We have a sustainability program that includes an agricultural component, this would be perfect as additional reading material for our students with these courses.

This was an interesting and highly informative read about reducing food waste by regrowing some of your leftovers. I was very interested in this book as I want to be more mindful of what I throw away and less wasteful.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3171481636A guide to growing indoor vegetables, greens, and other plants from regular food scraps. Elzer-Peters covers everything from the well-known (growing onion stalks, avocado seeds, and bean sprouts) to the more unusual (turmeric roots, melon seeds, and pineapple stems). The writing is clear and the instructions are easy to follow, and there are multiple gorgeous, helpful photos on every page. On the other hand, I question the usefulness of some of Elzer-Peters's suggestion. Yes, you can plant apple seeds and grow a new tree... if you have a big yard available, years to wait, and don't mind that the resulting fruit won't taste like the original apple. But for how many people is that really a practical project? Other projects are so similar to one another that they could have been combined; onions, garlic, and leeks, for example, have basically the same growing needs.

Ultimately, this is a book that has some interesting ideas and clear steps to follow, but which could have been greatly improved.

A useful reference for those who want to reduce the amount of food waste thrown away. Helpful photos and clear explanations make for easy understanding of how you can grow from those bits that are cut off and discarded.
Definitely, this is a book I will be dipping into to try.

I have a large garden, and I hate waste, so this book appealed to me. I wasn't disappointed there such brilliant ideas that I hadn't considered before. I am now going to put these suggestions into practice. Recommended.

A very interesting and inspirational book for gardeners of all experience levels. There are clear instructions and photos showing the steps for turning the parts of vegetables that get thrown away into new edible plants. This would be especially fun to do with kids, as well as being educational. A good place to start for living greener!

#NoWasteKitchenGardening #NetGalley

No-Waste Kitchen Gardening by Katie Elzer-Peters will make you look at kitchen scraps in a whole new way With growing tips and fun facts for the fruits and vegetables featured, the book offers more than just the basics. Some of the plants were things I already grow, but I learned several new things. This is a wonderful book for those wanting to put scraps to good use by turning them into more food.

Like most things in our modern world, gardening creates waste, and we have to figure out how to most responsibly dispose of that waste. This volume seeks to eliminate waste in your home kitchen garden, through regrowing with kitchen scraps. Approachable instructions, adorable watercolor illustrations, and plenty of practical advice.

I loved this book so much; I feel like it was meant for me to read because I am one of those people who have re-grown veggies from kitchen leftovers and what others would call garbage. I am strict when it comes to veggie waste in my kitchen; I save most of my veggie scraps to make vegetable broth each week. I feel like the things in this book are easy to incorporate into your own life and are small changes that can make huge differences. Like most how-to book and lifestyle-based books, this one contains so many great photographs that are eye-catching and really add to the aesthetic of the entire book. I love that it is grabbing and just pretty to look through even if you aren't interested in the topic. While perhaps this book is not the most detailed when it comes to how to keep vegetables growing or how to use them and what to do afterward, it still is an inspiring book and helps contribute to the positive view of zero-waste life.

This is a great approach to zero waste, preventing the loss of little bits of food to bins that can easily be re-grown in an economical family project with just a little space and time investment. Much of our daily vegetables can be easily re-grown in modern kitchens to minimise waste and ensure a sustainable supply. Even if this is only achieved a few times, it's a lovely little effort that might help to prevent more single use plastic from entering homes. The applications here are simple and quick, easy to execute and (I would say) foolproof. The images are really lovely and instructions are clear, well thought out and a great aid for even a new kitchen gardener.

I loved this book! As someone who has tried to take kitchen bits and regrow them into something useful (other than compost) and usually fails, I was glad to have such a clear guide to show me how I had been goofing things up! Perfect for the dreaded black-thumbs (like me) and for porch gardeners (also like me!) and not just geared towards advanced gardeners with sprawling yards. Definitely give it a read if you want to essentially have endless lettuce!

I was excited to get a chance to read this book since we regularly regrow kitchen scraps and I'm always looking for more inspiration. That said, I ended up with so many questions and concerns that I had to resort to google multiple times instead of finding answers in this book -- never a good sign in a book that's supposed to give you all the information you need on a topic.

First off, there are a number of great things about this book. It's filled with helpful colorful photos that do a good job of showing how to set up your scrap veggies to regrow them. The instructions are simple and there are a variety of plants offered, including standards like avocados and pineapple tops, lettuce, onions, etc. and less common plants like sweet potatoes and fruit trees from pits. The book is short and easy to read, and the author doesn't whitewash the fact that in some cases you will never get edible fruits or veggies from these projects (the argument is that it's fun or you get a houseplant or bragging rights).

Now the down sides. First off, as I mentioned, I kept having questions or concerns that the author didn't address. For instance, one of the first projects is carrots. The author points out that you can't grow new carrots from carrot scraps but says you can grow "delicious" greens. Right away I was puzzled as I've heard often that carrot greens are not healthy and secondly I've heard they taste awful. Off I went to google, where I found that it's been erroneously reported that carrot tops are toxic but there are still concerns. First off, conventionally grown carrots are heavily treated with pesticides on their greens because the government considers the greens not a part that will be eaten so they are allowed to use more heavy duty pesticides. Secondly, there are a lot of reports online of people who had very nasty reactions to carrot greens, either cooked or used in juices. The consensus seems to be that these are allergic reactions, but there are a fair number of them so carrot greens seem to be a food that a fair number of people react quite poorly to. Also, most of the sites I read said that they really didn't taste good at all (they're supposedly quite bitter) so a lot of folks said that even though you could eat them, you might not want to. All in all, this makes me not really want to bother growing carrot tops. And even if I did, I'd appreciate an author at least acknowledging any of this so others who had heard the same things wouldn't have to go google the information too.

Another area she never addressed was the fact that vegetables grown in water are going to be very devoid of nutrients. I googled that too, and found that conventional hydroponically grown veggies are grown in water solutions with nutrients added so they aren't lacking in flavor, vigor and nutrition. This book doesn't advise adding any nutrients though, which means these vegetables are going to be mainly poor tasting, sickly and not nearly as good for you as plants grown in soil or a nutrient solution. I'm assuming the author would argue that these vegetables are mainly grown for fun and not health but I think it's something worth mentioning. I'm thinking it might work to add compost tea to the water or even buy nutrient solution if you want to do this as an actual regular food source.

A lot of the plants aren't actually things you'll grow on your kitchen counter but are basically ways to save seeds from produce and grow them in your yard or garden. The author points out that it will generally be years before you'll ever get fruit, if ever, and it's likely to not taste good.

The author also never addresses the fact that most seeds, pits, etc. that you can regrow from supermarket veggies aren't the best for your garden since they're selected based on being able to be shipped and stored for long times, are probably not best for your climate or best tasting, and factors like that.

In other areas, I'm a little more "crunchy" than the author. I would have preferred more talk about why it would be better to choose fruits and veggies from the farmers' market or at least organic ones. The only time the author recommends organic produce is when they might otherwise be treated with sprout inhibitors (like potatoes and garlic treated not to sprout), but it's never recommended for other valid reasons (better taste, nutrition, health, etc.). She frequently says this is all zero waste and makes it sound eco-friendly, but she uses materials like plastic containers, plastic wrap, purchased soil-less soil mixtures, Lysol and isopropyl alcohol.

In the end, I'll continue to do what I was already doing with my kitchen scraps. I actually learned more from my google searches that I did after reading this book than I did from the book, but I did feel like I learned a few more basic ways to have fun with produce scraps and I enjoyed the photos. I will probably do a bit of it as homeschool projects with my younger kids, but I'll stick to my garden and foraging for most of our healthy, great tasting, free produce.

Really good book for beginners or those who want to do a little bit of gardening. Nice set up and easy to understand.

This book is a truly inspirational one. A keeper. Makes you want to go right away and look for 'eyes' and cut tops, sprouting seeds or veggie bottoms.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

P.S. (side note: it could have given news over the kind of soil to use too - just dung or a mix of coconut+dung or basic soil etc.)

Can we stop and talk about the pictures in this book? The directions are clear and easy to follow but I love that the sections are paired with photos. The images make a world of difference for visual learners.

In the past, I've tried growing the easy plants from kitchen scraps. Green onions, celery, lettuce - those were simple to grow from the saved bases. Saving seeds to plant is also simple. I already have lemon and lychee trees grown from seed. This book goes much farther, using a much wider variety of kitchen scraps and different techniques. The steps are clearly explained throughout. I think this would be especially fun for kids, but also for adults looking to delay those scraps heading to the compost bin. I'll definitely be trying out some of these ideas myself!

Thank you to Quarto Publishing Group - Cool Springs Press and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Interesting stuff. Lots of things that can be regrown, but feels a bit short of info in places. You need more than sprouting instructions to keep a pepper plant alive!

As a gardener and composter, I was excited to receive a copy of this book. So many ways to grow your own vegetables from scraps, to supplement salads and main dishes. Excellent writing and descriptions of how to keep a good supply of fresh foods for your table.

This was a quick and cute read. I could see many of these suggestions for regrowing food to be a useful visual tool for teaching kids about the garden. Great pictures, fun font, easy to understand.

Thanks to #NetGalley, I had an advanced PDF to read and review.

*All opinions are my own and I was not required to post a positive review. *

With the cost of food consuming more and more of a family's budget, this book gives invaluable information on how to make your food work for you. I have read several articles on re-growing vegetables from the pieces and parts you don't cook but none gave clear guidance on how to actually make the process work. Katie Elzer-Peters takes the time to not only tell you, but show you, how the process should work. Until now the only plant I had grown was a sweet potato in a jar but I'm now setting up a dedicated space in my greenhouse to see if I can follow her clear instructions and grow even more of my family's food. Wish me luck!