The Art of Growing Microgreens

[LDx4]

PHarvest - I also find that the flavor changes with some varieties between the cotyledon and true leaf stage. I tend to like the flavor better at the younger age. I have a display photo that shows that one ounce of broccoli at the cotyledon stage has the nutritional value of 1 1/2 LBS of broccoli head. Pretty amazing! Plus immature broccoli has significant amounts of sulforaphane, which is an anti-cancer compound found in cruciferous vegetables. Broccoli micros are now being recommended to cancer patients and broccoli is my top seller in the greens.

[BigVanVader]

Can you use any broccoli?

[LDx4]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

Can you use any broccoli?

I'm sure you can. I like to use Waltham 29; it gives me the best results and I like the appearance of the plants. Make sure it's untreated seed (for selling purposes I only use organic seeds).

[oakley]

Wow, that pic is huge, haha. And not the one i meant to post. I was multi-tasking.
Anywho, that is 5 times scale on my laptop. I do consider it micro. Just starting to bulk and make a decent salad.
Where i'm headed in a few mixes that will be easy to keep a steady supply.

LDx4, your help and experience is so valuable to this thread.

It does seem the shift in what people want is ever changing. The wheat grass and sunflower people seen to have been around for a while. The pea shout lovers are wanting the flavor and the bulk. The broccoli studies are grabbing a whole new following yet many cruciferous veggies contain sulforaphane and combinations of different micros
seem to work well together.

I have all the seed i need for now. Testing the DwarfGreySugar, sunflower, arugula and radish as a mix. The 1/2 tray of pea alone was coming up too fast. So spacing less dense
and adding other seed should be a good one. I'll get there.

Great use of the food containers. I have a stack i saved from one of the offices at work that orderers out for lunch. Nice and thick. Most places are using the compostable corn
containers now.
I don't recommend the 4x4 cheap thin square ones i've been using for tests. They will
last a bit and easy to clean in the sink but a waste of money. The half trays are perfect for a succession of the salad mix i came up with. Also easy to clean.

Wondering what your soil mix is. Coir with a bit of worm castings has been good so far.
A minor mini dose of dilute kelp if i want to give a boost to a tray i need to keep going a few more days....

BigVan, about this time last year i started a 10 row tray of seed packs of different greens
to test germination as most say salads and such do not keep well. I had great germination and we ate the whole tray as micros. My seeds are organic now except for the mustard. (i have at least 20lbs) I should check the supplier. Might be organic.

[LDx4]

Thanks Oakley!

I never thought I would find something that I liked growing as much as tomatoes, but once I started with the microgreens I was hooked. I think a big part of it is that the crop turn-around is so darn fast. With tomatoes, as we all know, we can nurture a plant for several months only to have it get some disease or pest and die on us before we get any tomatoes or even if it stays healthy, the tomatoes don't turn out to be as tasty as we had hoped after all those weeks of waiting. With the microgreens, if a tray doesn't grow, you can start over and in 10 days or so a new harvest will be ready. Like I said before, it's instant gratification!

For potting soil I use a mix called Sunshine #2. I believe that some of the soil producers are regional and I think Sunshine is a west coast brand. I trialed many mixes before I settled on Sunshine and what seems to work best for me is a mix with mostly peat, very little perlite and no wood chunks. Seed starting soil works well, but can be expensive if buying in bulk. My mix doesn't have any added worm castings, kelp or mycos. But I'm only growing to 12-14 days max. For baby greens, I would add some organic liquid fert as needed.

Have you tried buckwheat lettuce greens yet? If not, add that one to your next order of seeds and try it out. It has a nice buttery taste and leaf lettuce consistency. Really good in salads.

Ok, off to plant arugula and basil trays now....

[MuddyToes]

Soaked some sunflower and peas yesterday. Little germination so far. I think my seed is bad. I didn't have high hopes for the sunnies as my dh purchased them for birdseed. But my peas have been in the pantry for awhile. Only about 1/3 of them have "little tails." I'm going to order some fresh seed and try again.

Paying for grocery store bought greens makes me cranky. But here at the end of January, I'm desperate for fresh greens. Somehow, paying for seeds doesn't seem so painful.

Thanks so much for all the growing help here. I'll keep you posted on my progress when I get my new seed. I've never tasted pea or sunflower shoots, but your pictures are making me drool.

[Durgan]

I experimented with various seeds making sprouts. Now I only use three seeds.
Red Fife Wheat for making sprouted whole wheat bread. Lentils and mung beans, both being cheap and readily available.

Posted on January 28, 2017 by Durgan
http://durgan.org/2017/January%20201...0Sprouts/HTML/ 28 January 2017 Lentil Sprouts
Lentils make convenient sprouts. Half a cup of raw seeds is processed into sprouts in three days. The finished product can be eaten raw, blended into a smoothie, stir fried, added to soups, and salads. Lentils are low cost, keep for long periods,and make a fresh vegetable item during the off season growing season.


Posted on January 1, 2017 by Durgan
http://durgan.org/2017/January%20201...0Sprouts/HTML/ 1 January 2017 Mung Bean Sprouts
Experimenting growing various seeds/grains to make sprouts, production has been narrowed to using two types, wheat for sprouting to make bread, and mung bean sprouts for daily use. The mung beans from a bulk store are viable, low price, and sprout in a liter jar in four days. They are utilized in soups, made into drinkable slurry with apple juice, steamed as a vegetable, or eaten raw. It was found other types of sprouts are not as active as the two chosen, in other words not worth the effort required. Many do not sprout due to commercial processing. One half cup of mung beans make a liter jar of sprouts in four days. The hulls tend to float and may be poured off and discarded or utilised as desired. I have a jar continually growing on the back of the kitchen sink.


Posted on January 23, 2017 by Durgan
http://durgan.org/2017/January%20201...%20Bread/HTML/ 23 January 2017 Sprouted Wheat Bread
Four loaves about 1000 grams each were made using sprouted wheat and whole wheat flour for mixing. The wheat was Red Fife and it sprouted in 4 days. Sprouting is terminated when the sprouts appear, meaning there is no advantage in allowing the shoots to get long. The mixing flour was ground up grain not sprouted. The usual method is to dry and grind the sprouted grain, but I simply made a slurry and used ground whole wheat flour to modify for the bread making. Other ingredients were two tablespoons of salt, three teaspoons of yeast, three tablespoons of white sugar, and a quarter cup of sunflower oil.
The balled, kneaded dough was allowed to rise for about two hours until double in size, then shaped into four loaves and these were allowed to rise about one hour in the greased baking pans before baking at 350F for 45 minutes. Whole wheat bread does not rise as much as when made with lighter flour. This bread is all whole wheat, but not all sprouted whole wheat. I ingest one thick slice daily and a loaf lasts about on week.

[oakley]

We have great produce for kales, chard, collards, beets, radish and such. Many varieties. But i can't even look at the bagged salad stuff. Always one leaf variety in those mixes that is soggy rotten. No flavor. Not even near the sell by date. And $$

I have buckwheat seed. Not tested yet. My bulk spices are from MountainRose
and organic. https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/catalog/herbs/bulk

I think fresh seed would be best for testing. I just soaked some corn seed for shoots. Older seed. Even fresh pea seeds do take a bit longer to get going. But once they do, wow they zip. Like a race to the light.

The salad and veg micro mixes are fast and the most satisfying. Basement farm to table almost daily. The rest is timing. Seed size does not mater. Most suppliers list by fast, med, and slow growers.

[Black Krim]

Originally Posted by LDx4

Due to the salmonella and e-coli outbreaks with sprouts in the 90s, it's almost impossible to find sprouts grown by a small producer. The gov't regulations are just too hard to implement unless you're a large company and can afford it.

Also, Drs are now telling pregnant women and those with compromised immune systems to stay away from sprouts grown in water. The bacteria danger is just too high. Microgreens are safer because you only eat the sprouted part. The seed and the root (where the bacteria can grow) stay in the soil.

I used to sprout in mason jars for my own use back in the 80s and never had a problem though.

Lyn

My mom did sprouts in the 80's too and never a problem.

i did experiment with using vinegar in the water to prevent growth of bacteria but the seeds did NOT like that and didnt sprout.


Given that the recommended method is microgreens, versus sprouts, do you still use a growing medium for the peas???? Or just crowd the peas on a 1020 tray??

2-3 years ago I read The Sprout Lady...... she had a basic method that anyone could do, and the tray of soil and roots were dumped into a barrel for composting and reuse.

I saw suitable trays at a discount store a couple days ago, and the ridged base didnt look the best choice for layering seeds directly, as seeds on the ridges will dry faster than those in the valleys. I would definitely need to add a layer of "soil". Until recently, When I reuse potting soil, I heat it in my oven to sterilize it. This season to get ready for planting seeds , compost from our own supply has been added to the purchased potting mix....... and NOT sterilized. Im thinking I should only use sterilized mix in the 1020's for micro greens.

Also, can I use seed designated for planting rather than seed from SP, JSS, etc for microgreens??? NOT sprouting, only for microgreens.


Honestly, this is making me crazy. How many times I have pulled a carrot from the ground and started munching and crunching......

For the record, all production is for me and my family, NOT sale.

[BigVanVader]

Just me thinking out loud here; but wouldn't a spray of diluted hydrogen peroxide be a good way to prevent mold w/o harming/contaminating the sprouts? It evaps into O2 and water right?

I have a jar of citric acid that says "sprouting aid" right on the label - suggested at a rate of 1 tsp per quart of rinse water. Seems reasonable to me, though I've never had issues with moldy sprouts so haven't used it for that purpose.

[oakley]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

Just me thinking out loud here; but wouldn't a spray of diluted hydrogen peroxide be a good way to prevent mold w/o harming/contaminating the sprouts? It evaps into O2 and water right?

I've not had any mold issues but yes that would work fine or could be sprayed as a
preventative at the early sprouting stage.

[LDx4]

Black Krim - you'll need to use sterilized potting soil (without the compost) for your peas or purchase one of those felt hydroponic growing mats to spread the peas on. You need a substrate of some type though.

You can use seeds from any source. They don't have to be labeled as microgreen seeds.

BigVV - H2O2 is a common treatment for mold issues. You can either pre-soak the seeds prior to planting (I do this for sunflower seeds) or spray with H2O2 after planting. As Oakley said, it should be done at an early sprouting stage only.

Braybright - I use citric acid to balance the pH of my water. Never tried it for mold control. The sprouts/greens do grow better if the pH is in the 6.5 range.

Lyn

[MuddyToes]

Peas and sunflowers. Thanks for your help Oakley and LD!
I am trying to upload a picture from my iPad but it keeps loading upside-down. Does anyone know how to fix that?

[oakley]

Lots of pea and sunflower shoots. Definitely like the DwarfGrey pea over all others. Much more tender and twice as tall...starting another tray.

Muddy, congrats on your shoots. We don't have a Sticky 'picture test' post. Usually that
would be a place to test try a device or new phone, then someone comes along and helps.
My iPod does that also. I just send it to myself then toss it on my desktop. Upload from
there.

Or i rotate it up-side down, then send.