard the top leaves so from the bottom to the top measure 4-5 inches and cut the stalks off, leaving the roots and the stem on the plant. Submerge the roots in a jar, two inches of water is enough. Try to leave two more inches above the water line for the sprouts to shoot up. Watch and change water daily, when you grow enough roots, transplant into your choice of pot (or jar) of soil. Pretty easy and the smell of lemon grass is very refreshing.

Sweet potatoes are quite easy to grow. Buy any breed of sweet potato and submerge half of the sweet potato in a vessel (an old jar or cup will do) filled of room temperature water. Leave it on a sunny window, change the water every day and if you feel like it, run warm (room temperature) tap water over the roots gently to wash off the slime that accumulates there. Don’t bother cutting it in half, after two or three weeks it should have sprouted leaves long, vines with leaves and grown long roots.

You can continue to grow more plants but cutting a two or five inch length of the sweet potatoes vines and placing the cup end in a cup or jar of water. Within two weeks or more, the vines should have sprouted roots and continued to grow. Be aware that sweet potatoes are a pest plant in Canada and can harm the local plant life, but it’s safe to grow in large containers and fabric grocery bags, as long as it’s not sown directly into soil. The sweet potato leaves are also edible. You can cook them like spinach with minced garlic and some provincial butter.

The trickiest of these three to grow is the sugar cane, mostly because you will need to buy “living” sugar can and it may be hard to tell which sugar cane is living or dried out. You can tell by the waxy texture of the skin and the vibrancy of the sugar cane’s coat.

You will need soil and a wide plant pot to grow the sugar cane, the plant will not grow horizontally but the sugar cane will start from a horizontal piece of sugarcane. You can use a Styrofoam take out container or a leftover plastic tray from a fast food joint, just make sure you clean the container well with soap and preferably hot, but warm will do.

Notice the segments on the sugar cane piece? The joints in spaces between those segments are where the roots and plant will grow from. This is IMPORTANT.

You will need to cut a minimum of a five inch length piece, if you can cut it longer do so. Try to make sure that each piece you have cut has two (or more) joints, if the joint is towards the end side of the length to leave half an inch or more and roots should still grow from that joint.

You can use candle wax to seal the ends and keep the moisture in, I’ve seen plastic bag pieces and rubber bands used to seal the ends but be sure to remove the bag pieces and the rubber band later. Submerge the piece of sugarcane on its side in soil, making sure half of the stalk is exposed. The stalk growing under the soil will grow roots from the joint pieces exposed will be where the shoots grow. Water and watch your sugar cane grow.

If you would like to transplant both your sweet potato plant and lemongrass plant into soil, make sure that you submerge the base of your started lemon grass three inches of soil and completely cover what is left of the sweet potato and its roots. If you would like to re-use old soil, it’s best to remove the old germs and fungus using the following methods.

The fastest way is to actually microwave your soil thirty seconds, but if you’re like me and you balk in putting soil in a microwave there is an easy alternative.

You can boil a pot of water with piece or two of crushed garlic. This can be done multiple times, but you should probably wait a week or two before transplanting. Another method that can only be done once is sprinkling a light dust of cinnamon followed by watering the soil and leaving it for a week or two before placing you plants in the new again soil. Sprinkling cinnamon more than once and your plant will possibly die, but once is more than enough.

Growing almost all three of these plants cost five to three dollars or less!

Be sure to re-use old pasta jars and use the methods above to re-use soil and you have some low-cost, high producing plants for your home or apartment. All three plants are ridiculously hardy, but try to remember to water them at least every three days. The only barrier to entry is remembering to grab some sugarcane, a bunch of lemongrass, or sweet potatoes on your way to the cash register.