The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Growing sunflower microgreens

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.

Sprouting sunflower seeds

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.)



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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.



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It's funny you posted this. I ordered broad seeds last week to sprout and plan to get sunflower seeds too. I love sprouting greens and the two I mentioned above are my favorite so far.
Comment by bleueaugust Mon Dec 18 14:46:56 2017

That should say broccoli seeds not broad. Spell check changed it and I didn't notice. Hope your sprouts were tasty.

JenW~

Comment by bleueaugust Mon Dec 18 14:53:35 2017





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