Garden Starter
Now’s a great time to get a head start on the growing season and chase away some of the cold-weather blues. An easy experiment and something fun for the kids is re-growing veggies. Start with the tops and stems of vegetables that you would usually toss into the compost. Place the cutting into a dish and partly cover it with water. Then place it near a sunny window, and change the water every couple of days.
Celery:
Cut the bottom two inches of a celery stump and place it cut-side-up in a dish, cover it halfway with water. In about a week, you’ll see leaves sprouting from the middle of the cutting. Once you see roots, you can plant it in soil and get ready to enjoy.
Lettuce:
Garlic:
Place the cloves in a dish, covering halfway, or plant them in a pot of soil on the windsill – they will eventually sprout.
Onions:
If you have whole onions too soft to eat, re-grow them! Submerge the bottom quarter-inch of the onion in water. Once roots and new shoots appear, plant them into a pot and when it’s warm enough, transfer it to the garden. After a few months, when flowers appear, the new bulbs will be ready to harvest.
Herbs:
Regrow herbs like basil and mint by cutting the bottom of the stem at an angle and removing most of the leaves except the top four or fiv, before placing in water.
