Hello and a very warm welcome back to the Kellogg Garden channel. I'm your host,
Resh Gala, a kitchen garden consultant from New Jersey Growing Zone 6b. In today's episode,
I'm going to show you how to grow microgreens from seed to harvest in one week but before we
get started I would love for you to subscribe to our channel and hit the notification bell
so you don't miss another great gardening video from Kellogg Garden again, so let's get started.
So what exactly are microgreens? Well, as you can see right here,
microgreens are essentially seedlings that are harvested at a very young stage,
pretty much when they're at the cotyledon stage and they're considered superfoods by
many because they are packed with nutrients like vitamins and minerals and are very good for you.
Now, you might ask me, what kind of microgreens can I grow at home? Right here, the ones that I'm
growing, are the basic salad microgreens which consist of a mix of broccoli, kale, and radish
seeds. So these are packed with nutrients and some of the other ones that are really really popular
are peas. People love pea shoots as well and they're consumed when they're about two to
three inches tall and basil is another popular one you can just snip that off and put it in a nice
caprice salad or a tomato mozzarella salad in the midst of winter and still have a taste of summer.
Another popular one that people tend to not enjoy but rather consume is wheatgrass
and it's supposed to have many health benefits and that is primarily used for juicing.
Now for the fun part, let's grow some microgreens. So here's what you'll need and this is a checklist
I'm giving you. So either you can grow with me, which I hope you do, or you can grab a
pen or pencil and a piece of paper and make a note of all these things. So the first thing,
of course, are seeds and the ones that I'm using are dun peas because pea shoots are one of my
favorites. They're very sweet and tender and I like them and they're quite popular so I would
highly recommend that but if you have any other seeds as well lying at home including your chia
seeds give them a try, you never know until you grow. So you need seeds. The second thing
is some growing medium. Now, here what I've done is I've just used some plain old seed starting mix
that has been pre-moistened with some water. Now, you don't want it to be soaking wet,
you just want it to be like a brownie consistency. So, I would highly recommend
getting some sort of a container that you mix it in, pre-moisten it, and then transfer it into your
final container. The next thing, of course, are containers and here you can get highly creative.
You don't need to spend lots of money on going and buying fancy trays. I mean, I do have this,
I would recommend if you want to you can use your seed starting tray like this black one right here.
However, in this instance with the microgreens, all I used was an 8 inch foil pan and I just
poked some holes at the bottom. You can just use a pencil and just go. So I have 3 holes here and
make sure that you have a little tray to catch the water so you don't want your counter or your table
getting messy. So you can use that. Another option is to use and recycle your containers in which you
buy fruits like strawberries and blueberries and they already have some holes at the bottom. Now,
holes are not a necessity because you're harvesting your microgreens so quickly, in a week,
so it's not a must. You can always water with a spray bottle but if you do have them that's okay.
Just make sure you have something at the bottom to catch the soil and the water if it does drain out.
So, you have your containers, you have your seeds, you have your soil, now the last thing
that you might need are some grow lights. Now, this is optional, you don't have to have them,
but I would recommend that you do because I like my microgreens a little bit thick and bushy
but even if you put them by a windowsill and catch some good sunlight they might be a little
bit leggy but you're harvesting them at a very young stage so it's not really going to matter.
So now that we have all our supplies; we have our seeds, we have our soil, we have our containers,
let's get started. So here it is, I'm just taking a little container and I'm going to fill it up
with some of my seed starting mix. Now, one of the things I forgot to mention is that you can
totally use coconut coir as well, the thing is, ideally you just want to use whatever is cheaper.
It doesn't matter. I'm just using what I have. I have some seed starting mix, so that's what
I'm using but you can use coconut coir as well. Just avoid using potting mix or your garden soil
because that might be too heavy for the plants and they might also catch some disease,
so that's not ideal and recommended. So here you can see, I have just filled up my
tray with some seed starting, pre-moistened seed starting mix right here and I'm going to pour in
my seeds and what you want to do is you want to sprinkle them quite heavily and you don't need to
fill them all the way at the top. If you have your container, you can just fill up about two inches
with soil and that should be good enough because you don't want all that dirt getting into your
mouth. So I'm going to sprinkle pretty heavily and cover these, cover the soil quite well and
there you have it. Let me give you a little peek. So you can see I'm just going to spread
these around so I know that they have gotten to every corner of the soil and just push them down
a slight bit because you do want that contact with the growing medium. So as you can see,
this is what it looks like now
and now all I'm going to do is cover it with some soil again
or rather seed starting mix. So I know it looks a little bit like a
baking or a cooking show, which it might be in a week once you have your microgreens ready.
Now you just want to cover, just not too heavily, just about the top I would say half an inch or so
with soil and make sure you press it down lightly so there's some good contact of the seeds
with the seed starting mix or the soil and there you have what looks like a
brownie mix, ready to go into the oven, except all you're going to do is you're going to cover this.
Now if I had multiple trays I would just stack them one on top of the other
like so. If you have another tray you would just put it on top and let that pressure be it's fine
and you want to check daily for germination and once you have a significant amount of germination
that's when you take them off and hit them with the grow lights and usually in this case I've seen
in most plants, it's typically on day three, is when there is a significant amount of germination.
If you find that your soil is drying out very fast then feel free to take a spray bottle and spray it
with some water on top and when you have a lot of plants and they've grown pretty big like this one
right here you can just take a tray a shallow tray, like this, like what you do when you seed
start for your tomato plants, for example, fill it with water and have your trays sit in them for
an hour or so, so they can suck up all that moisture and the roots are nourished as well. So
it's that easy, that's all I have to do. I'm just going to leave these, maybe I can even leave them
right here and wait for a week and peas might take a little bit longer, maybe about 10 to 11 days
but if you're growing kale or your other brassicas broccoli,
radish you should be able to harvest in definitely a week and I hope you give it a try.
All right, so let's tackle some commonly asked questions about growing microgreens. Number one, how do I
know when to water my microgreens and it is quite easy. All you have to do is lift up the tray in
which your microgreens is growing. If it feels extremely lightweight it means it's time to water,
if it doesn't then just let it be. The way to water is either using a spray bottle or if you
have holes punched at the bottom of your tray or your pan in which your microgreens are growing
then just place the microgreens tray in another tray that has been filled with water
and then the soil will just suck up the moisture and nourish the roots. A second
question that I get asked very often is once I harvest my microgreens will they grow back?
The unfortunate answer is no they won't and the reason being when you harvest them you're actually
cutting them below the growing tip and therefore the microgreens are not going to grow back and the
last question that I get asked the most I would say is can I reuse the soil? I wish I could say
yes but unfortunately, you cannot reuse the soil and the reason is because when growing microgreens
you sprinkle seeds very heavily on top of your soil or your growing medium and so they tend
to become very root bound very quickly. As you can see, let me see if I can gently raise these,
the roots are quite tangled up. Can you see that right here?
So it's nearly impossible to reuse the soil. So I would say, unfortunately, no you shouldn't.
So now that you've grown your microgreens what are you going to do with them? Well, one of my
favorite ways is to put them in smoothies or green juices. They are a superfood, right,
packed with nutrients, so why not? Another popular way is of course to sprinkle them on your salads
and pizzas as well. So my kids love doing that. I just get a whole tray, put it on our dinner
table, and have the kids use scissors and harvest it. So the easiest way, let's do it right now,
and these have been growing for a week so they're ready to harvest. You can have them grow a little
longer too that's not a problem but this is at a good stage. So all you do is just place
them over the tray and then snip and give them sort of a haircut and kids love doing this too
so I would highly encourage you to have them get involved when you're growing microgreens at home
and lastly I just wanted to recap as to how you can grow your microgreens. The only thing that you
need some seeds, a growing medium, containers, and of course grow lights are optional. So I
hope you give this a try and if you do I would love to hear from you in your comments below.
This is it for today, I hope to see you again soon. Don't forget again to subscribe to the
Kellogg Garden channel and this is Resh Gala signing off, see you next time bye.