Growing Lemongrass for the Porch

In my quest to live a mosquito bite-free life I've begun making my own natural repellent that heavily features Lemongrass oil (and a couple others). Apparently the Lemongrass fragrance is anathema to those little blighters. So, we are gonna grow this awesome herb on our front and back porches. Instead of growing from seed, we’re trying to regrow stalks from the grocery store. Thanks to the Alternative Gardening Blog, I now know how.

According to them growing lemongrass is simple. All you need to do is place the supermarket stalks into a jar filled with about an inch of water and just watch it grow! Within two days the roots sprout and the new plants are ready to plant within a few weeks. Lemongrass will grow from 3-5 feet planted outdoors and a bit less in containers indoors.

To keep your budding plants on track, keep changing the water every day or 2 as the roots sprout. In about three to four weeks, the lemongrass would have grown about 2 inches of roots. Now is when you can transfer the lemongrass sapling to the soil. Keep it watered well, but make sure the soil isn't soaked in water. It can withstand a good amount of sunlight as well.

Have a look at these weekly progress photos in case, just like me, you didn't believe that growing lemongrass could be this easy.