Welcome to my weekly microgreens update, where I talk about the latest information about my microgreens journey. I started playing with microgreens in March 2021 and found the process fascinating. Now, I am trying to experiment more with microgreens and see where it takes me.
The coconut coir medium “waste” from microgreens
What do I do with the “waste” the microgreens produce? I compost it! Gladly, we have a home compost that can handle the coconut coir medium that holds the microgreens.
Coconut coir, a compostable resource
Coconut coir is a material that can be easily compostable. It is a great addition to your compost because it retains water very well and gives aeration to your soil. So, when you reuse it in your garden, your plants will be pleased. However, coconut coir is not a source of nutrients for your plants, so remember to mix as many greens (grass clippings, coffee grounds, green leaves) and browns (dry leaves, paper, branches) in your compost for a healthy compost balance.
A second life to coconut coir medium “waste.”
We are lucky to have a garden that can handle some big amounts of compost, but it may be too much for our size if we start getting too much coconut coir. Hence, we are considering partnering with a local initiative that could handle our coconut coir “waste” and reuse it to give it yet a new life by creating products from it.
If we can establish a formal collaboration, I will document the process here.
Cleaning the 10×20 trays
Once the microgreens are finished, and it is time to compost the coconut coir, I am left with a dirty 10×20 tray that I need to clean. The process I have been using is straightforward. I hose the tray down with water and expose it to the sun for a couple of hours. I do not use any brush, soap, cleaner, sterilizer, or anything like that. I do not mind that there are some tiny coconut coir crumbs or dried roots.
The sun kills bacteria residues.
The sunlight is a great way to kill bacteria, so I have been using this simple technique to get rid of any residues the microgreen trays may have after I finish cleaning them.
Microgreens I started
Last week, I started arugula and red clover, mainly because I had a low-density problem the last time I sowed them. Things are looking way more promising this time around, so I may have found the correct ratio for the 10×20 trays.
Arugula
The arugula microgreens grew very quickly! In six days, they were already exposed to the light! And we will be able to eat them in no time too. The ratio of arugula seeds I used for the 10×20 tray was 25g. The results are great, and I wonder if I can push it to 30g.
Red clover
The red clover microgreens are slightly slower than the arugula, so I need to be more patient with the results. They remind me of the broccoli microgreens because they have a similar timeline. So far, they are growing well and strong, and we will enjoy them in no time. I used a 25g per 10×20 tray ratio, and it seems to be working well. We’ll see once the seedlings are a bit more mature.
Microgreens that were already there
Broccoli
Broccoli microgreens have become a staple in the sense that I’ve grown them many times by now, and I feel very confident about the process by now. I am documenting the process day by day to have a clear way of knowing if things are going as expected in the future.
Mustard
The mustard microgreens had problems because of the heavyweight I put on the top tray when growing them. Hence, they ended up giving up and didn’t survive, unfortunately. I want to restart the process with the mustard seeds and see if I can make it right.
Red cabbage
After two weeks of sowing, we had a lot of red cabbage on the tray, so I decided to harvest everything and put it on the fridge to avoid the microgreens from going bad. It gave us about 250g that we ate within a week.
Next microgreens
This week I started broccoli and red cabbage microgreens once again. I have done broccoli microgreens quite a lot by now, and I want to see if I can make a successful crop again by following my previous steps to the detail. For red cabbage microgreens, I want to start documenting the whole process day by day, so I have a bulletproof guide next time.
Thank you for your time, and see you next week!
Dani
