Growing sunflower microgreens
It may be too late in
the year to put in the full fall garden I crave, but there are always
experiments to be undertaken. For example --- growing sunflower
microgreens inside!
A little internet
research suggests that the
tasty tidbits we purchased at the farmer's market are a lot like sprouts...but
not quite. To replicate our experiment, start with raw oilseed
sunflower seeds --- the black kind with no stripes, often intended for
birdseed. Soak a handful for multiple days (changing the water every
twelve hours), then spread the barely sprouted seeds in a seed-starting
flat atop a thin layer of potting soil. Finally, it's just a matter of
waiting for the cotyledons to emerge.
We put our flat on a
heat mat for the first couple of days to hurry things along. After
that, though, I felt like the seeds were getting too hot. So I turned
off the mat and let them linger at room temperature, watering every day
or two but keeping the humidity dome in place most of the time. (I did
tend to air them out once a day, especially when the heat mat was
turned on.)
It took about a week and
a half from first soak to first harvest, and I expect to keep cutting
microgreens at the soil line for up to a week after that. When this
flat is done, the used potting soil and roots will go in the compost
pile --- a bit wasteful, but not terribly bad since the organic matter
will all end up back in the garden.
And then it's time to start soaking seeds for another flat. It sure is
nice to have something fresh and green growing inside while the snow
flies outside our trailer!
(This experiment has been supported by David Hicks. Thanks, David! If anyone wants to join our monthly donor program, you can sign up near the bottom of the page here.)
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
That should say broccoli seeds not broad. Spell check changed it and I didn't notice. Hope your sprouts were tasty.
JenW~