GROWING SPROUTS

“Sprouts are 10 to 30 times more nutritious than the best vegetables because they are baby plants in their prime. At this stage of their growth they have the greatest concentration of nutrients then at any other part in their life. Sprouts are highly digestible and release their nutrients easily due to their delicate cell walls and abundance of enzymes.”  —quote from some guy

SPROUTS VS MICROGREENS VS BABYGREENS

• sprouts are seeds that have germinated and have grown a tad.
• microgreens are the next stage of growth, like a baby plant, where people eat the shoots and beginnings of the first pair of leaves.
• baby greens are the leaves of more mature plants.

YOU WANT TO GROW IN A TRAY IF:

• You want to grow taller microgreens
• You are growing a seed with a husk and are not juicing them.
• You care about the microgreens/sprouts growing straight and looking nice.
• You only want to eat the “shoot” and don’t want to eat the roots or seed
• You don’t mind a bit of extra work when rinsing, harvesting and cleaning.

YOU WANT TO USE JARS IF:

• You are practical and lazy like Josh.
• You don’t care if the sprouts or shoots are squiggly and not straight.
• You are going to eat the roots and seed part in addition to the shoot.
• You are growing a seed with a husk and will be putting it through a juicer. (Husks go through a juicer just fine, although I’ve only done this with buckwheat)

WHERE TO BUY SEEDS

I buy seeds from Mumm’s Sprouting Seeds: http://sprouting.com/

• supplying sprouting seeds for over 35 years.
• organic and non-gmo
• based in Canada (Saskatchewan)
• great prices
• free shipping over $25

In general, it’s important to get sprouting seeds vs regular planting seeds.
Sprouting seeds are made to a higher standard—higher germination rate and since they are sold for the purpose of being eating, they must be cleaner.

WHERE TO BUY JARS:

“I like, big, jars and I can not lie…”
…you can make a lot of sprouts for less work with big jars, but it depends on how much you want to be eating.  I’d almost always recommend big jars.  You can always keep them in the fridge for about a week and eat away at it slowly.

The ones I have are from Canadian Tire:
https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/search-results.html?q=Bernardin 6 x 1.9L
They’re big 1.9L jars by Bernardin and come in packs of 6 for $22.
They have many other sizes like 1L or 500ml too:
https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/search-results.html?q=canning%20jars

MESH LIDS

You’ll want to get lids with screens to rinse and drain the jars easily.
Get them for about $2 USD each from aliexpress.com:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/For-Wide-Mouth-Durable-Lid-Kit-Stainless-Steel-Sprouting-Jar-Curved-Mesh-For-Sprouts-Growing-Healthy/32962343440.html

INSTRUCTIONS ONCE YOU’VE GOT SEEDS, JARS AND LIDS:

Assuming you’re practical and lazy like me and want to go with jars…

1. Add seeds.
   Sprouts expand a lot from seed to sprout. With the 1.9L jars, I put enough seeds to cover the bottom of the jar, then I double that amount. From the side, it looks like the seeds fill the jar about 1cm. It looks like a tiny amount, but when they’re fully grown, the jar ends up being so packed full that nothings moves when I shake the jar.
2. Put the mesh lids on the jar. You won’t need to take the lids off again until you’re ready to eat them.
3. Soak the seeds for the recommended amount of time; usually between 4 to 12 hours.
4. After that, drain the water out. Keep the lid on. Put a bunch of water in pouring right through the mesh lid, swirl it around to rinse the seeds and drain.
5. When it stops dripping or drips very slowly, lay the jar horizontally on the counter. Be sure that seeds are not blocking the mesh and that air can flow in and out of the jar freely. I like to shake the seeds around to scatter them around the jar before I lay the jar down.
6. Rinse the seeds about twice a day until they’re ready to eat.

MOULD?

With either jars or trays, there is the risk that mold will develop. To prevent this, rinse well/often and keeping the temperature around 20C is recommended. Sprouts/microgreens like growing in temperatures that are comfortable to us, but it’s good to keep it around 20C. I tried to grow sunflower shoots, but they didn’t grow so well. I think it was too cold for them; the temperature was about 17 on average at the time. I suspect sunflowers like it a lot warmer.  The chances of mould are much higher with trays since it’s harder to rinse them thoroughly.

SOME NOTES ABOUT TRAYS

Some people grow in trays with a growing medium like soil, coconut coir or growing mats.  The main purpose of the growing medium is to give the seeds something to latch onto and helps to retain moisture.  Not really sure if the seeds pull any additional nutrients from the growing medium or not, if it were soil.  I found and tried some sprout trays that allow the seeds to grow on what looks like a rectangle strainer with a second tray of shallow water just beneath and they seemed to grow really long shoots just fine, just from the nutrients stored within the seed.  These trays look like the ones in the image above and were purchased from amazon or aliexpress.  If you wanted to get extra fancy and try to get the most nutrition with trays with the least amount of hassle… I would stick with the plastic soil-less trays and add an organic fertilizer to the water in the lower tray called Ocean Solution.  Apparently, fruits and vegetables that grow in a nutrient rich environment also taste better.

ENJOYING YOUR SPROUTS/MICROGREENS

Putting them in the fridge slows down their growth.  It’s still ok to give them a rinse once every other day to keep them fresher.  They seem to keep well for about a week in the fridge.

• eat them fresh – straight from the jar, in salads, as garnish, side dish, chopped up with some oil and salt
• juice them – in a juicer with other fruits/vegetables
• stir fry them – although you destroy all the good enzymes in them when you cook them. =(

Good luck!
–Josh