Space Gardens
Salad
days
Wa nt to g ive you r
children green fi ngers?
Alys Fowler has six
brilliant ideas to start
them off – from making
a watering can
to turning a sweet
potato into a houseplant
Illustrations by
Laylah Amarchih
You need 2-5cm of the top of the root, ie the bit
that is usually cut off before cooking. Sit these,
tops pointing up, in a little water in a saucer on a
bright windowsill, and after a few days you’ll see
new growth appear. For celery, onions, spring
onions, leeks, lettuce and pak choi, you need the
base of the vegetable. Cut off 5-8cm and soak in a
little water in a saucer. The best lettuces for this
are romaine or little gem. After a week you’ll see
new growth.
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can try
growing some of these in the dark. This is known
as “forcing”, because you are forcing it to grow
without light, which changes the colour of the
leaves. Beetroot works particularly well using
this method. It needs to be somewhere warm, but
not so warm that it will dry out – so not too close
to a radiator.
You’ll need two pots: one for the beetroot top
and a larger one to cover it. Plant the beetroot topI
started gardening before I could ride a
bike. I was encouraged to pull plants
apart, to look closely; I was given space to
play with them rather than actually grow them. As
i t turned out, I picked up many skills.
A lot of gardening is not much fun for children- particularly in early spring, when it’s all wet,
slimy leaves, cold fi ngers and endless weeds that
are hard to pull. But while gardening right now
might be tiresome, but plants aren’t. There’s a
world of wonder to explore. Here are fi ve projects
using materials that are easy to fi nd – and which
can all be done indoors because, let’s face it, it will
probably be raining.
Create plants from kitchen scraps
Many vegetable tops will re-sprout with just a
little water. Better still, their new growth is soft,
tender and tasty (yes, you can eat them). Ideal for
this are carrots, beetroot, turnips and swedes.