John Myers
It’s Sunday and you have an appetite for fresh greens? No problem: You’ll find what you’re looking for on your window sill in the kitchen or on your balcony, regardless of shop opening hours. Microgreens grow in the smallest of spaces and still offer full plant power!
Small but mighty: Microgreens
Healthy raw food is trendy and many people want to grow lettuce, herbs, and sprouts themselves. If there wasn’t the question of space… For everyone who doesn’t own a garden or a bed in a common area, there is now a great solution: Microgreens! The small green is grown from the normal seeds of vegetables and herbs such as broccoli, pak choi, radishes, beetroot, cress, dill, and basil, legumes such as peas and beans as well as wheatgrass and amaranth are also suitable. However, it is harvested shortly after seedlings have formed. Once the little plant has formed cotyledons and one or two more leaves, the time has come for fresh enjoyment. Microgreens are great to use as ingredients in raw food recipes and as a healthy garnish for all types of food.
Real Superfoods!
The vegetable greens in mini format taste milder than in full-grown form. If you don’t like cabbage, you might get a taste for it here. When it comes to nutrients, the little ones are in no way inferior to the big ones, on the contrary: in relation to the low weight, the concentration of vitamins, minerals and trace elements is even higher. The mini-green can therefore rightly be called a superfood. If you want to grow microgreens yourself, you don’t need any special equipment at first. A deep plate or shallow containers that you fill with some seed or compost soil are sufficient as a seed tray. The seeds are distributed densely, pressed a little and everything is moistened with a spray bottle – done. Regularly moistened with water, the seeds germinate within a few days and after about two weeks there will be fresh green on your plate. Incidentally, some microgreens even thrive without soil: Instead, you bed the seeds on coconut fiber, nutrient substrate, and even kitchen paper. It is best to always follow the instructions on the seed packet.
This is how microgreens can be used in the kitchen
How you enjoy the microgreens is entirely up to your imagination. You should not heat the tender green too much, as this would result in the loss of valuable ingredients. For raw enjoyment, simply add the microgreens to smoothies, mix into salads, sprinkle as a topping on soups, eat as a sandwich topping or refine a Buddha bowl with them. Spicy plants such as radish or mustard can also be used wonderfully as a spice. Spice up the herb quark for your boiled potatoes with it! It is best to start with one or two fast-growing and easy-care varieties such as cress and lettuce and then feel your way to legumes or wheatgrass – it’s worth it!
The term microgreens should not be confused with greens. This is vegetable powder for refining smoothies and bowls. If you feel like going green, you can also try barley grass. It can be used as a topping for soups or as a salad ingredient. Also read about the effect of barley grass.
