Coddeling the Eggplant

The science project my youngest son has been given is to grow a plant that will weigh the most without dirt. So, we took off and went to our local Nursery and found a guy who helped us find some seeds that would germinate on the quick side and produce a mature plant in the time allotted. Yellow summer squash and eggplant were the seeds of choice and hope. Once we got home and read the labels fully we realized that these particular plants had to have a warm environment (in other words a greenhouse).

There was no place in our home that resembled an adequate greenhouse so we brainstormed and came up with what we hoped would suffice. What we actually did was to take our smallest lamp, wrap its' wire around the hook in the ceiling in the corner of the dining area, hang the lamp upside down (without the shade mind you) and let it hover over a makeshift stack of boxes on a plant stand. Then we took aluminum foil, taped and draped it all around the base of the lamp, which was now the top of the lamp and had the foil hang down and into our box that held the precious seed pots - voila, an awesome greenhouse (well awesome to us).

Then we waited and within a few days the yellow squash popped their heads out of the dirt to our delight! We knew we would have to wait longer for the eggplant and so we waited as we watched our yellow squash take off.

Checking everyday for the eggplant seemed a lifetime but they never peeked their noses out of the warm dirt. Finally, one day I decided to stir around in the dirt figuring that all of the seeds had died. I found nothing so I took the rest of the seeds and placed them into the barren dirt - then we waited. We realized that eggplant is much pickier and may never make it in our special greenhouse but we waited and hoped.

Then a day came when I felt the urge to stir the dirt again in hopes of finding a sprout and to our surprise there she was - a tiny sprout had emerged but we were unable to determine which end was root and which end was the top. So we guessed and to our amazement we guessed right and eventually there grew two lovely, tiny leaves on a stem as straight as could be! Wow! I guess we really are farmers at heart... we were so proud and now to our amazement all of the second batch of seeds we planted have sprouted and are sitting cozy in our little makeshift greenhouse.

In all of our excitement over the eggplant we forgot and left our yellow squash outside too late and it got too cold for them so now all of our attention is on the health and well being of the yellow squash because after all, they may be the winning plants in the end.

Feelin' green,

Rebecca