I’m surprised a lot of kids today haven’t grown a sweet potato plant indoors. I helped my niece grow one this summer. Take a sweet potato and put it in a mayo or jelly jar with water. Put it in a windowsill. It’ll sprout in a few days and then develop roots. Kids get a big kick out of watching it grow.
We planted it in a pot with potting soil today. Should make a nice plant for her bedroom windowsill.
directions
Those sweet potato plants are lovely! I especially like the purple leaved and variegated types. Another children’s plant project is growing nasturtiums: large seed and easy to grow. Collect the seeds this fall, save them until spring. Plant in yogurt containers. Children did this for inexpensive Mother’s Day gifts.
Sweet potato vines are very pretty. Starting plants is a fun little project and lesson for kids. We started an avocado tree from a pit last summer, following very similar directions:
http://www.avocado.org/grow-your-own-tree/
A year later, my little tree is about three feet tall.
It won’t bear fruit for many, many years (trees grown from cuttings bear fruit much faster and more reliably than those from seed), but you can start a citrus tree from the seeds in a citrus fruit if you want to.
You can also twist the top off a pineapple and root it to grow a pineapple plant!
Despite hubby’s meticulous caring for the tomatoes, raspberries, and cucumbers in our garden (and the corn, peppers, peas, and artichoke he’s grown in years before), our most successful crop is the pumpkins. These pumpkins were born of volunteer seeds that scattered over the soil when, post-Halloween-season, we threw decorative pumpkins against the wall to watch them burst. That was 5 years ago, and we get dozens every year.