Today's Summer Daily Fun

Grow a Garden from Vegetables

Turn your window sill into a jungle:  Use vegetables and seeds from the kitchen to grow some very cool plants.  Instructions for growing carrot, avocado and sweet potato plants below. 

Carrots -- You will need:

• Shallow bowl (about 2 or 3 inches deep)
• Pebbles or glass marbles
• Water
• Three or four carrots (preferably the kind sold with greens)

How to do it:

Remove any greens, then cut the carrots about 2 inches down from the crowns.  Fill the bowl about 2 inches deep with pebbles, then push in the crowns until they're firmly anchored.  Fill the bowl almost to the brim with lukewarm water and set it on a sunny windowsill.  Your carrots will sprout in three to six days!  Be sure to water every day.

Avocados -- You will need:

• One avocado
• A six or seven-inch container
• Potting soil
• A clear plastic cup (to help keep the seed warm and moist for the first week)

How to do it:

Carefully slice the avocado in half and remove the large seed (also called the 'pit') inside.  (Kids - get help with this part!)  Wash the seed off carefully and set it on the kitchen counter overnight to dry.  If you're lucky, the papery seed coating will come off easily after that.  You may have to work at it a bit with your fingernail (gently so you don't bruise the pit).  After you have removed the seed coating, just fill the pot with soil.  Then push the pit in, flat end down, until it's about two-thirds covered.  (Don't bury the seed completely.  Avocado pits need light to germinate.)  Water the seed well, then invert the plastic cup over the pit and set the pot on a bright, but not necessarily sunny, windowsill.  Keep the soil moist.  Your avocado will sprout in about three weeks!  Be sure to water every day, but don't let it get soggy.  As the plant gets bigger, pinch off the top few leaves to help the plant get bushy.  You'll need to transplant it to a bigger pot when the plant grows to about three feet.

Sweet Potatoes -- You will need:

• One sweet potato
• Toothpicks
• A glass jar with water

How to do it:

This one is very easy.  All you have to do is stick a couple of toothpicks into the sides of the potato and balance it on the top of a glass jar that's almost completely filled with warm water.  (Make sure that the pointey end, the root end of the potato, faces downward and stays well down in the water.)  The plant will sprout in 7 to 14 days.  When the plant is about 6 to 8 inches high, it's time to transplant to a more permanent container.  Fill the flowerpot about a third of the way up with potting mix, then place the potato on top of the mix and fill in around it.  If at all possible, cover the potato completely with mix to discourage rotting.  Water often enough to keep the soil lightly moist.

- Don't like this one? -
Pick a Random Summer Daily

Don't Forget to Come Back Tomorrow

BlackDog's Summer Camp