A Special Experiment

Yesterday was an unusual day. It started normal enough, the kids and I went to run an errands. Well one of those errands involved stopping at Hobby Lobby. As I am known to do (luck and clearance and me tend to get along quite nicely), I wandered over to the Clearance stuff to see if I could find a cute kit or project for the kids to keep them out of my hair a bit. However, that's where things got weird.

You see in the summer clearance area next to the projects were colored wire hanging baskets. Only Pooka didn't ask for those.

Brother looked at me and said "Mom, they have a blue one." (Blue being his all time favorite color since he was 6 months old. Everything is blue).
Me: Yes, yes it is. 
Brother: Can we get it for the garden? It's 66% off.
Me (looking dazed since the kid who wants NOTHING to do with the garden is asking): What would you plant in it?
Brother(Thinks for a moment): Strawberries???
Me: Well it's a bit late for strawberry plant from the store. (Noticed the dejected look on his face) However, there was a special experiment I was thinking of trying if you want.
Brother: Oh, what is it.
Me: Grab it, I will explain when we get home.

Brother's pot

So we come home with a bright blue $8 hanging basket. I had Brother come outside and let Pooka stay inside since this was "HIS" project.  Brother filled the pot with dirt.

Brother did a good job with the dirt

As he was filling it with dirt I explained that I wanted to see if we could "start" a new strawberry plant using the tendril of an old one, letting it establish itself and then we would cut it. He was worried that we would cut the plant till I showed him we would cut the tendril connecting them and where we would cut it and he decided this was a grand idea and a project for a big kid.

So we MacGyvered a way to prop the new hanging basket on top of the existing strawberry plants and use the chain to anchor it to the railing. To ensure the front didn't fall we used our friend kite string and tied 2 anchor points to the front of the basket then to the railing. (Lets just hope my kids don't plan on actually flying kites anytime soon).

I never said it was pretty

I will say before I propped the basket up on the other 2 pots, I made sure there were no leaves or tendrils that could get squished. That wouldn't be very useful, however the pots are all a tad friendly right now. I also warned him and Pooka this isn't a pot for them to be getting to rough with due to the way it was propped up. 

We then took the end of a tendril that had a small bud on it. This bud I had seen on top of the soil on the plant and it has a VERY small root, but it wasn't actually in the soil yet. Brother then "planted" his strawberry plant and its tendril. We did place it a bit deeper just to make sure it stays there and doesn't wander around at this point. It has now been watered and we are just waiting for it to establish itself. Then Brother will get to cut the tendril. But first, I want to see a new tendril or growth on it.

The plant's new home.

This garden has always been "let's try this and see if it works" project. I am so glad Brother wants to be involved now. He's still not running outside in his PJs, but at least this way its something they can share or at least I won't feel like I am leaving him out anymore.