by D.G., Survival Blog:

(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.)

MICROGREENS THAT I HAVE GROWN

What follows are descriptions of some of the greens I have grown so far with a few observations I’ve made along the way. If you are planting trays several times a week, you’ll have overlapping harvest periods, and this gives you flexibility in terms of the different combinations you can make at dinner time.

BASIL

Basil grows more slowly, at least initially, but is well worth the wait. I sowed a couple 1020 trays more sparsely than I would normally, and let them grow for a full month. They went well beyond the microgreen stage and put on two to three sets of ‘true’ leaves (see Figure 15). I remain impressed that they were able to thrive for so long in only about ¾ inch of soil. We harvested both trays at once, and my wife made more than a quart of pesto from the foliage. That’s a real treasure if you can’t get to a grocery store.

BLACK OIL SUNFLOWER

Sunflower could have been a contender for our favorite but, so far, we haven’t had any good seed. Both trays I grew had to be thrown out due to mold. The germination rate was abysmal. But my curiosity wouldn’t let me give up right away. I beat the mold back with a spayed mixture of hydrogen peroxide and water, then allowed the couple dozen plants which germinated to reach the harvest stage. They are robust in terms of size with thick stems and thick, waxy leaves, and the flavor is nutty and very similar to the flavor of sunflower seeds.

Reading reviews online from several sunflower seed vendors I noticed that there were several negative reviews for sunflowers in the spring of this year and, knowing that most Black Oil Sunflower comes from Italy, my guess is that there was a bubble somewhere in the supply line. It’s likely that huge quantities of this seed had to sit somewhere in suboptimal environmental conditions for much longer than normal, and that this led to the mold.

Like me, you may be tempted to purchase the Black Oil seeds sold as bird feed. Proceed with caution. The seed may be treated to prevent sprouting.

BUCKWHEAT

Buckwheat is one of the larger seeds, but I have grown it without pre-soaking and have had no problems. Like radish it is tall with larger than average leaves. The flavor is mildly tangy. The hulls tend to hang on and you will likely find you have to remove some by hand around harvest time. One way to motivate them to let go is to gently drag your palm across the tops of the plants once or twice a day. If you have pets you will already be familiar with this behavior.

There is a health concern related to Buckwheat. (Please see “Health Risks”, below.)

LENTIL

Being of a frugal bent, early on in this process I began to wonder if ordinary seeds as food stuffs in the local grocery store could be used as microgreens. I tried lentils from Target and they grew just fine. They make a very thin and tall sprout, with short thin leaves. The flavor was, for me, unimpressive. Everyone else in my family says they are good. For that reason, and because I am a tightwad, I continue to grow them.

A word of caution about growing from seed which is not sold as microgreen seed. Dried beans are sold with the assumption that you will be boiling them. I read that legumes may have salmonella on them. If there were germs on the beans, boiling would solve the problem but would kill the seed. So, before I pre-soaked these lentils, I washed them well with soapy water.

There are other grocery store seeds I plan to try, like Mung bean, but this leads me to raise another point of caution. Just because you can sprout it and eat it doesn’t mean you should. Kidney bean sprouts, for example, contain a toxin that may give you nausea and diarrhea. I will elaborate this advice below where I address health concerns.

LETTUCE

Like basil, lettuce is a good candidate to grow past the microgreens stage. Shown here is a tray of Romaine that grew for about a month (see Figure 16).   I had sown it too thin, so I just let it take advantage of the elbow room and was pleasantly surprised by its luxuriant growth.

MUSTARD

A little of this microgreen goes a long way. It can be downright hot for some palates. I no longer grow a full 1020 tray of mustard, opting instead to sow some along with another seed type, or growing some in a smaller tray. You can get creative mixing seed types in a single crop so long as they will develop at about the same rate and to about the same size.   Radish would be, for example, a poor choice for combining with mustard, because it grows so much more quickly, and so much taller.

The first time I grew mustard, I presoaked the seeds, as recommended by some. But when they soak, they become mucilaginous and very difficult to spread evenly across the tray. Since then I have direct-sown these and, while it might slightly increase the time required for germination, it hasn’t presented a problem. I only soak the larger seeds.

The first time we had the mustard greens we put them on corned beef sandwiches with mayonnaise, pickles, and my wife’s homemade bread. We loved it so much that we now coordinate our sandwiches around out mustard harvests.

PEA

As I’ve already mentioned, these were the first greens I grew. Technically, microgreens are grown to the developmental stage at which the first set of leaves, called cotyledons, appear. But most folks grow these considerably longer. By the time I harvest peas, they have put on additional leaves as well as tendrils. I’m not enthusiastic about their flavor. It brings to mind the damp clippings that adhere to the underside of my lawn mower’s carriage. But the rest of my family likes them. They add considerable volume to the salad and, when mixed in with more flavorful greens, I stop thinking about yardwork.

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