What are the best microgreens to grow indoors? You’ll find that there are many different varieties and many of them taste great. It’s really not that difficult to grow your own micro green plants if you follow some simple rules and have patience.
When most people think of growing vegetables, they automatically think of planting seeds and watching those tiny little leaves come up. But when you are growing your own veggies, you get to select exactly what variety you want, how much you want them grown, when you want them harvested, and how they will taste when they are ready to harvest. This is an excellent way to control the quality of your microgreen crops. And, growing microgreens indoors is really easy, and it doesn’t require much gardening experience at all.
One of the first things you should do before you even plant anything is to purchase a good quality starter soil. Some people make the mistake of just planting their seeds directly into the dirt, but this is not the best way to do it. To start with, your seeds will need to be in a moist, sheltered container so that they can develop properly. The best way to do this is to buy a pre-soaked bag of soil from a garden center or nursery and spread it out on a tray in your choice of location.
Once your microgreens have sprouted, you will need to put them into a protective container or ‘heating pad’. An easy solution to this is to buy a plastic heater pad that will keep your seeds nice and warm. There is actually a heating pad that comes with its own micro green seeds. If you don’t want to spend the money on an expensive heating pad, you could use a small, porous tray, which you can just lay down directly on the ground.
Your next concern will be to decide how many of these microgreens you are going to grow. There are several different recommendations for how many greens to grow per square foot, which means that you may have to experiment a bit to see which method works the best for you. However, I like to keep around four or five plants per foot, because I like to have a good variety of greens on hand.
After your microgreens have sprouted, you will then want to take them outdoors. There are a few different ways to do this, but one of the easiest is to just spread them on top of your existing soil and let them go. For me, this is usually just done within the first 10 days of growing my plants. If you want to, however, you can put a tray under your plants’ trays, which will help speed up the germination process.
Once your micro Greens have sprouted, you will want to start harvesting. You can either use a stake or a cut garden hose to reach the high branches of your micro green plants. From there, simply grab your hand and pull the hose toward yourself, while using both hands to guide the water to your new crop. When you first start harvesting, it will take a bit longer to get all of the water to your greens. However, it will eventually get easier. Just keep trying.
The last step in growing microgreens is to harvest your first crop. It’s best to do this right after the seeds have sprouted, because the germinating process needs to finish before you can start growing. Then, just plant another batch. Harvest again, but this time, don’t apply any fertilizer. Keep doing this until your next harvest, which should be several weeks later.