After planting some of the beans, I’ve been impatiently waiting for them to sprout!

 Finally my impatience had a reward!  Little bean sprouts have emerged from the soil! 🙂

 The entire process of planting seeds from start to finish is my ideal way of incorporating such a nice concrete science project into our curriculum.  However, sometimes students can’t be present for the entire growing period.  So pictures are always great!  Keeping a record of how the seed grows and changes every couple of days is a good way to keep detailed growth observations.

For this science project I will need to construct a climbing apparatus so the bean vines have a place to travel along instead of the short bamboo poles.  I also made sure to wait till they were at this stage to feed them just a little coffee grounds water.  Fertilizing indoor plants that usually live outside is extremely important as we found out with our snap peas and sweet pea flowers. If I remember I will also try beat juice water.  Anything that is organic and natural I prefer using.  After all, food that we grow goes right into our bodies and I want nothing harmful or questionable filtering into my plants.

With my small marigold plant I also added some coffee grounds water.  I’ve noticed that being in jars I only need to water them every other day or every three days depending.  The green leaves are a bit too light green, so I’m hoping some coffee fertilizer will help them turn a richer shade of green.  Any other helpful hints out there? 🙂

Good luck with all of your gardening adventures this summer!  Share some pictures if you have any!  We would love to see them! 🙂

Heidi Scott, BA & MIT

The Marigold School of Early Learning