Coal Garden

When we were kids, we got an old lump of coal and made us a pretty coal garden.

That was a long time ago and I'd forgotten how we did it. I looked on line and found many recipes for coal gardens.

This is how I did it. Don't let children do this unattended, since ammonia is used.

Here are the ingredients:
A lump of coal, salt ( they say you can use table salt, but I used salt we had for making ice cream), food coloring, bluing, ammonia, water.
I bought Mrs. Stewart's Liquid Bluing in the household section of Krogers.

We had a new container of ammonia. I punched a hole in the seal . . .

. . . and used a pipette to get the ammonia out with. This made it very easy and the fumes weren't very strong. You might want to do this in a ventilated area. I put up my kitchen windows.
One of the recipes I saw didn't use the ammonia. The ammonia only speeds up the process.
So, if you are patient, you could probably get by not using it.

Get a container to put the coal on. It can be an empty margarine tub, a plastic plate like I used or a clear glass container.

First I put on the piece of coal - - 3 Tablespoons. of water, 3 Tablespoons. of salt, 3 Tablespoons of bluing, 1 Tablespoon of ammonia, and then drops of food coloring.

In the beginning it looks like this.

After you've did this, put it in a place where it will not be bothered. After the crystals start to grow, you don't want to disturb them.



This picture was taken after about one hour. If you look close, you can see the crystals starting to grow.

Two Hours

Three Hours

And these are close ups after about four hours

Aren't the crystals pretty?

Did any of you ever make these?

These should continue to grow.

If you go to Mrs. Stewart's site, they also give instructions there.
Their instructions are just a little different than how I did it.