Sunday, March 29, 2009

Fast Plants: Day 34

We are nearing the end of these Fast Plants! Just three days until we remove the water supply and let the seeds dry out so we can harvest them. The timing has turned out to be perfect, too. We planted our tomato seeds for the garden last week, so we will have more green things coming up and managed to "schedule" our rhinovirus during a less interesting week. Lots of very interesting seed development stuff going on, I'm sure, but not much to see from the outside.

100_1971

Friday, March 27, 2009

Maple Syrup

Bug participated in the Maple Syrup homeschool field trip at the Aldo Leopold Nature Center on Tuesday. The rest of us tagged along for part and found a quiet spot to dig out crayons and paper for the rest. Here is Bean's take on the topic. Be sure to click on each one to go to Flickr to see the labeled details...

First, she gathers sap with her little brother:

scan0001

Then she gets ready to eat the finished product on pancakes with Mom and Dad:

scan0002

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Fast Plants: Day 29

There has been some new growth with new buds and flowers. We have just left them alone as we will be removing the plants from the water in a week or so. I thought about pinching them off (as we did with the buds and flowers that arrived shortly after pollination), but in the end laziness and a rampant rhinovirus won out.

100_1970

Friday, March 20, 2009

Fast Plants: Days 23 and 25

We have gone to every other day for pictures as the fast changes are slowing down. The seed pods are growing, but there just isn't as much to get excited about day-to-day. Here is Day 23:

100_1956

And here is day 25:

100_1963

And a bonus picture of the seed pods today. Since the progress photos have been sharply focused on the fireplace screen in the background, I finally pulled out my tripod for a detail picture. They look an awful lot like little green beans right now. As if I wasn't already having a huge hankering for fresh, local vegetables.

100_1959

Monday, March 16, 2009

Fast Plants: Day 19 and 21

Day 19...lots of pods growing!

100_1952

Day 20...Sunday again. Apparently we are hopeless on Sunday...

Day 21...flower petal almost gone...pods growing like crazy.

100_1953

Friday, March 13, 2009

Fast Plants: Day 18

The seed pods are growing!

100_1948

And here is a fairly bad picture of the roots...lots of 'em. They caught my eye as I was refreshing the water reservoir, so I took a quick picture.

100_1949

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Fast Plants: Day 17

We did our third and final day of pollination today! Then we pinched off any unopened buds and will now watch and wait for seed formation.

Here is yesterday's picture:

100_1945

And today's:

100_1946

They are a bit spindly post-pinching today.

And a closeup of the flowers, since my little camera tends to focus on the background...

100_1947

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Fast Plants: Day 15

Today was the first day of pollination. We have been reading about flowers and bees and pollination and discovered that the scout bees go looking for nectar and pollen and then come back to the hive, where they do a dance to tell the other bees where the flowers are. With the proper mood music in place, we did a rather rowdy and enthusiastic bee dance. Beeb even got in on the action with Mama's bee. Then we "flew" downstairs and pulled out our plants and started pollinating.

100_1941

We will be pollinating for the next couple of days. When our bees aren't busy pollinating, they hang out in their honeycomb condo. Amazing what you can do with three blank index cards and a little glue stick, eh?

100_1944

My bee is not pictured as she is temporarily indisposed behind the barrister bookcase. And our obligatory side view. The tallest ones are over 8" tall!

100_1943

Monday, March 9, 2009

Fast Plants: Day 14

Whoopsy-daisy! With daddy home over the weekend, things can occasionally get away from us. We forgot to check our plants yesterday. Well, remembered when everyone was finally settling down to bed, but everyone was going to be sleeping late anyway from the change to daylight saving time, so we waited and checked first thing this morning. Lots of excitement to see though! The tallest plants in each grew over three inches in two days and Bean has the first flower. We should have more flowers by tomorrow so we can start pollinating!!!

100_1939 100_1940

100_1938

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Fast Plants: Day 12

Today's big excitement was making bee sticks in preparation for flowering and pollinating. We improvised since real bee bodies are scarce this time of year. We used a small yellow pom-pom, a black pipe cleaner, and a pair of stick-on google eyes for each.

100_1933

Rapid growth continues...

100_1936 100_1937

100_1935

Friday, March 6, 2009

Fast Plants: Day 11

We are starting to get some buds (embiggen photo to see them) and stem growth has really taken off!

100_1925 100_1926

100_1924

And since the plants are a bit more photogenic than either top or side view reveals, a couple of vanity shots:

100_1927 100_1928

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Fast Plants: Day 8

Getting bigger...

100_1915 100_1916

...and growing taller!

100_1917

Not quite tall enough to be very photogenic from the side, but getting there. The tallest plant in each pot is about 7/8", but Bug's tallest is in a depression in the middle, while Bean's is on higher ground. Yesterday, the tallest in each pot was 5/8"...how's that for fast?

Monday, March 2, 2009

Fast Plants: Day 7

The plants continue to grow. Each kid has several plants with real leaves by now and they continue to grow. I imagine that they will start getting taller very soon!

100_1913

100_1914