Microgreens Seeds: From Tray to Plate in Days

Microgreens get lumped in with sprouts, and they're not the same crop. Sprouts are germinated seeds eaten whole, root and all, usually rinsed in a jar of water in the dark. Microgreens go into a growing medium, get light, and get cut above the soil line once the seedling has its cotyledons plus the first hint of true leaves. Different stage, different plant, and it tastes it.

Sprouts, Microgreens and Baby Leaf: Where the Line Sits

Sprouts spend their whole life damp and warm, which is why food-safety advice around them is stricter and why we'd rather grow microgreens for anything going on a plate raw. Microgreens sit in coir or shallow-tray compost, get cut with scissors between 7 and 21 days, and the roots stay behind in the tray. Baby leaf is the same seed left to grow on in deeper soil for several weeks, then picked leaf by leaf. Same packet, three different harvest points.

Cotyledons, True Leaves and the Clock

Read the cotyledons, the first pair of seed leaves, then look for the smaller true leaves pushing up between them. That's your cue. The quickest thing we stock is Microgreens Radish Daikon Green (Raphanus sativus), cut after roughly a week. Brassica oleracea kale is ready 7 to 10 days after sowing at high density. Cichorium endivia endive is up in 2 to 3 days with the first pickable leaves at 8 to 15, and Foeniculum vulgare fennel germinates in 7 to 14 days then gets cut about two weeks later. Pisum sativum pea shoots are the slowest here, and even they finish inside two to three weeks.

Coir, Compost and the Blackout Trick

Two to three centimetres of shallow-tray compost or a rehydrated coir block is plenty. Sow thick, press the seed into the surface, mist once, then invert a second tray on top for a blackout period of 2 to 4 days. The seedlings stretch, shed their seed coats, and come up even. After that, light. Water from the bottom by pouring into the tray underneath so the leaves stay dry. Watch out for heavy top watering in still, warm air, that combination is how you end up with a grey fuzz of damping off at the stem bases. Crack a window or park a small fan nearby.

Which Leaves End Up on Which Plate

Flavour is the fun part. Microgreens Mizuna (Brassica rapa) brings a mustard-like heat that lands at the back of the throat, and the thin stems snap when they're fresh, which makes it great scattered over noodles or eggs. Daikon radish is peppery with more bite behind it. Pea shoots go sweet and crunchy and do well on a balcony. If you'd rather not grow one leaf at a time, Microgreens Exotic Salad Mix puts several greens in a single tray, harvested at 2 to 3 weeks once the first true leaves show, while kale stays mild enough to hide in a sandwich.

Where We'd Start

Sow daikon radish first. A week is short enough that you stay interested, and the peppery snap tells you straight away whether you like microgreens. Pea shoots second. The honest bit: most microgreens don't grow back after cutting, brassicas least of all, so each tray is one harvest and then you resow. USDA Agricultural Research Service work on brassica seedlings has measured higher concentrations of some vitamins per gram in young leaves than in the mature plant, which is a decent bonus. The real reason to bother is that supermarket cress tastes of very little, and a tray of mizuna cut ten minutes before dinner doesn't.