Regrowing vegetables

What you need

• Transparent pot Water
• Vegetable ends (spring onion, fennel, leek, celery, onion, cabbage, lettuce, etc.) Time!

Benefits

• Encourages an understanding of changes over time in plants
• Encourages understanding of what plants need to grow Encourages patience

The experience

This might take a bit of time, but you will see exciting results over the course of a week.

When preparing vegetables for dinner, instead of composting the ends (with roots), take a look at them with your child. Talk about what you see and what they might know about roots. Tell them that although you have eaten most of the vegetable already, it could be grown again if submerged in water! Place your vegetable end in a transparent dish filled with water. Allow the roots to be submerged but the top to poke out of the water. WAIT!

It might take a while, but after a couple of days you’ll notice that your vegetable is growing again, and new shoots are developing. When you are happy with how big it has grown, why not eat it! Or, keep letting it grow and see how big it becomes.