Sunflower seed in a pot sent home from nursery. Please help me not kill it!

[GrimmauldPlace]

As title says, DD planted a sunflower seed in a small cardboard (I think!) pot at nursery and we are to care for it at home. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with it. We've had it for about a week and a half now and I've been watering it. It's sprouted something. Am I supposed to move it in to a bigger container? We don't have anywhere to plant it in the ground in the garden but have space for plant pots. Or do I keep it inside?
DD is very excited about this. I've never managed to keep a plant alive. Help!

Keep it indoors in it's pot until it is around 3-4 inches high.

Water it by keeping the pot on a saucer, putting some water in the saucer and letting it take up the water. Any water left after about 20 mins, tip out. Don't overwater, wait until the pot feels light before watering again.

When it is 3-4 inchs tall, plant the whole thing in the cardboard into a larger pot. Make a hole just a bit bigger than the size of the pot, tear the cardboard a bit so water can get in and roots can get out and plant it, firm the soil around the newly planted sunflower and water in from the top. Then keep outside for an hour on day 1, then bring in. 2 hours on day 2. 4 on day 3. 8 on day 4. All day on day 5 and then it can go outdoors for the rest of it's life. As the roots fill each pot, pot it into a larger pot each time. As it is in a pot, if the pot is too light, the flower will fall over so make the final pot one made of ceramic or weigh the base down with stones before putting the soil in.

Or just find some tiny piece of garden, it only has to be about 3 inches wide, to plant it out. It really will do better and it will be less hassle in the actual soil.

Great advice from Doreen! The only extra I would add is that it might need a bamboo cane for support when it gets really tall.

Far easier to bodge the care at this stage and let it die/accidentally snap the stem, thereby saving yourself weeks of faff.

Can you tell that I really resented nursery & now school doing projects that then shift a load of work on to parents?

Don't leave it within investigating distance of a toddler or she will tip it all out on the floor to see if it's growing. Or maybe that's just my toddler. Ours is now on the windowsill in a bigger pot and will go out in the garden when it looks solid enough. Good idea about putting it outside for a little while each day.

Tip I got given this year was to put the pots into individual large ziploc bags which acts as a greenhouse. It's worked beautifully with some really strong plants that survived my somewhat haphazard gardening skills.

we'll gloss over the pot that got left in the car

You can make a basic indooe greenhouse by cutting the bottle of a juice bottle using that as the saucer and putting the remainder of the bottle over the top.

If you remove the bottle top it allows a bit of ventilation.

Wow seriously bad typing this morning. That should read indoor greenhouse and bottom of the juice bottle!

Thank you Doreen, that was really helpful! And to all the other replies.

RomCom, I feel ya! But I couldn't do that to her, she's only 3 and is eagerly checking on the sunflower every day to see if it's grown.

There's a small patch of soil in the garden but it's under a massive tree, I presume that would be no good as it's completely in the shade? We then have some paved and the rest is grass. We are in rented though and don't think landlord would be happy about us digging up the grass.

No I wouldn't kill it, try and hone your gardening skills this could be one of many plants that come home. Sunflowers are really easy to grow as long as you water them and put them in the sun they just seem to shoot away.

Sunflower growing in our household also seems to create an undue level of sibling rivalry. On occasion, the pots haven't even made it into the house from the car without stems getting snapped by the kids' rough handling - resulting in recriminations and accusations of sabotage. Sigh.