We have been wondering and (impatiently) waiting to see if any of our plants would produce fruit. So when we came in Monday morning to see actual green beans in our system, we lost ourselves in all the excitement!
We finally started to see flowers in our system! These flowers in particular belong to our green bean plant. There is nothing more magical than seeing the transformation of a plant unfold so quickly before our very eyes.
Since transplanting our seedlings into our ebb and flow system, we come into class everyday, wondering how our plants will grow over time. Will we see new leaves? Will it get taller? Just how fast can these plants grow? Will the colors change? Will we see flowers? When will it fruit? Do all plants produce fruit? These are the wonderings that encapsulate our minds everyday that we step into our classroom. Like any great scientist, we hope to find some answers to our many wonderings. These sunflower plants seem to be growing at an exponential rate compared to the rest of our plants. This is the growth after just 2 weeks! We've started to notice that our green bean plants are beginning to "climb" along the side of our hydroponics system. That's because these beans are known as "pole beans", requiring a tall object to climb along as they grow upwards. This is about 3 weeks after seedlings were transplanted. The only plant that was not started from seed is our habanero chili plant. The plant came from my own home! I started growing this plant at home in the fall, but it needed better conditions to support healthier growth, so I decided to transplant it into our hydroponics system. This reinforces to our urban farmers one of the greatest benefits of growing plants hydroponically: you can grow all year long! Our very own "Jack and the Beanstalk!"
Often in soil-based gardening, seeds are germinated in separate containers before they get transplanted into the soil. When growing plants hydroponically, the same idea also applies. This ensures that the plants are free from bugs, bacteria, and other variables that can disrupt the growth of the plant. One method for germinating our seeds is starting them in rockwool, an inorganic growing medium made from rocks that are spun at a very high temperature. How cool is that? In this picture, you can see that our urban farmers are getting ready to start their seeds in rockwool. We like to recycle and reuse old egg cartons since they provide the perfect container for each individual rockwool cube. For each rockwool cube, we learned how to gently place 2 seeds inside. After we filled up all of the rockwool cubes with seeds, we made sure to add water until the cubes were moist, but not soaking in water. Closing the container creates a "greenhouse effect" which helps speed up the germination process. Depending upon the seed, germination rates will vary, but most of our plants germinated within 1-2 weeks. Once we start to see strong roots forming below the rockwool cube, they can then be transplanted into larger containers, as part of our ebb and flow system. What is hydroponics?
Simply put, hydroponics is a soil-less method of growing plants using nutrient-rich water. While there are many methods of hydroponics growing, in our classroom, we're learning about hydroponics through our classroom ebb and flow system. |
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February 2017
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