Shoots, Sprouts and Microgreens

Thanks to the Winter Seminar Series at Mother Earth Gardens and the hardworking and humorous Karla and Elizabeth from Bossy Acres, Jamie and I learned how to grow shoots, sprouts and microgreens!

What are microgreens?  They are the first few inches of plant growth.  Why eat them?  They are super flavorful, nutrient dense AND something you can grow inside in the winter! Oh, and they are cute.  So, so cute.

a sampling of microgreens

Pea shoots!  You let these grow a little taller than microgreens, but the process and the concept is the same.  You harvest the plant before it gets too mature and you get a whole bunch of flavor.

Karle was our main teacher for the evening and shared a ton of expertise in the short seminar.

Elizabeth was the Jill-of-all-tasks that evening and showed us how to harvest using the "haircut" method and provided us with all of the delicious samples that could make any gardener a devotee to microgreens.

Sunflowers sprouts! The texture of these sprouts is really satisfying.  Even though they are called sprouts, they are grown in soil, which is different than how most alfalfa and other sprouts are grown.

The sprouts and green are grown really densely in a small amount of soil which cause root mats to form in the soil.  That means you are getting the most you can out of your soil.

So, naturally, I had to try it myself!  Getting started with the seeds, planted really densely.

After 3-4 days of dark, moist sprouting time:

After a few days under the grow lights, they are growing!

As you can see, this is very interesting to Fanny.  Luckily she has kept her curiosity from causing any damage.  She is keeping close watch, but hasn't tried to dig or lay on the greens.  Let's hope she keeps up the good behavior!

In a few more days, I should be ready to harvest!  This has been a fun prelude to the gardening season.  I am also toying with starting some seeds this year, since Paul and I attended a seed starting seminar and learned some of the things we need to change from our previous attempts to have more success the next time around.  Thanks for having such awesome (free!) seminars, Mother Earth Gardens!