Here I am again with more updates about my science project – ‘Growing a Pea Plant’. As I had promised, I watered the seeds every day and it has started to grow. Two to three days after placing the seeds inside the cotton balls, a small part of the plant was visible. Mumma said it is the root. The root holds on to the soil and helps the plant to stand straight. It also absorbs nutrients from the soil and helps the plant to become stronger.

After the roots were big enough (reached the bottom of the glass jar), the upper part of the plant came out. It was the shoot. This is the part where leaves, flowers, fruits come out. Since the plant is very young it had only two leaves, but mumma said these are not the actual leaves. It is only the beginning; new leaves will start to come out once the plant grows further. Here is how it looks:

This is the baby plant, it needs more water to grow into an adult plant. I have noted all the stages of the growth in my diary. To make it more interesting dadda asked me to draw the pictures of each stage. I noticed the seeds very well and drew exactly how it looks inside the jar. Mumma said pea plants are creepers, which means they need a support to stand straight. They can’t stand straight on their own, like other plants. So once the plant grows tall, we need to put a stick inside the jar, so that the plant can creep on it and stand straight.

At first I was not able to understand, what she was trying to say. But then mumma showed me some pictures of pea plants on the Internet. All the plants were either tied upwards or were provided with some support. Now I understand why we need to put a stick inside the jar.

Then I asked, when will peas grow on the plant? She smiled and said it is only a baby plant now; it needs to grow bigger to give us some peas. A lot of leaves will come out, then flowers will come out and finally they will grow into peas. That is how all the fruits and vegetables grow. Mumma said, ‘you have to take a lot of care if you want to get peas’. I wonder how flowers can turn into peas! God might be doing some magic to turn the flowers into peas. I will wait to see how that happens.

I was talking to my friend about the project and she told me that she is growing a bean plant. She also used a glass jar and cotton balls. She is also very excited just like me. I told her that there would be flowers on her plants, which would turn into beans one day. She was surprised.

Science projects are very interesting, just as our teacher told us. I will take the plant to school next week and show it to my teacher.