Sunday, 15 May 2016

Spring Gardening: How to Grow Micro Greens Indoors


Micro greens are healthy, delicious, trendy and easy to grow. Armed with this quartet of mighty reasons, it’s no wonder they’ve becoming an unavoidable indoors gardening option. Personally, I was never crazy about trends, but I’ve always liked to be informed. So I tried to grow micro greens myself and it was a total winner. Since early spring is knocking at our doors, I’ve decided to give you the list of four of my favorite micro greens and how to grow them indoors. 

Micro Greens are Delicious and Easy to Grow

Kale is the Heavyweight Health Champion of the World

Before moving to growing micro greens, I’d like to introduce a couple of facts about what they are. These tasty, little green midgets are the stage in the life of a plant that comes after sprouting.

Unlike sprouts that germinate by being soaked and rinsed in water, micro greens grow in soil and love to get a decent amount of quality nutrient solutions for leafy greens from you as their caregiver.

Talking from my own experience in regards to growing micro greens indoors, I found that baby kale is the undisputed No1health champion of all baby and micro greens.   

Bonus Advantages of Growing Baby Lettuce

However, in the category of easy to grow micro greens, baby kale doesn’t stand alone. Another tasty option for decorating your kitchen worktops is to grow some baby lettuce.

Lettuce at its teen stage is young and cheeky, and as I discovered that’s when it has the best flavor. My favorite lettuce varieties are butter head All Year Round and iceberg Larsen, both possessing superb flavor.    

Pretty,good-tasting baby lettuce is fast and easy to grow indoors and I always impatiently expect the moment when the first set of true leaves forms on my plants because that’s how I recognize the harvesting time has arrived.

Arugula is a Major Ingredient in Mesclun Mixes  

One of the most popular vegetable mixes you can grow is mesclun mixes. If someone asks you, they are also known as spring mix or mixed baby greens.

 I simply adore growing them because it’s easy and fast. Last year I tried for months with different cool-season varieties until they met my criteria.

These baby green mixes come in two flavors: a spicy one that includes mustard, leafy radish and cabbage, and a mild one that has its focus on Swiss chard, kohlrabi and red beets.

Regardless of the above said I have to admit that when we talk about mesclun mix ingredients arugula is a micro green I really like to plant indoors. I have two ‘because’ to think so - arugula is a fast grower and it has one of the greatest flavors on earth!

Tricks to Growing Mustard Greens Indoors

In terms of the beautiful world of life-generating, delicious baby greens I also have a word to say about how to grow mustard greens.

Mustard greens grow super fast in cooler weather and it takes around 10-20 days for the variety Red Giant and 20-25 days for the variety Tatsoi to show its baby leafs.

The truth is, guys, that any fast garden food (not to be mixed with the infamous high-calorie, high-fat, high-everything fast food), that is, any quick crop or a veggie that you can eat within several weeks of harvesting, is a huge bonus to home food production. So go for it!

Let me know if you have any concerns with growing micro greens!

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