Sprouting Seeds
For the last five days we've been attempting to sprout our own seeds. I got the idea from one of my many kid gardening idea books and it seemed like a great way to get my own children involved in growing a few things as the onset of Spring approaches.
We bought an organic sprouting mix from The Natural Grocery Store on the Bath Road last Friday and have since devoted much time to washing, draining and resealing the little blighters every day on a twelve hour clock. Just in case it wasn't clear, this task has fallen on my shoulders!
The picture below is from last Friday. Wren wanted to eat her cereal by the window so she could watch the birds. Nothing to do with sprouting seeds but a memory I wanted to get on record.
And so, sprouting seeds. Not as straight forward as you would imagine and certainly more time consuming than I imagined. Books always make activities look so quick and easy, don't they?
In our sprouting seed box we had two packets of seeds. The first consisted of a mixture that contained mung beans, lentils and chick peas. The other packet contained alfalfa seeds. I also bought a packet of mustard seeds separately.
First up Jenson washed the mung, lentil and chick peas. Next he spooned them into a jar and finally he filled up half the jar with water. We stood it on the shelf, out of direct sun light with the lid off. Jenson repeated the same process for the alfalfa and mustard seeds.
Alfalfa seeds.
Mustard seeds.
Here are pictures of the jars taken over a course of two days. Overnight the seeds had absorbed all the water and expanded. We then had to wash them every twelve hours and place them back in the jars making sure that we kept the lid on until the seeds started to sprout.
Here are the alfalfa seeds on my soup that I had for lunch today. They were yummy, although Jenson and Wren both declined to have any! I sprinkled the mung beans, lentils and chick peas on my jacket potatoe for dinner tonight.
After our sprouting seeds project, also last Friday we tried to see what else we could grow from the seeds of different pieces of fruit that the kids and I had used or eaten over the last day or two. I had collected apple, orange, lemon and limes, kiwi seeds and an avocado stone.
It's been a good few months since we've used our paper pot maker but I was pleased to see Jenson had not forgotten how to do it.
Naturally Wren wanted to have a go at making her own paper pot too and Jenson very kindly offered to help her.
Next we cut up all the different pieces of fruit. Once we had extracted the pips and seeds we than ate what was left, or in the case of the lime, pulled a face and spat it out!
Wren joined me outside to collect a tub of soil and enjoyed helping me to plant up the paper pots. It took some persuasion to get Jenson to join in, who by this time had barricaded himself in his bedroom so he could play with his Lego without interruption.
Where there's a will there's a way and as you can tell by Jenson's sullen face he didn't get his way.
I didn't bother to ask Jenson to help me label up the pots: I know which battles to pick. By the time I had finished writing them the barricade was back up both in his bedroom and in his head as well I think.
The planting didn't stop there. On Sunday Wren and I planted up some very late Spring bulbs. Some lovely time spent with my favourite girl.