Thanks to Jack Yam’s sharing with easy to follow tutorial and accompanying photographs, a lot of gardeners learned how to grow microgreens.
With Jack’s permission, his pictures and instructions are shared in this post.
Step 1 – Recycle any plastic container suitable for growing!
Drill or cut holes at the base for drainage.
This allowed excess water to drain from the soil.
Not handy with an electric drill, I re-used easier to cut soft plastic containers instead.
Drainage holes were created by snipping corners with a pair of scissors.
Step 2 – Fill only 1-inch depth of good gardening soil mix, customized, or buy ready mix.
Step 3 – Water well, the medium should be very wet and then slowly drained from the holes we had cut/drilled below.
Step 4 – Sow seeds on the surface.
Press gently on seeds to ensure that they touched the soil but were not buried.
Lesson learned from our own experience, DO NOT cling wrapped the container as mold will grow.
However, this is easily remedied with sun exposure after a few hours.
Our microgreens’ journal began on December 17 2017 following Jack Yam’s instructions.
We hope to grow many varieties of microgreens and be able to harvest fresh from our tabletop gardens.
Broccoli seeds germinated in 18 hours!
Impatient to taste our first microgreens, we harvested on December 24 2017, exactly 7 days later.
Jack Yam advised there is no fixed rule as to when microgreens can be harvested.
They can be as young as one week old with a set of seed leaf or more mature 3 to 4 weeks.
The older seedlings will have more leaves and a better bite.
Microgreens are generally eaten raw and however old they are when we harvest them, they taste really good.
Red beet was our second microgreen variety to try.
The seeds are really cute as they looked like wholemeal cereal bites.
Red beets germinated on December 19 2017, 2 days later.
First harvest and taste on Christmas day 2017!
Whole food grow at homemade great snacks as well!
Growing microgreens was really easy and fast to harvest.
In spite of their size, they packed a punch in nutrients, texture and taste.
Our grow rack of anti-aging, healthy and colourful microgreens is expanding! 🙂
One Time harvest –
Spicy Taste – radishes, mustard/mizuna (wasabi tasting), rockets
Thai Basil
Broccoli
Pea / dou miou
Red Cabbage
Sunflower
Alfalfa
Red Amaranth
Coriander
Fenugreek
Basil (green, purple)
Kale
Pak Choy
Spinach
sesame
Chia seeds
Water Cress
Edamame
Fennel
Cucumber
Chard
Stevia
Pumpkin leaves
Sorrel
Chives
Multiple harvests microgreens – cut will regrow
- Corn (Jack Yam’s tip – the white part of shoots are very sweet but the longer the shoot grows, the texture is fibrous)
- Wheatgrass
Most leafy greens can be harvested early to be eaten as microgreens or let to mature to grow into salads.
Thus we can use vegetables and herbs seed for microgreens. For example, any type of kale, basil, pak Choy, amaranth, etc.
Microgreens vs. Sprouts
They are not the same.
Sprouts are germinated seeds and harvested in 48 hours.
Consumed sprouts are mainly the seed, stem, roots, and underdeveloped light color leaves.
Their ideal growing conditions, 100% humidity, and warmth (27C/80F), sometimes carried risks of pathogenic bacteria.
In Europe, consumers are often advised to cook sprouts before eating.
Microgreens are young greens and harvested from 2 to 4 weeks.
Their growing conditions are completely opposite the sprouts conditions – high light and sun exposure, low humidity, and good ventilation.
They have 2 developed cotyledons (seed leaf) and partially developed true leaves.
Usually consumed raw without roots as they are cut above soil level.
A USDA 2012 study on microgreens yields an interesting detail.
The nutritional benefits of microgreens varied when it’s grown in artificial lights and natural strong sunlight.
According to this study, natural sunlight will yield the maximum nutritional content for microgreens.
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