Microgreens

@LotusBud I ordered some microgreen seeds a few days ago and already got them… looks like they use tons of seeds for them the more I look into them.

I got a lb of buckwheat, I see a lot of people grow that, a lb of peas, an oz of broccoli and a 1/4 oz of the rainbow chard. I have a little bit of kale, arugla and lettuce I’ve saved myself.

I suppose it’s enough for some trays but the seeds weren’t really cheap, about $35 for what I bought. It sounds like the greens themselves though after they’re grown are expensive to buy. This guy’s growing them in the ground, watch how much seed he uses… shit…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qAuS4p80Mo

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They do sell for a lot. Like $15 a pound here. He soaked those seeds. The woman whose video I watched didn’t soak hers first and it looked like she used a lot less. She was doing it in small flats, though.

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Yeah I saw a guy saying they sell for $20 a lb where he’s at… shit…

The seed soaking probably depends on what kind of seed too, something bigger like a pea seed, definitely soak. Something tiny like lettuce, probably not…

I don’t think I’ve heard the term microgreens before, are they the spirulina plankton of the new millenia?

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They are the soylent green of the new millennium.

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The baby sprouts are supposed to be extra healthy for ya…

I think a lot of it probably ends up as garnish at some fancy restaurant.

I throw a fistful into every salad I make. Superfood!

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I need to build a shelf system for them, you can grow them under fluorescent shop lights. That’s what I used for my lettuce starts. If you put two 4ft lights on each shelf and had 4 shelves 4x2’ you could probably do 16 trays and the energy cost wouldn’t be too bad.

I planted a tray of Dun Peas yesterday, I used around 100 grams/3oz of seed and soaked them for 24 hours first… I spread these out a little better and then covered them with a light covering of peat.

Pea shoots, not planted nearly dense enough…

I was thinking about putting plastic over one of my raised bed tunnels and trying these microgreen trays in it. Need plastic to keep them from getting drowned by rains and keep the bird shit off. But, seed cost is a factor with these, looks like I need about a lb of pea seed for one good tray and that’s $5. So you need to buy in even bigger bulk quantities like 25lbs of seed at a time which runs up into some $$$ too.

Dun Pea micros…

Harvested my pea microgreens, got 153 grams, which is a low yield for a tray, needs about 300 grams of seed per tray I’m thinking. But more than enough for the girlfriend and I to eat with salads, a gallon sized bag full. Gonna start a tray of Buckwheat that I have soaking…

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Oh and these have a nice nutty/pea type flavor and are nice and crunchy, harvested them in like 9 days, could have probably let them go another day or two for more yield but I wanted to chop them before they started growing a bunch of the strings.

Gonna order some sunflower seed today… great vid here…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IV2-xwxNsM

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These things look like they could be a profitable little venture. Selling little bags of green stuff… :slight_smile:

I’ve been ordering seeds from this place… https://www.mvseeds.com/micro-greens-planting-seeds looks like they have about the best price on most things.

I need to setup a shelf system for them that will do a bunch of trays and maybe get a little greenhouse.

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I ordered some more trays, I think this is going to be my setup…

One of these shelves and 4 regular old fluorescent dual tube shop lights… should be able to grow 16 nursery trays on it.

https://www.menards.com/main/storage-organization/garage-outdoor-organizers/freestanding-storage/muscle-rack-trade-mr482472blklb-48-w-x-72-h-x-24-d-5-shelf-metal-shelving-unit/p-1444429581590-c-12652.htm

All I need is some clamshell packaging or poly bags to put them in, slap a sticker on them and start selling bags of green and making some green.

So sorry just keeping my notes here for now…

Started a tray of Buckwheat yesterday.

Started small test containers of
radish - purple container
kale - pie pan
arugula - green container
mesculin mix - red container

Hey send me some of that mescalin when it’s ripe.

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