Can’t Get Seeds? There’s a Garden Already Waiting in Your Pantry

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- I got an early clue that these are indeed Uncertain Times when I started planning my backyard vegetable bed and found that seeds had become maddeningly tricky to source. My go-to garden center now has an arduous ordering system for tomato starts, and most of my favorite sites are completely sold out. With a little creative problem-solving, though, a lush vegetable garden is still obtainable, and you probably don’t even have to leave your kitchen. Refrigerator drawers, spice racks, and pantry shelves can hold a bountiful repository of baby plants-to-be. If you don’t believe me, stick some sesame or chia seeds in the dirt sometime and see what happens. And if you are already growing microgreens for salad, let the radish and broccoli grow past the sprout stage and harvest once they’re mature. I’ve already got a thick patch of daikon and lentils in my garden that I planted only a month ago.

Here are a dozen staples that, if tended, can produce your own green quarantine.

Beans
If you can’t get a $3 packet of seeds, just grab a few of your favorite dried Rancho Gordos and poke them into the soil. Mung beans (far left) are even better: You can eat them as sprouts.

Mustard
The mustard seeds you might have for home pickling won’t produce the ruffly leaves you’re used to seeing braised with bacon in Southern cooking, but the smaller leaves still pack a peppery punch. And they grow fast.

Coriander
You might have already bought whole-seed spices for, say, a homemade curry. Save a few to sprinkle over soil and pat them down gently. A couple of weeks later, you’ve got a little lawn of cilantro.

Kabocha
The first time I realized I could mine seeds from store-bought produce was when a ­kabocha squash volunteered itself in my compost heap and vined up my cedar hedgerow. They’re prolific.

Goji berries
Because we need superfoods more than ever, right? Pick the seeds out of dried berries, and give the shoots a trellis to climb

Peppers
You can scoop the seeds out of a bell ­pepper—I ­recommend striped Holland varieties—but try walking on the wild side with the seeds of a jalapeño, poblano, or ­habanero. Even dried chiles work!

Garlic
It takes patience, but if you buy a head of garlic and bury each clove pointy side up, you can harvest next year. No time? Chop the root end of a shallot and plant it—you’ll have chive-like greens in a few weeks.
    
Scallions
Chef David Chang recently shared this trick from his mom on Instagram: Snip the scallion’s greens and put the root end in a glass of water, and it’ll keep sprouting. (It also works for leeks, ­pictured at the bottom of the pile.)
    
Sweet potato
Just one can yield several of the root vegetable. Cut it into hunks—make sure there are two or three eyes on each one—and cover with a few inches of dirt. You can even plant straight into a bag of soil.

Mint
If there’s an herb that grows from cuttings more ­enthusiastically, I’ve yet to meet it. An entire corner of my garden is populated with mint I grew from one store-bought sprig.

Oregano
Another ­prodigious member of the mint family, oregano grows ­easily from clippings. Once established, it’ll ­happily spread to all the nooks and corners of your garden.

Rosemary 
Even though this piney herb can grow into a rather large, woody shrub, the sprigs are easy to plant. Just pluck off the lower 2 inches of leaves, and it’ll form roots in water after a few weeks.

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