garden therapy » Sprouts

Gardening for Your Kitchen Table: Sprouts

Stevie — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:55:57 +0000

I wasn’t into gardening in the 70’s (unless you count eating dirt while running around my yard in diapers) but those of my friends who were a bit older back then remember growing their own sprouts in a jar or a basket, forgetting about them on a windowsill and that memorable odour of neglected, fuzzy sprouts.

Well if that’s how you remember sprouting, then welcome to the new millennium. For Christmas / Hanukkah a few years ago, I was the lucky recipient of a Fresh Life Automatic Sprouter and it’s been making regular appearances each winter as the garden is asleep. This lovely contraption has a water basin below a tray for your seeds and sprinklers that automatically turns on and off at some random intervals that I have yet to figure out. All you need to do is change the water in the basin daily, find a nice spot with some indirect light and in 4-6 days you’ll be eating crunchy fresh greens right from your tabletop.

Sprouts are nutritious little mini-plants full digestible energy, bioavailable vitamins, amino acids, minerals, enzymes, proteins and photochemicals. All that good stuff is locked up within the seeds just waiting for you to give it the start needed to create a plant. For more information on sprouting go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprouting.

Needless to say, many of us in cold climates are lacking nutrients in the winter. Fresh vegetables aren’t growing in our gardens anymore, our pantry and freezers are emptying of the previous year’s harvest and we are resorting (ugh!) to buying our fresh produce shipped in from warmer climates. That combined with the gardening itch that starts ramping up after Christmas for me, got me into sprouting.

So far I have sprouted alfalfa, fenugreek, red clover, radish, broccoli, beets, spelt berries, mung beans, lentils, sunflower seeds, and I am currently working on a batch of green peas. The results have been varied. My favourite is the mix of alfalfa, fenugreek, red clover, radish that has the right mix of flavour and spice for salads and sandwiches. The mung beans were hard to do and was an eye-opener for the unnatural conditions required to make those crunchy and sweet mung bean sprouts we get from China. The lentils have a delicious nutty sweet flavour perfect for adding a crunch to soups, and the sunflower seeds are best grown as micro greens (seeds jam-packed in a soil-less mixture) rather than in the sprouter.

{From left: sprouting spelt berries, sunflower seeds, and alfalfa / radish / red clover mix; the Fresh Life Automatic Sprouter; the whirling sprinker is a hit with the under 4 crowd.}

As I was organizing all of my packets of seeds for the garden this coming season, I started feeling overwhelmed with the idea that I could very possibly be a garden hoarder. I have a lot more seeds than I can possibly grow this year, or any year for that matter. It seems reasonable then to sprout the suckers now and eat them before I have to call A&E and register for the show.

Link ups for this project here.

PS: I buy my seeds from West Coast Seeds but you can also find them online here.

Sprout, Avocado and Cream Cheese Sandwich

Stevie — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 07:45:21 +0000

This past week I have been pretty heavy into the holiday parties yet I still made time to harvest my sprouts and make myself a decidedly summery sandwich: avocado, cream cheese and a mixture of lentil, radish, broccoli, red clover, and alfalfa sprouts. This powerhouse of nutrition was just the thing to keep me whooping it up holiday style, and it makes a much healthier hangover meal!

Growing Sunflower Sprouts Indoors

Stevie — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 03:41:25 +0000

Tis the season for micro greens and sprouts. The weather outside is frightful freakin’ cold – the coldest on record in 25 years. Too cold to sprout seeds outdoors, even under cover, so I’ve brought the operation indoors.

A few years ago I gleefully ripped open my festively-wrapped automatic sprouter and started the winter tradition of growing fresh greens on my kitchen table in the less pleasant months. There are many seeds that benefit from spouting in this manner (hydroponically) like radish, alfalfa, lentil, clover, and many more. Sunflowers however, do much better when grown as micro-greens: seeds that are sprouted in soil and harvested as seedlings.

Indoor Gardening Project: Sunflower Micro Greens

Equipment:

makeshift mini greenhouse
organic black oil sunflower seeds
clean potting soil

Directions:

No fancy equipment need for this high-brow salad trimming. I used a biodegradable plastic dome (make sure it’s food safe) from a pre-cooked organic chicken: a prefect soil tray and greenhouse. You could also use a milk jug cut in half, a cake tray, or whatever you can imagine that would create a mini greenhouse.

Add about an inch of clean, rich soil to the bottom tray, and spread sunflower seeds over the top. I generously cover the soil with seeds not letting any of them overlap. Cover those seeds with just enough soil to hold moisture on them and put in a warm place out of direct sunlight. The top of the fridge is a great place to sprout them. In 1-4 days when the seeds have sprouted, remove the dome and get them to a bright windowsill. Don’t bother using a grow light or worrying if the sun isn’t shining every day. Who cares if they are leggy?! You just get more yummy sprout to eat.

The micro greens are ready to harvest when the mighty seedlings push up the soil (which helps to knock off the black husks) and grow two fat seed leaves. Snip the seedlings at the base and wash in a salad spinner. The nutty flavour is a fresh treat in the colder months and it only takes about 7 days from seed to table.

A great winter project for those days when you want to eat a salad and imagine yourself in Hawaii.

Radishlings on Toast and Egg

Stevie — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:10:13 +0000

My radishes are growing so well under the umbrella greenhouses that I started thinning them this morning. Not one to throw away fresh greens, I topped my breakfast with the culled radishlings. With all the pepper in me now, I think I’ll go do some gardening!