Spring is Sprouting!

At the first hint of spring a few weeks ago, I ran out to buy potting soil, and the next day Amelia picked out some bulbs. Since bulbs are much more exciting than a bag of dirt, we got a little bit over-excited in the bulb department, and ended up with too many bulbs and not enough soil.  Enter this little pinterest gem.

I’d been wondering about this one for a while. We’ve never had any luck with those planter kits that have viewing windows, and this seemed way too easy so I had low expectations.  But we had plenty of bulbs and nothing to lose.

All you need is a clear container with a mouth that is narrow enough to support the bulb.  Make sure the vase is several inches tall, so the roots have space to grow down.

Fill the vase with water, so the base of the bulb on top will be submerged. Sit a bulb on top with the sprout side facing up, and that’s it. We used iris bulbs in vases that are about 5″ and 8″ inches high, and they are indoors on a countertop that gets indirect sun. Every day or so I gently lift the bulb and top off the water.   At first, it looked like this:

And by the next day, we saw roots!

Three days later, a sprout!

Nine more days, and the roots were filling the vase nicely. Oh, and we started a second bulb – the one on the left is a few days behind the one on the right:

And today, exactly one month since we sat the first bulb on top of a vase, we have the beginning of a bud:

On the same day that we started these, we planted the same type of bulbs in pots with soil. The water bulbs are growing at about the same rate as the soil ones, but they are much more interesting to watch. Stem and leaves? Old news. We want to see the ROOTS!

And the bulbs we planted outside on that first-signs-of-spring weekend? It’s a good thing we bought so many.  We’ll try those again when it’s REALLY spring!

Want more Mess? Visit Melanie’s blog, or drop by her Etsy store, Made by Mommy!