Micro green growing at home
By: Ugavo Ane Jivo
Tags: Gardening, Grow Your Own Food, Plants, Horticulture

By Anuj Mohan Bulsara

Seeds

Seeds that are easy to work with to grow microgreen are Fenugreek, Amaranth Red, Mustard, Spinach, Broccoli, Cabbage, Coriander and Dill.

Container

One can use anything that can hold minimum 4 cm of seed growing medium layer.

Paper box can be used to grow microgreen.

For any other type of container holes must be made at bottom of the container.

From 29 cm x 29 cm (A4 size) paper square box of the size 10 cm (L) x 10 cm (W) x 4 cm (H) can be made easily using origami.

Cut out 6 cm x 6 cm of the box bottom leaving 2 cm as it is from each side.

Take two 20 cm x 10 cm synthetic cloth piece and place them in the box perpendicular to each other, forming PLUS + sign. This will prevent direct contact of soil with paper. Due to this the Box life gets extended. Acrylic Felt is suggested as synthetic cloth. Woolen felt also works very well. Any other synthetic cloth around 2mm thick can be used. Thin cloth can also be folded and used. Other materials are not very effective.

Paper used to make box

Card paper size: A4 size

Card paper quality: 70 GSM (grams per square meter) card paper

Cloth used : Acrylic felt 2 mm thick

Seed growing medium

Plain soil, Charcoal Flakes, Burnt Rice Husk, Fine Sand and Vermiculite are easy to work with.

Dry leaves crushed to very small size, Coir fibers, tea leaves leftover after preparing tea and cocopeat can also be used.

One or more of above mentioned material can be mixed in various proportions to make Seed Growing Medium.

Seed growing medium ingredients

Mix Wood Charcoal Flakes 2 parts and 1 parts vermiculite powder by volume

Seed growing medium

Seed Paper

Take tissue paper of the size 10 cm x 10 cm

leave 5 mm from all four sides and draw 10 horizontal and 10 vertical lines each 1 cm away from other. This will create 1 cm x 1 cm grid on it with 100 cross points

Take matchstick or any other object having around 2 mm tip point. dip tip point in the fevicol craft adhesive to cover the tip of matchstick with glue.

Make glue dots on one line of grid intersections having 10 cross points

Use tweezer and place seeds on the glue dots, repeat this for all lines, 100 seeds will be on paper each at 1 cm x 1 cm distance.

Glue quantity applied to paper should be just sufficient to hold the seed avoid putting big drops of glue on paper. Sticking seed on paper is to ensure proper spacing of seeds when they get laid on seed growing medium in the container.

The seed paper is ready for using when glue dries.

Allow it to dry out for 6 hours

Tissue paper is used to make this seed paper.

Fill the box completely with Seed Growing Medium

On pressing it lightly it will go down by about 1 cm

Saturate seed growing medium with water. Avoid pouring water on box for extended life.

Now place seed paper on top of seed growing medium.

Spray mist (fine drops) of water on it.

Sprinkle seed growing medium on seed paper to make thin layer on top of seeds. This is to cover all seeds, do not deep bury the seeds. Then spray some water to moisten the top layer covering the seeds.

Paper box filled with Seed Growing Medium Seed paper laid on Box filled with SGM

Seed paper wetted by spraying water Ready Microgreen Growing Paper Box

Place container in a place that recieves indirect sunlight. 1 hour to 2 hours direct morning sunlight is preferred.

Spray water once a day to keep medium around and under seed moist. Avoid over watering. Try slow watering 10 ml at intervals of 5 seconds. Use syringe, start watering from center of the container then water at all four sides one by one.

Methi — Fenugreek — should germinate in 3 to 4 days

Palak — Spinach — should germinate in 4 to 6 days

Suva- Dill — should germinate in 6 to 8 days

Dhana — Coriander — should germinate in 7 to 10 days

Cabbage, Broccoli — should germinate in 6 to 8 days

Mustard — — should germinate in 4 to 6 days

Lal Math — Amaranth Red — should germinate in 3 to 4 days