Grow Your Own: Sprouts and Microgreens

Pea shoots ready for my salad....

So, readers, you may have noticed I haven't written in a few weeks. I'm fortunate enough to have lots of work to do: live streaming cooking sessions with some of my classes, scaling up food production in the garden for local families and to contribute to the aggregated PopUp Food Hub, and working with a team to develop distance learning activities. And I've been cooking. A LOT.

One of my favorite virtual lessons I helped to put together was for growing sprouts and microgreens with what you have around. It all started about a month ago, when I took an online class offered by local microgreen farmers, Little Wild Things, and since then I have been growing and using sprouts on just about everything...

Celery sprouts on lentil soup

Kale microgreens on tacos

In case you'd like to try your hand at growing these inexpensive, easy, and nutrient-dense foods -- they are 4-6 times more nutritious than the full grown plant! -- here's a link to the instructions. 

It only takes about a week from when you plant the seeds to when you are devouring the fruits (sprouts?) of your labors. I found that I had reasonably good luck even with older seeds, like dried peas from 2016 that never got planted in the garden. Even with... popping corn from my pantry! (Who knew you could sprout that? Not me, until a couple of weeks ago!)

Let me know if you try growing some yourself... and of course what delicious dish you used your homegrown microgreens in!