Growing Chives From Scraps

Testing the waters of my green thumb again with chives.  I have heard that you are able to start growing some with scraps from the kitchen.  Once you use what you have, put the white bottom part into some water and it will grow.  Well, by George…it did!!

I was so excited and just kept watching it, watching it, and watching it some more.  The problem I ran into…I did too much watching.  I should’ve planted it after a few days because it became slimy and fell apart.  Lesson learned, plant it once it starts to grow so it can continue to grow.

But at least I know first hand that it is easy to grow chives and even easier to start growing them with scrapes.  Can’t wait to take another shot at it!

What have you tried growing from scraps or in your kitchen?

Reviving Aloe Vera

I have never had a green thumb…but yet I haven’t tried too much in the past either.  With being a new home owner and my love of herbs, spices, and healthy foods I really want to have a garden.  My sister has been gardening for a while now.  When we would talk about different plants, I told her that one plant I definitely wanted was an aloe vera plant. She had a plantvalready and gave me a piece of one.  She told me it only needs to be watered maybe once a week and that it doesn’t need much.

She gave it to me in a small tall mason jar and I think I may have over watered it but wasn’t sure.  There were only 2 and a half leaves and they started to dry up and turn brown.  I was so bummed and started looking anything I could up on Pinterest.  Pinterest gave me hope.  I read that aloe vera plants don’t have very deep roots and they like to grow in wider than deeper containers, and you are able to pull them right up and just shake off the dirt to replant.  So I did just that.  I still used a mason jar but used a short wide one.  The roots did not look very promising, they didn’t even look like roots at all to me.

I didn’t give up, I put it in the window, tried to put dirt around it to help support it because it was also very limp.  Whenever I saw that the dirt looked semi dry, I would water it.  I don’t know how many times a week but went by sight.  I’ve tried pulling off of the dry spots like some succulents require, but they wouldn’t come off and the plant was SO small I just left them.  Then I started to notice that the base of the brown leaves were a lil thicker and had a hint of green.  HOPE!!  And look at it NOW!!  My sister gave me this plant back in April.  I have been very patient with it haha and it has even survived a toddler, picking it up and pulling it out a few times.

Now – why aloe vera?  One of my first few Thanksgivings with my now husbands family, I had a few drinks before dinner and went to pull something out of the oven to help and burned the top of my hand.  It wasn’t my house or my stove and I didn’t realize that the burners on the roof of the stove were on as well as the bottom.  As soon as I pulled my hand away, my husbands great aunt grabbed a piece of her aloe vera plant and put the gel directly on my burn.  It worked incredibly!!  From that day, I realized that having a plant like that in the kitchen is really helpful and that’s what I wanted in my future kitchen.

Over the years I have learned how good aloe vera is for your skin.  I am hoping to make a future face cream of aloe vera, coconut oil and essential oils.  Once my plant is big enough because now I want to use my own 🙂

Here is a link to some of the great benefits:

https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/herbs-and-spices/health-benefits-of-aloe-vera.html

My sister has a blog as well and wrote a post about why she chose to have these plants in her house.  I didn’t realize how good they are for the air in your home!  Check it out here:  https://keepingitclassic.blog/2018/03/04/say-aloe-to-my-not-so-little-friend/