Micro Greens?

[diamond lil]

xplosiv1 and arzosah were talking about growing micro greens in the house. I'd like to learn more about this.. how are you both getting on with that? - and does anybody else have experience of it?

[Clarebelle]

We grow micro greens on a small scale to supply a local hotel at the community garden I work at. It's very easy, you just need a tray with a bit of soil in, sow seed thickly over the surface and cover lightly. Water and cover with a clear lid or cling film and wait. They are ready to harvest once both seed leaves have appeared. You should get a thick mini forest of leaves! If you have a small heated propagator you should be able to grow them all through winter on a light windowsill.

Micro greens are very nutritious and taste great and there are absolutely tons of different seeds you can try. Brassicas are good, as are lettuce, we have also done basil, anise hyssop and rocket (which tasted amazing) and sweetcorn (known as pop shoots). The sweetcorn was harder to grow but the small sweetcorn shoots are worth it for the explosion of sugar you get when you bite down. If you have the space I think they are worth it, there nutrient content alone justifies giving plate room to a little pile of them.

Pea shoots can also be grown in this way, a good variety for this is 'Tendril'

[jansman]

I grow pea shoots. However, I never considered ‘ microgreens’ What a good idea! Lil, do a search, there is loads of info out there.

[Arzosah]

This is a nice linkie, Lil, especially about the difference between microgreens and sprouts https://www.gardeners.com/how-to/grow-m ... /7987.html
It strikes me with sprouts that you need a *lot* of water to do all that daily rinsing, and thats a lot of faff, too. Microgreens rool OK

There's a site here specifically about microgreens: https://themicrogardener.com/easy-guide ... crogreens/

Nearly all of my windowsills that are available to plants are filled with aloe vera plants, but I don't really *use* aloe vera, they've all just grown from a single plant I was given years ago. I'm going to kill two birds with one stone and use the aloe leaves on my skin, and make space for some microgreens at the same time.

[Deeps]

This is interesting stuff, I'll mention it to the head gardener and see if she fancies it. Thanks to those who have brought it up.

[peejay]

Looks interesting but isn't it pretty inefficient? i.e. with "normal" growing, a single seed might be enough to grow enough for a meal, or multiple meals, whereas this method uses up multiple seeds per mouthful?

Granted the end result is edible food in a very short time but surely it's comparatively expensive and difficult to stash enough seeds to feed for any appreciable amount of time?

[jansman]

Looks interesting but isn't it pretty inefficient? i.e. with "normal" growing, a single seed might be enough to grow enough for a meal, or multiple meals, whereas this method uses up multiple seeds per mouthful?

Granted the end result is edible food in a very short time but surely it's comparatively expensive and difficult to stash enough seeds to feed for any appreciable amount of time?

During Winter and Spring,this could be invaluable.Any fresh food is valuable.I am on sandy soil,and coupled with drought, a good part of my crop plan has gone to hell in a handbasket,especially the salad stuff.! I have staging spare in the greenhouse too.Regarding seeds: A packet of lettuce seed goes a long way,and I save seed anyway.just looked through my seed tin,and I have 4/5 full packs of celery,carrot,,brassicas,radish.It'll all sprout.

[diamond lil]

Thanks everybody - I've always thought that sprouting was a right carry-on but this looks a lot easier. I've got three x 6ft long windowsills, 2 face south and 1 faces north. Will def try this.

[xplosiv1]

I'm just getting started really and it's kind of an experiment in a way.

I'm going to try and grow them with no sunlight just to see what I could achieve in the depths of winter as long as I still had a power source for the grow lamp and I'm not using soil either as with any potting soil you can introduce pests or mold two things I dont want in the house , I'm using a hydroponics basket instead hopefully it works for me I've seen them used for microgreens on a few different websites.

I have a full spectrum 45W LED light source which i'm going to use. ( Red light (650-660nm) + Orange light(620-630nm) + Blue Light(460-465 nm) +White Light (3000-6500k)+ IR(730-740nm)

I have the area set up, I've blacked out the window, shelves and lighting are in place, seeds arrived friday I'm going to start with Sunflower and pea i'm just waiting on the trays to arrive (should have been here saturday)

I'll keep you informed of progress.



basket/ tray similar to below




45W lamp similar to below

[diamond lil]

Oh wow, that should be interesting. Keep us updated as to how that goes