What are We Growing Now?

Since we have been unable to enjoy much of what winter brings us (ice for skating, snow for sledding) this winter, we are a little antsy to see some kind of green instead of all that brown out there that should be covered in white.

My daughter and I thought we would start growing some plants indoors. All of these are basically new to us. We chose to experiment with pomegranate seeds, a sweet potato, a white potato, ginger, and garlic. And we are trying to start their growth in three different methods.

The white potato, ginger, and garlic are all started in seed starting mix in old whipped topping containers (that we put drainage holes in & used the lids and basin to catch excess water). Be sure use a potatoes that has eyes on it (usually something that might have been thrown in the compost anyways) and the ginger will also have little eye buds on it as well. When you plant the ginger you can plant the whole "hand" and do not need to cut it. The white potato you will cut out a section that has the eye in it; one potato could yield you a bunch of plants depending upon how many eyes it has. With the garlic, be sure to plant the clove (individual bulb) with the tip facing up.

We have never planted these before and from what I have read, ginger is quite easy to grow but likes indirect sunlight and humidity. Not sure how well I can give it more humidity, but I put this container so it would get less sun than the others by having taller plants in front of it and moved it further from the window. The garlic we will probably need to transplant in to a larger pot before transplanting it outdoors. And I have no idea what we are going to do with that potato plant, it's more just to see how well it starts growing so we can decide if we want to plant it in the outdoor gardens in the spring.

The sweet potato plant is what I am most excited about, as all the pictures I have seen show a plant with very proliferic, pretty leaves. From what I have read, growing a sweet potato as an indoor plant is easy and provides you with an attractive plant. All we needed to do to prop it up in a clear glass container. After it has sufficient roots and 6-8" of growth on top we can transplant it in a pot.

And finally, we planted pomegranate seeds. We have not idea if this will work or not, but we had a pomegranate and my daughter asked if we could plant them. So, why not give it a shot. For this one we chose to place our dried seeds in between a damp paper towel that we placed in a clear plastic bag that we taped to the window. We will see if any of the seeds start to sprout and if they do they we will transplant then to a pot as well.

Next on our planting agenda is to do out annual "Grow Your Own Sprouts" that we grow within 7 days and then eat. We also want to try planting peanuts and wheat grass. To do both of those I need to go to the natural food store so I can buy the seeds and some raw peanuts.

I will keep you updated on how our plants are growing and what we are learning.