Photo ©
JosephB
Planting beans can be an entertaining and educational activity. You can do it with your children, family, friends or by yourself. Your bean plant can allow you to discover the joy of planting and caring for a living thing. This activity can be done indoors or outdoors, making it ideal for people of any age who would like their first experience of growing plants.
Goal: To plant beans and develop your gardening skills.
Materials:
- A container: This can be a recycled plastic bottle, yogurt container, cup or any other place you find. It can also be wooden, ceramic or even metal, as long as it isn’t too large. If you can find a container with a hole at the bottom, that works as well.
- A plate for your container to rest on. This also helps stop excess water from spilling and making a mess.
- Healthy, good quality soil. If you do not have healthy soil, take a look at our Composting Guide for help!
- Dry beans NOTE: These must be soaked in water overnight the day before planting them.
- Water
Instructions:
- Fill your container about ¾ of the way with healthy soil.
- Take some of your beans (anywhere from 1-4).
- Gently put the beans in the soil. The beans should have a thin layer of soil over them, about the length of your fingernail – no more than half an inch.
- Now it’s time to water your beans. Make sure not to add too much water! Just enough to make the soil a little moist.
- Place your container near the window where the beans can have some sunlight!
- Check on your little plants every day, making sure the soil stays moist. For the first week, don’t move the soil to look at your beans! This can harm the growth of your plants. At the end of the first week, you should have green shoots that will start to grow and will eventually become beautiful plants.
If you want to make this activity more interactive, use a notebook to keep track of the changes in your plant growth. Record your observations by writing, drawing or even making diagrams in your “Bean Notebook”. Having a notebook dedicated to your bean plants is a great way to reflect on how your plants grow over time and how factors like water and sunlight affect your plants. You can also take notes outside in the fresh air. This can be very relaxing and can help you think about how the plants in your surroundings grow in similar or different ways to your bean plant.
Photo courtesy of Leaders of the World
Have fun and connect with nature with the help of your little bean plants!
If you would like to help birds and pollinators in your neighborhood you can also plant sunflowers as an alternative! They are easy to grow, and their flowers produce plenty of pollen and seeds. Good source of food for pollinators and birds. To learn more, click here!
The Planting Beans activity was inspired by “Peep and the Big Wide World”
Written by Julia Luna, Ashley Calderon, and Corey Hasson. Edited by Debra Nero.