Children Can Grow Fun Stuff By Themselves
OK kids, this article’s for you. With a little help from mom and/or dad, you can grow some really neat stuff.
Avocado: While mom or dad mashes up the avocado for guacamole, ask if you can have the pit. It will need to be washed because it will probably have a little slimy avocado still stuck to it. That shouldn’t bother you - think of it as the green slime that’s used to gross out everyone.
We can either grow the avocado plant in soil or we can grow it in water. If we grow it in water, we are using the hydroculture method - hydro meaning water.
Following are the steps for hydroculture: Insert toothpicks on either side of the upper half of the pit. (The bottom of the pit will be sort of flat and the top will be more pointed.) Fill a small glass with water and suspend the bottom portion of the pit in the water by resting the toothpicks on the edge of the glass. The pit should be half-covered with water at all times. Check it every day. It’s not only fun to see the pit sprout stems, but it’s also fun so see the roots develop in the water.
To start the avocado pit in soil, bury the pit half-way. Keep the soil moist to the touch, but not soggy. By using the soil method, we lose the fun of watching the roots develop.
Place the container - both for the water and the soil method - in filtered sunlight. This simply means a window that isn’t bathed in hot, direct sunlight. South windows will get most of the light, followed by the east, west and north windows. During the winter months, we really don’t have to worry about too much light coming through any window.
Be patient. It may take a long time for the avocado to sprout, if at all. If your seed doesn’t sprout within a couple of weeks, it may be a bad one and you should try another. Once it does, you will be the proud owner of a tall, skinny-stemmed plant. When it’s about 12 inches tall, cut it back to 6 inches. This should encourage it to branch out a bit. It won’t bear fruit but it’s lots of fun to watch it grow.
Sweet potato vine: Buy a nice, plump sweet potato at the grocery store, hopefully one that hasn’t been treated to prevent sprouting. Insert toothpicks into the top third of the potato. Like the avocado, suspend the sweet potato (pointed side up) in a container of water so only the bottom half stays wet. Put the container in a bright, sunny spot. The glass jar will fill very quickly with hundreds of white roots. An attractive, green leafy vine will develop that can be trained up and around your bedroom window. Always keep the roots covered with water.
Pineapple: If your parents use fresh pineapple, ask them if you can have the crown (the top part with green leaves), with about a half-inch of pineapple attached to it. Wash the crown with cold water and set it aside. The next day, remove the bottom two rows of leaves from the crown. Set the crown in water. After the roots develop, which takes about a week or so, plant it in sandy potting soil. Pineapple is in the bromeliad family, therefore it takes most of its water in through its leaves. For this reason, it likes water sitting in its crown, so don’t hesitate to pour water directly over the top of the plant. This is a pretty plant to grow.
Carrots: To create a ferny forest, grow a few carrot tops. Cut the tops off about a half-dozen carrots. Leave about one inch of carrot attached to the top. Stand them in a shallow cake pan filled with water. In a short time, you will have created a forest of soft, lacy leaves.
Oh, there are so many fun projects. The list goes on - sprinkle grass seed on a dampened sponge and watch it grow. Peel a potato, wet it, sprinkle it with grass seed and you have a hairy potato head. Before you know it, you’ll have a whole house full of interesting green things, and you grew them all. Now that’s braggin’ rights.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Phyllis Stephens The Spokesman-Review