If you’ve got a windowsill, you can grow a variety of sprouts that will add lots of fresh flavor to any salad or stir fry. Once you’ve sprouted the seeds, the clock starts, and they can go badly rather quickly. That’s why the sprouts that you buy in a supermarket can already be half way to stale city before you even bring them home. Growing your own assures fresh sprouts when you want them, and you can’t beat the flavor.
Two trays of mung bean seeds and one tray of a radish mix.
Suppliers of sprouting seeds are easy to find. My two favorites are High Mowing Seeds (www.highmowingseeds.com) and Johnny’s Selected Seeds (www.johnnyseed.com.) They also sell the sprouter, which is a stackable plastic structure that holds several layers of seeds at one time.
Stacked and ready to go.
Just pour in the seeds, stack ’em up, and pour water in the top. The water trickles down through the layers, leaving behind just enough moisture to germinated the seeds.
Water trickles down through the different levels.
Water the seeds a few times a day and in just two days, you’ll see your sprouts come alive. within 4 or 5 days, they’re totally grown, at which time you can bag them and keep them in the fridge, and start a new batch of sprouts.
Sprouts after just one day.
…and after several days.
If you like micro greens, those are pretty easy to grow indoors as well, though you’ll need a windowsill with good sunlight. (Grow lights work well, too.) You place some potting mix in a shallow tray, press the seeds into the potting mix, and then water them.
Seeds ready to sprout (from left to right): sunflower, popcorn, peas.
In a few days, the seeds will start to sprout. when they get a few inches tall, simply snip them with a pair of scissors, and toss them into your salad. When all the seeds have sprouted, the soil and the used seeds can all go into your compost pile or garden.
Sprouting under grow lights.
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