Homeschooling 101: Planting Seeds... Coronavirus Day 38

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Once upon a time, we were in a science class in grade school. We planted beans and corn from seed and watch the germination process. Jump forward 20+ some odd years (I don’t know how many) and I decided to do that with the little. It was a time of the Coronavirus Pandemic when schools were closed for the rest of the year and we had to homeschool. And when I say homeschool, our school district wasn’t prepared for that. Eventually, they sent out daily work, that wouldn’t harm the kiddos grade, but would help it should they do it. But after we did that work, we did our own education as well. This time… science.

Since this spring we got into gardening, why not do the germinating thing, right? I had seeds waiting to be planted in the ground. Mainly corn and green beans as I attempted to start other plants in the greenhouse.

Corn prefers to be started directly in the ground. Beans on the other hand don’t mind being started indoors, but in my luck, they still do better directly in the ground.

Starting Seeds in a Cup

What you’ll need:

Plastic cups, preferably clear so you can watch the progress
Corn and Bean seeds
Paper Towels
Access to water
A way to label

I had 4 types of corn varieties as well as 1 type of green bean. So that’s what we went with. Again, corn prefers to be started directly in the ground, but this was a science experiment.

So you take a paper towel and fold it so it is about 2-3″ wide. Then you get it damp and wrap it on the inside of the cup, right up against the cup. Take a second paper towel and wad it up and place it in the center to help hold the first paper towel in place against the cup walls. Make sure both are damp. Not soaking wet, just damp.

Then you slide the corn/bean seeds around the edge. Try to get them in the middle of the paper towel top to bottom. Space them out as well.

Once you have them all in place, place the cups in a very well lit window. Keep the paper towels damp. If you get the paper towel too wet, it will make the seeds rot.

And in just a couple of days, you’ll start to see the seeds sprouting/germinating.

Update: The beans did better than the corn. The only corn that germinated is the Peaches and Cream Corn. The other Sweet Corn types we planted didn’t do anything.

2nd Update: The corn and beans have been planted into the garden.