Last year for Arbor Day, we planted a windowsill orchard from seeds harvested from fruit in our refrigerator. Although we originally planted seeds from a lime, lemon, orange, pear and apple, we now have two apple trees, a pot of chives, and a bottle of carrots growing on our sill.The lemon, and lime seeds never sprouted - I assume due to some act of genetic engineering, on the part of the fruit growers. The pear, and orange trees sprouted, but didn't survive long, either because the windowsill was too cold, or because of my very brown thumb. Either way, they were replaced somewhere along the way, by the chives, and another apple seed.
Our two little trees, while not big enough to go outside yet, are ready for larger pots. So, I was planning on repotting them with the children for Arbor Day, today. However, since we're experiencing a week of rain, hail, and snow (yes, more snow!), I think the transplanting, which I hope to do on the patio, will have to wait.
Instead, I found some interactive, Arbor Day, coloring pages, at Color.com. So we can mark the day, in a tree friendly fashion, that way.
It's great to be a homeschooler.
8 comments:
What a fun project - your trees look quite happy. I can't believe that you still have snow. Want to move to California?
Natalie - As far as I can tell, all the Californians are moving here! The mountains are really beautiful - even with the snow :)
What a fun project! I would really love to just have a taste of snow. My husband hates snow, but I grew up knowing winter always brought snow not rain!
I've never tried apple and all the other seeds you mentioned, but have grown some beautiful avocado plants.
My sister and I planted orange seeds when we were little, and nothing happened until my parents put the pot in the garage. The pot got cold, and then when the weather warmed up, the seed spouted! 30 odd years later, my dad still has a huge orange tree in his dining room! (It never grew fruit, though.)
I would have never thought to do a windowsill orchard -- what a great idea!!
Snow now? Yikes.......
We tried to get an apple tree to grow, but it didn't take. So, you can't have too brown a thumb.
Ginny Marie - Thanks for the tip! I had a grapefruit tree when I lived in Sask., but all we did was stick a seed right out of our breakfast, into one of our potted plants, and it grew - of course, my mother has a green thumb.
Ticia - My sweet husband will vouch for my poor horticultural skills - he's constantly nursing our house plants back to life :)
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