 Hi everybody, my name is Sumner and I'm a library assistant at the Long Beach Public Library. Today we're going to learn about seeds and I'm going to show you how you can watch one grow in your own homemade miniature greenhouse. If you are not signed up for the summer reading program yet, visit longbeach.beanstack.org to get started so that you can earn prizes for all the reading that you've been doing. If you are signed up, make sure you get credit for joining us today by entering the code garden in the activities tab of your Beanstack account. Now this week we have been learning about plants and gardening. Most plants start their lives as a seed. You're probably already familiar with a few kinds of seeds. Maybe there are sunflower seeds in your favorite trail mix or maybe you have found seeds inside of food you eat like apples and oranges. Maybe you've even planted seeds from envelopes like these. But did you know that popcorn kernels, peas, beans, and rice are also kinds of seeds? Seeds come in many shapes and sizes but they all have three parts. They have a seed coat on the outside and inside of it, a tiny baby plant called the embryo and the endosperm, which is plant food for the baby plant. The seed coat covers the entire seed to keep the embryo safe and it senses when the seed has everything it needs to grow. What does the seed need to grow? It needs water, the right amount of sunlight, and the right temperature. If it doesn't have one of these three things, so if it is too dry or too dark or too cold, then the seed stays dormant. That means it's still alive but it's not active. It's like it's sleeping. When the seed does have everything it needs, then the embryo wakes up and starts to grow. This is called germination. In this stage, it gets all of its energy from the endosperm. When it gets big enough, it breaks through the seed coat and sends roots down. When the seed has leaves, then it can make its own food from sunlight. Most of this happens underground so we can't see it but during germination, a seed doesn't actually need soil to grow. So I'm going to show you how you can make your own mini greenhouse and watch your seeds grow. What you need are a bag that zips shut, you can also use a clear jar with a lid, some cotton balls or a paper towel, water, a sunny window, and of course your seeds. For today, the seeds I'm using are these dried lemon beans. Now I like to use the lemon beans because they are pretty big so you can see when they've started to grow. Plus, they're delicious. Now I know what you're saying, ew, lemon beans are gross but if you have never eaten a lemon bean from a plant that you grew yourself, you are missing out, they are so good. Of course you don't have to use lemon beans if you don't want to. Many kinds of dried beans you can buy at the store will germinate if you give them a chance. And you can also try beans that you find in your garden or from food that you eat as long as they're not cooked, experiment with different kinds and see what grows. Now we need to give our seeds a place to germinate. It's going to be our baggie. The first thing the seed needs is water. So take your cotton balls and put them into the water. Now you're going to squeeze them out a little. You want them to hold a good amount of water but not so much that they're dripping. There is such a thing as too much water and we don't want to drown our seeds. Next, put the wet cotton balls inside the baggie. You want enough to cover the bottom of the bag. If you're using a jar, make sure you use enough paper towel or cotton balls to line the bottom of the jar. You don't have to fill it up. Now we're ready to add our seeds. You can just drop them in on top of your cotton balls. Now remember that plants need room to grow so you don't want to put too many. Two to five is probably enough. Then seal the baggie up tight so the water doesn't escape. Do you remember what other things a plant needs to grow? That's right. It needs sunlight and the right temperature. We can give our plant both of those things at once by putting it in a nice, sunny window. You can lay your greenhouse bag flat on the sill or you can tape it up directly to the glass. After a few days you'll see condensation droplets from the water form on the inside of the bag. Don't worry. That's good. Hopefully after a few days you'll see your seeds start to send out roots. Now after about a week, if nothing looks like it's growing, don't get too discouraged. You can always start again with new seeds and new cotton balls. Spend a little time each day observing your seeds. You can make a notebook where you write or draw what you see happening inside of your greenhouse bag. Once your baby seeds have roots and a stem with leaves, they're ready to be planted in soil. If you want to grow them to adult plants make sure that you do transplant them because they can't survive forever in the greenhouse bag with just cotton balls. If you experiment with different kinds of seeds, document what works and what doesn't. Two weeks ago I made bags with these ten kinds of seeds but only two of them sprouted the daisies and the marigolds. After about ten days they had roots and little tiny leaves so I transplanted them into this pot. You can see the little tiny sprouts poking up out of the soil. One week ago I tried pinto beans and lima beans inside this bag. So they've been growing for about a week and you can see that the lima and two of the pintots have roots. The endosperms are turning green which is exciting, that means they're growing. And this one in the corner is almost ready to send out leaves and be planted in soil. Tell us what you're going to grow in the comments and you can show us your mini greenhouses by tagging the library on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. If you want to learn more about plants gardening and how to regrow your favorite vegetables from kitchen scraps, click the link in the video description for a list of books you can check out. Thanks for joining us and happy germinating!