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Tuesday, April 1, 2014

PLANTS FROM SCRAPS???



Hey Everyone,


Krumbs and I have been busy this week.  We've started growing plants from the parts of vegetables that we usually throw in the compost bin--the scraps!  Are you curious?




It started with an old story my grandma told us about growing beautiful, green vines from old potatoes.  She said she had plants that spread all the way across her windowsill and she grew them from potato "eyes."  Well, we love the idea that potatoes have "eyes", so we decided to give it a try! Here's a picture of our potato's eye:




Helpful Hint:  The potato eye is just a small dent in the potato where a sprout (tiny plant stem) begins to grow.  In the picture, there is one potato eye by my thumb and one at the top of the potato.


Once we had the potato and we found its eyes, we were ready to start our potato plant. 
 First, we gathered a small glass filled with water and four toothpicks.


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Next, found the pointy end of the potato and pointed that end down. 
Then, we stuck the toothpicks around the middle of the potato. 
After that, we rested the potato, pointy side down, inside the glass of water.  The toothpicks held the potato high enough that only the bottom half is under water. 
Finally, we put the future potato plant star in our kitchen window where it would get lots of sun. 

                                                    



Okay…maybe you think the potato is cool, and it is, but we have something that is so cool, it is frozen!


Check out the photo below of our onion.  The onion had started to sprout right before we added the toothpicks and put it in water.  This is a picture of the onion after three days in the water:




 


Now, (drum roll, please, since I’m still not sure how to spell out a drum roll) duh, duh, duh, duhnnnn! 


Here is the same onion after only ten days in the water:




You don’t have to tell us this is amazing because we know it!!!  Try this yourself and see if you can grow plants from scraps!  Tell us about your plant adventures at the "Open Mic"  on Imagination CafĂ©!