Growing Indoors

I'd like to share about seed and plant experiments and projects which can be done indoors.  For so many families right now, it's hard to connect with nature due to limitations on being out and about.  Why not try a couple of the ideas below?

Cress Egg Heads

Cress seeds germinate within 48 hours and the cress will be ready to eat within 10 days - so as far as gardening goes, this is as close to instant as it gets!

You will need:
egg shells, rinsed
egg carton or egg cups
potting mix or cotton wool
*cress seeds (supermarket, hardware or garden store)
water
pens to decorate

Try to crack your eggs removing only the top third of the shell.  Wash and dry well.  Once dry, decorate with faces using a permanent pen.  You can also paint the shells, or glue on features such as a nose.

Pop your shells into a cut-down carton or egg cups from the kitchen.  Fill with potting mix or cotton wool.  Dampen and sprinkle cress seeds.  If using soil, don't bury the seed deep, on the surface is fine.

Keep damp using a spray bottle.  In two days you'll see sprouts.  Within a week, your egghead will have cress hair!  Snip his hair and enjoy on a sandwich or in your salad.  The eggheads can be reused by repeating the planting process. 

*other tiny sprouting seeds like broccoli will work too!

Bean in a Jar

You will need:
bean seed
paper towel
glass jar
water

Watch this 1.5 minute video of a bean seed sprouting from forestgardening.

_{Photo credit - Denise Johnson on Unsplash}

As you saw in the video, you can place almost any bean seed between damp paper towel and the wall of a glass jar, and watch it day by day as it sprouts roots and leaves.  This is a simple and fascinating experiment.  Simply keep the paper towel damp, and put the jar somewhere not-too-sunny and not-too-dark!

Regrowing Carrot Tops

I used to do this all the time when I was a child! 

You will need:
carrot top
shallow container
water

When cooking, retain the top of a carrot.  Place into a shallow container in a tiny bit of water, and top up with a little water each day, or as required.  This can be done on a window sill, and within a couple of weeks you'll have healthy carrot tops re-growing from kitchen scraps!  I love this activity, as it uses simple ingredients and gives a surprising result.

_{Photo credit - Garden.eco}

I'm featured in Twinkl's Fun Things to Do to Keep Kids Entertained at Home blog, where you can find other brilliant ideas to keep children occupied whilst indoors by clicking here!  This is not a sponsored post, though, we're just happy Twinkl users!