Growing Microgreens at Home

I am so excited this is happening!! Stay tuned to see the progression as these greens grow. They were added to the soil on Thursday. I should have edible microgreens in a week. I chose to start with Sunflower and Buckwheat seeds. They're inexpensive and nutritional powerhouses. Once I have microgreens, Ill eat them as snacks, on sandwiches, salads, in smoothies and juices and in some energizing raw soups.

To get started you'll need 
3 aluminum pie pans, with a few holes poked in the bottom for drainage
organic potting soil
1/4 c buckwheat, soaked over night & sprouted for 1-2 days
1/4 c sunflower seeds, soaked overnight & sprouted 1-2 days
spray bottle, to mist with water

Sunflower Seeds- buy raw, unsalted, hulled seeds from the bulk department at your local health food store. You'll have to pick through these because there are lots of broken seeds. Broken seeds won't sprout, so you'll need to sort through and pick out all the intact seeds, then sprout those. To sprout, soak the seeds overnight. Rinse them well in the morning and sprout for 1-2 days in your sprouting device. Once a tail forms on most of the seeds, lay them on top of an inch of soil, in the aluminum pie pan, and spread them out so that they aren't piled on top of each other. Mist them well with water.

Buckwheat- buy hulled, un-toasted buckwheat from the bulk department. The soaking water from these seeds gets super thick as they produce a lot of mucous-y fluid when they release their enzyme inhibitors.So just make sure you rinse them reaalllllyyy well. Soak them over night, then sprout for 1-2 days, and set on top of an inch of organic potting soil in an aluminum pie pan. Spread them out and mist them very well with water. You'll notice pretty quickly that the buckwheat sprouts grow little tiny hairs all over them.. it looks like mold, but stay calm.. this is normal :)

Once your sprouts are on the soil, you'll need to stack the pans and keep them in a cool dark place. You stack them so that the sprouts are making contact with the soil. So, I placed an additional empty pie pan on top, with a light weight in it. They'll stay like this for about 3 days until they start to shoot up, then they get sunlight.
STAY TUNED!

Sunflower sprouts in soil Day 1

 

Sunflower sprouts in soil Day 4

 Sunflower Microgreens Day 5

 Sunflower Microgreens Day 6

 Sunflower Microgreens Day 7

Buckwheat sprouts in soil Day 1

Buckwheat sprouts in soil day 4

 Buckwheat Microgreens Day 5

 Buckwheat Microgreens Day 6