Slightly bad timing, I know... But one of the teacher's at school today
asked if there was anything anyone could recommend planting now for a
youth project. Clearly they are after fairly quick results, but given
the time of year - and being relatively new to gardening - I really
couldn't think of anything off the top of my head. Something which might
have the audacity to show its face within a few weeks would be
appreciated.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Besides wait until spring!

--
Flower Bobdew
South Facing Garden
South West: UK

Flower Bobdew wrote:
Slightly bad timing, I know... But one of the teacher's at school today
asked if there was anything anyone could recommend planting now for a
youth project. Clearly they are after fairly quick results, but given
the time of year - and being relatively new to gardening - I really
couldn't think of anything off the top of my head. Something which might
have the audacity to show its face within a few weeks would be
appreciated.
Any thoughts/suggestions?
Besides wait until spring!

Someone suggested the other day on this forum watercress as it's quick
and you can gobble it up afterwards. Planting the seed in a fish tank
so that the kids can see the roots developing is also a great idea.
I've seen it done with root vegetables and the kids got really excited.
Hyacinth bulb too would be good now, perhaps you could repot some that
have already started growing and see the result through the fish tank.
The move won't bother the bulbs at all. At home I use a hyacinth glass
but I start these for xmas. But now would be fine too using jam jar and
the kids could each have their jar. (I wish my kids were still little
)

Look what I've found ...

http://www.netguides.org.uk/brownies...gs_winter.html

In article .com, La
Puce writes

Flower Bobdew wrote:

Slightly bad timing, I know... But one of the teacher's at school today
asked if there was anything anyone could recommend planting now for a
youth project. Clearly they are after fairly quick results, but given
the time of year - and being relatively new to gardening - I really
couldn't think of anything off the top of my head. Something which might
have the audacity to show its face within a few weeks would be
appreciated.
Any thoughts/suggestions?
Besides wait until spring!

Someone suggested the other day on this forum watercress as it's quick
and you can gobble it up afterwards.

Well, these are high school kids - and mainly ones not renowned for
their patience or enthusiasm - so they might not take kindly to a
potentially childish sounding suggestion. However...

Hyacinth bulb too would be good now, perhaps you could repot some that
have already started growing and see the result through the fish tank.
The move won't bother the bulbs at all. At home I use a hyacinth glass
but I start these for xmas. But now would be fine too using jam jar and
the kids could each have their jar.

....that might be a possibility.

(I wish my kids were still little )

I know a teacher who probably wishes that some of these still were!

Look what I've found ...

http://www.netguides.org.uk/brownies...gs_winter.html

Interesting.

Ahem... Okay, slightly daft question coming, I fear...

Erm, so when do you remove the bulbs from the dark place? When the roots
appear, when the shoot appears, or when the shoot is a certain length? I
never thought this would be so complicated! LOL! : D

Thanks for the suggestion...

--
Flower Bobdew
South Facing Garden
South West: UK

In article .com, La
Puce writes

Flower Bobdew wrote:

Slightly bad timing, I know... But one of the teacher's at school today
asked if there was anything anyone could recommend planting now for a
youth project. Clearly they are after fairly quick results, but given
the time of year - and being relatively new to gardening - I really
couldn't think of anything off the top of my head. Something which might
have the audacity to show its face within a few weeks would be
appreciated.
Any thoughts/suggestions?
Besides wait until spring!

Someone suggested the other day on this forum watercress as it's quick
and you can gobble it up afterwards.

Well, these are high school kids - and mainly ones not renowned for
their patience or enthusiasm - so they might not take kindly to a
potentially childish sounding suggestion. However...

Hyacinth bulb too would be good now, perhaps you could repot some that
have already started growing and see the result through the fish tank.
The move won't bother the bulbs at all. At home I use a hyacinth glass
but I start these for xmas. But now would be fine too using jam jar and
the kids could each have their jar.

....that might be a possibility.

(I wish my kids were still little )

I know a teacher who probably wishes that some of these still were!

Look what I've found ...

http://www.netguides.org.uk/brownies...gs_winter.html

Interesting.

Ahem... Okay, slightly daft question coming, I fear...

Erm, so when do you remove the bulbs from the dark place? When the roots
appear, when the shoot appears, or when the shoot is a certain length? I
never thought this would be so complicated! LOL! : D

Oh, and any idea how long this process - from planting to flowering - is
likely to take?

Thanks for the suggestion...

--
Flower Bobdew
South Facing Garden
South West: UK

In article , Janet Baraclough
writes

The message
from Flower Bobdew contains these words:

In article .com, La
Puce writes

Flower Bobdew wrote:

Slightly bad timing, I know... But one of the teacher's at school today
asked if there was anything anyone could recommend planting now for a
youth project. Clearly they are after fairly quick results, but given
the time of year - and being relatively new to gardening - I really
couldn't think of anything off the top of my head.

Well, these are high school kids - and mainly ones not renowned for
their patience or enthusiasm - so they might not take kindly to a
potentially childish sounding suggestion.

Especially as they have almost certainly grown beans and bulbs at
primary school.


Teenagers like money-making enterprises. How about propagating plants
for sale, by seed and cuttings and divisions, as a fundraiser for
charity, to green up the school, or to finance a class outing? That
would open a very wide range of related topics, and would be a
face-saving cover for growing very quick easy things like sunflowers,
pots of mixed herbs, spiderplants, even sprouting seeds and fast
greens and wheatgrass for healthy lunch snacks. There's nothing much
faster than wheatgrass :-)

I think the 'time' aspect might be an issue with some of these ideas
[e.g. particularly related to cuttings, divisions and learning 'how to',
etc.], but I'll certainly investigate some of the potential suggestions
here, Janet. Thanks.

--
Flower Bobdew
South Facing Garden
South West: UK

Flower Bobdew wrote:
Well, these are high school kids - and mainly ones not renowned for
their patience or enthusiasm - so they might not take kindly to a
potentially childish sounding suggestion. However...

I didn't know the kids where high school kids! Right - what is your
time scale? I'm getting involved now!! Do you want to raise money? Once
we made over 300 quids by selling pots, bulbs and compost and showed
'one we've made earlier'. We need more info!

I know a teacher who probably wishes that some of these still were!

What the age of the kids? You could grow hemp! For cloth off course ...
..;o)

Ahem... Okay, slightly daft question coming, I fear...
Erm, so when do you remove the bulbs from the dark place?

Normally it's about 8 weeks but that's if you grow them in soil. To
grow them in water you don't need the 'dark place' if you keep them out
of sunlight for a few weeks until the flower appears. At least that's
what I do. Our hyacinth go from one end of our dining table to the
other end as they grow.

Kids gets interested with energy saving - ecological stuff these days.
Mine are into photovoltaics now and they want their own turbine ... I
don't know the ages of your kids, what you want to do. Tell us more!!

In article .com, La
Puce writes

Flower Bobdew wrote:

Well, these are high school kids - and mainly ones not renowned for
their patience or enthusiasm - so they might not take kindly to a
potentially childish sounding suggestion. However...

I didn't know the kids where high school kids! Right - what is your
time scale? I'm getting involved now!!

So I see.

Well, the time scale might shift, should the teacher involved realise
that, well, 'spring' is so-called for a reason. But these are low
ability kids, aged 15-16, many of whom could be leaving school around
Easter time.

Do you want to raise money? Once we made over 300 quids by selling
pots, bulbs and compost and showed 'one we've made earlier'. We need
more info!

Well, you might have to wait until next week for the 'more info'. This
was one of those 'does anyone know' questions thrown into the staff room
during Friday break [and I wasn't able to hang around for much of the
brief discussion] - so next week I'm likely to be able to give you more
specific time frames, etc.

I know a teacher who probably wishes that some of these still were!

What the age of the kids? You could grow hemp! For cloth off course ...
.;o)

LOL! Little do you realise how close to the mark that comment probably
was, though!

Kids gets interested with energy saving - ecological stuff these days.

If only. As I said, these are quite low ability, teenage kids, so
getting them interested in anything, other than being surly, can be
quite an achievement. Having said that, I've long advocated less rigid,
non-academic study, and it's quite possible that a few of them might
take to doing something more practical like this.

Watch this space...

--
Flower Bobdew
South Facing Garden
South West: UK