our microgreens growing guide

Last updated on Wednesday, May 18, 2022. We update this page once a month with the newest data and figures.

about our growing guide

This microgreens growing guide is meant to help you get started in your experimental journey to grow microgreens. The values we share here for our reusable meshes are the ones that we use to grow our microgreens right now. The values we share for coconut coir are the ones we used, up to the point where we switched to reusable meshes.

It’s important to keep in mind that every grow room has different conditions, like humidity, temperature, lights, quality of seeds, etc. So that’s why this is to be used as a starting point for your own microgreens experiments and not as THE truth.

 

growing conditions

Here are some of the details are of our growing conditions:

  • We only use organic seeds
  • We don’t add any nutrients
  • We do not add extra weight during germination
  • We do not do the blackout technique during germination
  • The average temperature in our grow room is 22°C
  • The average humidity in our grow room is 55%

Growing on our reusable meshes

We use two sizes of reusable meshes:

Sowing

Sowing with the reusable meshes is a breeze:

  • Place the mesh on the growing tray.
  • Gently mist the mesh with water. The mesh will stick to the tray and allow the seeds to stick to the mesh. You will notice that the cells of the meshes hold water.
  • We evenly distribute our seeds on the mesh, as we would with any medium.
  • Lastly, we mist the seeds.
  • Cover with a reservoir tray.

Watering

During the germination phase, we spray top-water our microgreens twice a day.

In the light phase, we only bottom-water our microgreens once a day. We add water so that the bottom ridges of the growing tray touch the water. The mesh itself is not in the water.

In the last 24 hours before harvest, we only leave a tiny bit of water in the bottom tray so the harvest isn’t too wet.

Crop Mesh size Sow weight
(grams)		 Soaking
time
(hours)		 Germination
(days)		 Blackout
(days)		 Light
(days)		 Total days
until harvest
(days)		 Average
harvest
weight
(grams)		 Step-by-step guide
Broccoli – Calabrese Fine 22 g – 4 d – 8 d 12 d 115 g guide
Cabbage – Red Fine 30 g – 4 d 2 d 4 d 10 d 95 g
Kohlrabi – Purple Fine 22 g – 4 d – 6 d 10 d 122 g
Mizuna – Red Fine 25 g – 4 d – 6 d 10 d 123 g
Pea – Frilly No mesh 200 g 12 h 4 d – 6 d 10,5 d 314 g
Pea – Speckled No mesh 200 g 12 h 4 d – 6 d 10,5 d 334 g
Radish – China Rose Coarse 35 g – 4 d – 6 d 10 d 203 g
Radish – Daikon Coarse 35 g – 4 d – 6 d 10 d 235 g
Rocket Fine 20 g – 4 d 1 d 5 d 10 d 114 g
Sunflower Coarse 100 g – 4 d 1 d 5 d 10 d 225 g

Growing on coconut coir

We use 8 cups of coconut coir per tray (1 cup = 236 ml).

A weight is placed on top of the top tray during the germination phase. The column “Weight” explains how much weight is placed on top.

Watering

During the germination and black-out phase, the trays are not watered. During the light-phase the trays are bottom watered once a day.

In the last 24 hours before harvest, we don’t water the trays, so the harvest isn’t too wet.

Crop Sow weight
(grams)		 Soaking
time
(hours)		 Weight
(kg)		 Germination
(days)		 Blackout
(days)		 Light
(days)		 Total days
until harvest
(days)		 Average
harvest
weight
(grams)
Broccoli – Calabrese 22 g – 6 kg 4 d 1 d 4 d 9 d 226 g
Cabbage – Red 22 g – 6 kg 4 d 2 d 3 d 9 d 136 g
Kohlrabi – Purple 22 g – 6 kg 4 d 1 d 4 d 9 d 184 g
Mizuna – Red 22 g – 6 kg 4 d 1 d 4 d 9 d 68 g
Pea – Frilly 250 g 12 h 6 kg 4 d – 5 d 9,5 d 364 g
Pea – Speckled 250 g 12 h 6 kg 4 d – 5 d 9,5 d 326 g
Radish – China Rose 35 g – 6 kg 4 d 1 d 4 d 9 d 356 g
Radish – Daikon 35 g – 6 kg 4 d 1 d 4 d 9 d 311 g
Rocket 22 g – 3 kg 4 d 1 d 4 d 9 d 135 g
Sunflower 100 g 12 h 6 kg 4 d 1 d 4 d 9,5 d 441 g

Questions or suggestions?

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions, doubts, feedback or suggestions.

We also started a Facebook group where Microgreen Growers located in Europe can get advice from each other: European Microgreens Growers.