The Guardian Weekend | 13 February 2021 45in the smaller pot with some compost; rest its fl at
bottom on the surface of the soil. As long as the
compost feels damp, you don’t need to water,
but if it’s bone dry, sprinkle a little around the
beetroot. Now cover any drainage holes in the
large pot with tape, or by stuffi ng newspaper in
the bottom, to stop light getting in, and place it
upside down over the beetroot.
After a week, check to see how it is growing.
Without light, it won’t produce any green
pigment in the leaves : they’ll be white, with neon
pink midribs. These are edible and look lovely in
a salad.
Grow a sweet potato houseplant
Sweet potatoes can be sprouted as you would
an avocado pip. The sweet potato grows as a
rambling vine with heart-shaped leaves, and
makes a good houseplant.
You’ll need a sweet potato, a big jam jar fi lled
with warm water, some toothpicks and a warm,
bright spot. Stick three toothpicks into the potato
about halfway down, around the middle, and rest
these on the rim of the jam jar. Half the potato –
make sure it’s the pointier end – will sit inside the
jar in an inch or so of water.
Place on a warm windowsill; top up with
water if it dries out. It will take about two
weeks for leaves and roots to appear. When the
roots hit the bottom of the jar, and there are
numerous leaves, plant the potato in its proper
home: a bigger pot. Choose one that is big enough
to take the roots without having to bend or fold
them. The tuber needs to sit in the compost,
ensuring that any sprouting leaves are not buried ;
direct sunlight will scorch the leaves. Once you
see roots coming through the drainage holes
in the bottom of your pot, then it’s time for a
bigger container.
Make your own plant pot
You will fi nd some of the best pots for planting
in your bin. Tetra Paks used for juices, oat milks
and soy milks are perfect, because the insides are
coated in plastic, so they won’t rot. Better still,
you can make a nice long pot, with lots of room
for young roots to develop. They are particularly
good for growing tomato, courgette and pump-
kin plants, which all need to be sown in the next
month or so.
Cut off the top quarter of the box and
discard; wash the carton and let it dry. Poke
about six drainage holes in the bottom, no bigger
than the width of a pencil. Now you can paint
it: use up the end of an emulsion can, or acrylic
paints. Once it’s dry, you have a blank canvas,
so you can get decorating with pens, glitter
and stickers.
Fill the pot with compost to the top, shake it
a little to settle the soil – and now it’s ready for
whatever you want to plant in it. If it’s a seed, it
needs to go in the middle (sweet peas, garden
peas and herbs such as basil and coriander are all
good to sow now ; plant no more than fi ve seeds
per pot). Gently press a small hole in the centre,
no deeper than 1cm, and drop your seed in. Cover
with a little compost, water, keep it somewhere
warm and bright – and wait!...and a watering can
You can make a watering can out of a plastic milk
carton (a litre size, or bigger). The best watering
cans produce soft, fi ne droplets, like rain, rather
than a big gush of water. On a traditional watering
can this is called a rose, but the milk jug version
works just as well.
You’ll need a hammer, a nail, and an old piece
of wood. Remove the lid of the milk carton and
place it upside down on your bit of wood. Using
the hammer and nail, bash holes into the lid – the
more the merrier. Fill the carton with water and
place the lid back on top tightly.Grow a new succulent from a leaf
Plant cells are amazing: one day they might be a
root, but if that’s not working out for them, they
can quickly become a stem or a shoot. Succulent
plants are very good at vegetative reproduc-
tion. If a leaf should fall off , perhaps blown by
the wind or knocked off by a wild animal, it can
quickly develop into a new plant with roots.
Some of the best succulents to propagate are
echeverias, kalanchoes, jade plants, burro’s -tail
sedum, and jelly bean sedum. Gently tug at one of
the bottom leaves that looks healthy – you need to
collect a few. Fill a small tray (a take away tray with
holes poked in the bottom is ideal) with equal
parts compost and grit or sand, which will prevent
the soil from getting too damp and heavy.
Water the compost in and let all the water drain
away before you gently nudge your succulent
leaves on to the surface of the compost. The
leaves don’t want to be buried, but they need to
make contact with the soil. Don’t water the tray
again until you see new roots (too much water will
rot the leaves). Then give it the barest minimum
of water, ideally misting them once a week to
encourage the roots to grow. The tray needs to be
kept somewhere bright, but out of direct sunlight.
After a while, you’ll see tiny baby leaves appear
as the leaf turns itself into a new plant. After several
months, you’ll have a lot of baby succulents that
can be planted up into individual pots.Make a lentil farm
Create your own micro windowsill farm using
dried lentils, mung beans or chickpeas from
your kitchen cupboard. It could be an orderly
farm, with fences and farmers, or you could
let dinosaurs run riot through the “fi elds”.
Mow the fi elds with scissors and learn about
regrowth, or pull up the crops to see what hap-
pens to the seed.
You’ll need a seed tray (a large takeaway tray
from the recycling bin will do) and something to
act as a drip tray underneath ; use foil if you don’t
have one. Fill the seed tray with compost: the
terrain doesn’t need to be fl at, so you can create
small mounds to act as hills. Don’t make these too
close to the edge or you might have a landslide.
Raid the store cupboard for anything that might
sprout: popcorn kernels, coriander, whole lentils
(split lentils won’t germinate), mung beans,
chickpeas and dried peas are all ideal. G ently push
each seed into the compost so it is just buried.
Water to get your crops growing – remember,
seeds prefer gentle watering. Place your farm
somewhere light and warm, where you can keep
an eye on everyone Grow, Forage A nd Make: Fun Things T o D o
W ith Plants by Alys Fowler, with illustrations
by Heidi Griffi ths, is published by Bloomsbury
on 18 March. To order a copy for £9.29, visit
guardianbookshop.com