(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Saturday Morning Garden Blogging - Vol. 19:3 Sprouts! [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-01-21 Or, anyone with a spare canning jar or empty mayonnaise jar can use that. You need a porous top, such as cheesecloth or screen held on with a canning ring, or special tops are made commercially. There are some advantages to the simpler equipment, as you will see. I have a strong preference for sterilizing my jars before any use. What to grow? Some stores will sell you seeds specifically for sprouting, which ensures that you aren’t getting seeds coated with something you really really don’t want to consume. Most organic seeds or seeds you have saved yourself will be fine. I would avoid any pre-inoculated with rhizobium though. Regardless of source, it’s best to disinfect the surface of your seeds with a light bleach solution before sprouting. One tsp bleach to a cup of water, soak for 15 minutes and then rinse well. pretty illustrated brochure from kit then they can go in your container nice and moist. Rinse at least twice daily but don’t leave them covered in water. mung beans radishes on the left, alfalfa on the right. Alfalfa seeds are so small that the kit is really not that suitable for them. They get stuck in the drainage slots and even wash through them. They would work better in the jar. ready to try for a micro salad here. how to do it using a jar seeds starting in a jar. Question is, will they all sprout in roughly the same time frame? I guess I’ll find out. Day two. The cheesecloth lid on the jar is not necessarily the best either, but it catches most errant seeds if I pour carefully. the thing about mung beans is, they have that green seed coat that I would prefer to be rid of. It doesn’t start to slip loose until the sprout gets started, at which point it is tricky to separate it from the seed without breaking the sprout. It takes many washings. Day 2 or 3 is often the time, if one has the patience, to pinch the seed coats loose and discard them. The other difficulty with alfalfa in the trays instead of the jars is that sprouts are geotropic: they are roots and they want to grow DOWN. Since the seeds are mostly stuck in the drainage slots, the sprouts are growing through them. This is vexatious. With considerable difficulty, I remove them from the tray and add them to the jar. All sprouts attempt this trick, but larger seeds are easier to coax back out of the slots with a fork, lifting them. On day 5, my radish sprouts are ready to eat. The alfalfa sprouts are also a good-looking tangle. Salad! So, a week in, my mung bean sprouts started trying to grow leaves, and were immediately turned into chow mein. How do the commercial sprout growers get them so long and plump and no leaves? Daughter suggests I should be growing them in total darkness. I will try that next. Second round, sprouting in darkness: “bean salad” below, mung beans above. 5 days sprouting at one week, bean salad is turning to microgreens and got eaten. darkness only delayed the beginnings of mung bean leaves by 2 or 3 days. So they went in a stir-fry. Still don’t know how to get big long mung bean sprouts. Cold darkness? I think I will try them in a jar next, they seem to get the tips damaged by trying to grow through the slots. The kit may not be worth the money. So, what is happening in your yards and gardens and windowsills this week? [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/21/2139913/-Saturday-Morning-Garden-Blogging-Vol-19-3-Sprouts Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/