Way to grow
Lift your spirits and help the planet with a fun and easy indoor gardening challenge for leaders and girls alike
Way to grow
Lift your spirits and help the planet with a fun and easy indoor gardening challenge for leaders and girls alike
Lockdown has been hard for everyone – but one upshot is that many people have connected with nature more, and tried new mindful activities like gardening. Seeing green leaves unfurl from tiny little seeds, or new shoots growing from a humble spud, can offer hope at a time when we all need something positive in our lives. Studies carried out in England, Japan and the Netherlands all prove that gardening has many important benefits – from promoting greater wellbeing and encouraging people to exercise, to contributing to a lower incidence of illnesses like depression, diabetes and heart disease. No wonder gardening therapy is now officially recommended by some doctors. So, do you need a garden to grow things? Definitely not. You don’t need lots of special kit either. These simple growing projects can be done on a bright or sunny windowsill, using leftover tins and plastic cartons that would normally be thrown away or recycled. They’re designed to give you some space to yourself but, if you enjoy them, you can share them with your girls too. They could even help towards the Brownie Grow your own interest badge or Rainbow Nature interest badge, and you can stay in touch and share photos as your plants grow.
Grow a sweet potato vine
Sweet potato vine (officially known as Ipomoea batatas) is a popular plant for conservatories and summer patio pots. But you can grow its edible cousin – the sweet potato – indoors. And if you do have a sheltered garden, you can trim off the leafy shoots that appear and use them to grow your own tasty sweet potatoes outdoors later. Here’s how to do it:
1
Scrub a sweet potato clean to remove any anti-sprouting agent the grower may have used.
2
Submerge half of the sweet potato in a glass jar of water, keeping the top half in the open air – if the sweet potato is quite small, support it with three or four cocktail sticks.
3
Put the jar in a bright place, but ideally out of direct sunlight.
4
Add fresh water regularly to keep the sweet potato moist. Leafy sprouts should start to appear within two to four weeks and they’ll be ready to make cuttings (known as ‘slips’) after about six weeks. When they’re approximately 5cm long, gently pull the slips away and place in another jar of clean water.
5
Once these cuttings have little roots, they can be planted into a large container of compost on a sunny patio or in a greenhouse. Water regularly and harvest your sweet potatoes in early autumn. Alternatively, enjoy your sprouted sweet potato as an unusual trailing houseplant on a shelf or windowsill.
Like that idea? Try these...
Magical microgreens
Sow veg seeds indoors as ‘microgreens’ in plastic takeaway trays or empty juice cartons trimmed and turned sideways – try radish, coriander, beetroot and chard, or plain old cress.
Fill the plastic tray or carton with compost, water lightly, sprinkle on the seeds, then cover with a thin layer of sieved compost and place on a bright windowsill. Keep the compost damp until the microgreens appear about a week later.
After two or three weeks, snip off with scissors and eat in salads and sandwiches.
If you’re growing with children, make it even more fun by sowing the seeds through cardboard templates – cut out a simple heart, diamond or star shape, or create alphabet letters.
Recycled veggies
Grow nutritious veg from the leftovers you’d normally throw away. Place on a sunny windowsill, and watch new leafy greens appear within a few weeks:
- Sprouting garlic – tuck individual cloves (pointy end up) into an empty yoghurt pot or food tin filled with compost. The green shoots that appear can be chopped up like chives.
- Celery stalks – slice off the base of a bunch of celery and place it cut-side-up in a small bowl of water. Keep the water topped up. Once the new leaves grow, you can plant it in a pot of compost indoors or outside.
- Watercress – stems that have little white roots showing can be ‘planted’ in a glass jar or plastic tray of water. Remember to change the water regularly.
Good luck – may your fingers be green and your minds relaxed (at least for a few precious moments)! Share photos or videos of your gardening projects by emailing yourvoice@girlguiding.co.uk
Let’s go green! Use the social media buttons below to share this growing project with your guiding friends