Garden Starting Update

Our indoor "garden" is coming along nicely. The sweet potato has some good root growth, though no sprouts have appeared yet. We've also added an avacado pit, but it hasn't shown any signs of life yet. I was afraid our celery experiment was going to turn out to be a failure. Our first snowstorm of the season (in February??) hit the night we put the celery in the water to soak and there was no way to get any dirt from the garden to plant it. So, we kept it in the bowl of water and waited for the weather to warm up. It started wilting and turning brown, and I was thinking we would have to throw it out. But then . . . leaves started peaking out of the center and after about a week, we finally had growth!

This morning I noticed that the new growth had a little bit of brown on the edges, so I sent my son to the garden to get some dirt. While he was digging, he found a flint arrow head! It's funny how you can mix history into a botany lesson.



Indian arrow head

Here is our celery plant in its new home, waiting for the time when it can be transplanted to its summer garden home.

Re-grown celery in a fancy Modge-Podged pot

Getting Ready For Spring Planting

I've recently joined the Pinterest fad and while I was poking around over there, I found a couple of neat things to try out in the garden this year. I decided last fall that I wanted to grow sweet potatoes, so I was thrilled to find a link to an article explaining how to start your own sweet potato slips. It seemed like a good project for an 11 year old boy. 



starting sweet potato slips

 Then I came across another pin to an article telling how to re-grow celery from the end of a store-bought stalk. My grandpa grew up on a celery farm, and I grew listening to his stories. I've tried (and failed) growing celery from seed, so I'm excited to see if this will work. {Edited to say: despite what is claimed by the author of the post I linked to, re-growing celery does NOT produce more celery. However, if you want celery seed, you may decide to try it anyway.}

a garden on our window sill



My favorite part about homeschooling is teaching my children that education doesn't have to stop once you graduate. You can continue to learn new things all your life. Really cool things like how to start a garden on your window sill. I'll try to post an update in a week or two showing how our plants are growing.