Grow-A-Maze

I recently purchased a Grow-A-Maze Kit. A total impulse purchase. But when I saw the kit I immediately thought it would be such a fun activity for the kids and it would complement their current “grow our own vegetables” project.

The first kit was cracked but the garden store where we purchased it happily replaced it and we were off. Well not really. I did not read the instructions properly (naughty mummy moment). You need to germinate some seeds first before you can start building the whole maze. Oh well, false start no 2.

So we retrieved some lids our of our recycling tub, wet some paper towels and left a few seeds to germinate. False start no 3.

Our first set of beans did nothing so we tried it again with a new bunch, and luckily a few beans decided to co-operate.

We added the water to the bottom section and a bit of compost to the seed section and finally we could place our seeds in the maze. We kept our maze on a window sill in the kitchen as it gets lovely sunshine there and the kids can easily monitor how much the seeds have grown.

And finally after all our false starts I was amazed. Once the seeds were in they really took off. First the kids spotted the roots in the water and then they could really see the stems coming out and the seeds just went crazy.

The brilliant thing about this kit is the kids get an upclose view of the seeds step by step growing process.

A word of caution – it is better not to change the maze once the seeds have start growing. My youngest was very concerned that one of the plants was not making it and he tried to change the maze to help the plant but in the process he accidentally damaged another plant. So my tip is leave the plants in the maze and watch how they figure out where to grow – because honestly after doing this a few times now – we have seen that they really do find the gaps.

It is honestly is a very cool kit to have in the house. I have a feeling we are going to be doing this over and over in the next few months as my youngest is totally fascinated in watching the whole process.