Growing Seeds in Bags?!

For the past three weeks we have been growing bean seeds in bags! We placed the seeds in a plastic sandwich bag with a damp paper towel and taped them to the windows in our classrooms. The damp paper towels are taking the place of soil, and the sealed plastic bag stops the paper towels from drying out. We have been watching them germinate – shedding their seed coat, watching the roots pushing out of the seed and then seeing the stem and leaves grow.  We noticed that we haven’t had to water them as the moisture is being kept inside the sealed bag.

Some of the kids choose to take their bags home, and some seeds did well but others died. We chatted about what might have happened – did they get enough sunlight, too much or not enough water? What other variables could have affected how they grew?

Now that the seedlings have leaves they need to be out of the plastic bags and into the sunlight and fresh air, so we transplanted them into jiffy pots, with the plan to grow them on until they’re ready to go into the garden after the school holidays.

We learnt that a plant’s roots hate to be touched or disrupted, so by potting them into these compostable pots we won’t have to pull them out again when it’s time to put them in the garden. We can just put the whole pot into a hole, and the pot will rot down and become part of the soil, allowing the roots to keep growing right through the pot.

Meanwhile our senior studentss have been working with Leo from Why Waste about how we can use worms to get rid of some of the waste in the school. This is still a work in progress so watch this space.