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This week's LabZone activity
April 28, 2004
A Dirt-Free Garden
How do you grow a garden without dirt? Hydroponically. What's that? Make your own hydroponic garden and see.
You will need:
- a sharp pencil
- a Styrofoam cup
- a glass jar with a wide mouth (the Styrofoam cup should just fit in the mouth of the jar)
- an old cotton rag about 20 x 20 cm (8 x 8 inches)
- vermiculite (from a garden store)
- hydroponic fertilizer (from a garden store)
- seeds (radishes, lettuce, peas work best)
What to do:
- Use the pencil to poke a large hole in the bottom of the Styrofoam cup.
- Roll the rag up tightly.
- Push one end of the rolled-up rag through the hole in the Styrofoam cup until is it about two-thirds of the way into the cup.
- Fill the cup with vermiculite around the rolled-up rag.
- Ask an adult to mix the hydroponic fertilizer with water. The package will tell you how much water.
- Put some of this fertilizer liquid into the glass jar. Set the cup in the mouth of the jar with the rag hanging down into the liquid. The liquid should not touch the Styrofoam cup. If it does, pour some out.
- Plant three seeds. The seed packet will tell you how deep.
- Put your hydroponic garden in a sunny window. Make sure there's always enough liquid in the jar to keep the rag wet. In two or three weeks your seeds should sprout.
What's happening?
Plants need several things to grow and be healthy. First, they need to be anchored, so they won't blow or wash away. Usually the soil does this. In your hydroponic garden, vermiculite is the anchor. Plants also need food and water. Your fertilizer mixture provides both. When you add sunlight, your plants have everything they need.
Activity from Plants, written by the Ontario Science Centre (www.ontariosciencecentre.ca) with photographs by Ray Boudreau, is used by permission of Kids Can Press Ltd., Toronto. Text copyright © 1998 by the Ontario Science Centre.
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