Lucky Beans

Every New Year's day I dutifully eat my lucky black-eyed peas.  I don't know if it helps with the luck or not, but it keeps me from being disowned by my family.  In Italy it is traditional to eat lentils or "lenticchie" for New Years day, so I've added lentils to our traditional pot of luck.  And because we also lived in Japan for awhile I also added adzuki beans to the tradition.   This year I thought it would be fun to plant some lucky legumes and have a little plant biology lesson.  I had intended on planting all three legumes, but I had a momentary laps of memory and poured all the lentils into the pot, so we only ended up planting black-eyed peas and adzuki beans.  

 Here is what we used:
     Glass jar
     Dried black-eyed peas
     Dried adzuki beans
     Wooden spoon
     Spray bottle full of water
     Dirt
     A small piece of string 

1. Soak the legumes in luke-warm water, for an hour or so.  This step it not crucial, but it does help "wake-up" the legume and speed the process of germination.   Don't be afraid to use beans straight from the bag, they will grow.

  

 2. Place the dirt in the jar.  Fill the jars about 3/4 of the way to the top.  This leaves plenty of room to see the roots grow and lessens the likelihood of water spilling over the top.  

 
3.  Using the handle of the wooden spoon, poke holes in the dirt, about 1/2" deep along the sides of the of the jar.  Making the holes along the sides of the jar allows you to see the germination process.  We planted 4 seeds in each jar.  

 4.  Gently place one legume in each hole and then cover with a little dirt.  

 
5.  Use the spay bottle to "rain" on the legumes. I am not sure what exactly is so appealing about spray bottles, but this is a crazy fun step.  

 6.  We placed colored yarn around the tops of the jars because the kids really wanted to know which jar was theirs.  

7.  Place the jars in a warm sunny window.  Make sure to keep them moist.  You can even put a lid over the top to help keep them moist until the plant starts to emerge from the soil.  


Happy New Year
Best of LUCK!