We have an update on Nate's plants. It's been a tough road for them. We start 25 seeds. About 8 survived to be planted. The corn never sprouted and the cats ate the leaves off the bean plants. Several of the plants did not survive outside. Our yard is very uneven and dry, making it hard to make sure they get adequate water, even with a drip hose. We are now down to two plants and are keeping our fingers crossed for them to continue to grow.

Here is Nate's update, his words in green. The hose is watering the plant. There are holes in the hose. This one has big leaves. It is a new plant. This plant still has it's first leaves. I planted more seeds when we lost the outside plants, hoping to have more survivors.
This one is older. It has smaller leaves. It's a different plant. This is the only remaining plant from our original inside planting. Joshua stepped on it this weekend. So, we are really keeping our fingers crossed that it hangs in there. I think both of the remaining plants are pumpkins.

We tried to turn them different colors. We used food coloring in water. I bought a bouquet of white carnations to make the corsage and boutonniere for Shawn's prom. We decided to experiment with the rest.

In a little while the flowers started to change colors. Why did they change color? The food coloring made them change. Remember what the stem does? The stem is like a straw. The stem sucks the water up to the flower part. Here are the carnations after being in the colored water over night.

Since we got very little color change in the carnations. We decided to try it with some fresh cut white roses from our back yard.

They started changing very quickly. They are a different kind of flower so they got more of the water to the flower part. Actually, I think the carnations were very dry when I got them and even thought I re-cut the ends, they did not suck up much water. The fresh cut roses starting pulling up water right away. We talked about this possibility.

Here are the roses after being in the colored water overnight.

We will continue to update on the plants periodically (as long as they continue to grow). But, we are not moving on to our next science project. ROCKS! Watch for the first installment...coming soon.