Yvonne knows more about any seed than I do but one product I loved was called Barlean’s. It’s a dry cereal like product and they have 2 or 3 combinations of stuff like chia seeds, coconut and flax seeds. Sometimes I’d throw some in a shake or spread some over my oatmeal and it tasted fantastic but it’s expensive. When we first bought it the price tag at Sam’s was $13.00 for a 1 pound bag (I think) whilst Amazon had it for $23. But, it is what it is and Barlean’s went up at Sam’s so I had to weigh whether I wanted the Barlean’s or that 4# jug of Whey Protein Isolate. The protein won.
Both chia and flax seeds are some of the healthiest seeds that you can have in your diet, and you only need small quantities. I have never actually intentionally sprouted chia seeds or flax seeds (although for years Bobby has promised/threatened to get me a Chia Pet), but I do add both of those into bread and most baked goods (banana bread, etc). Another good way to sprout the chia overnight is to make those overnight oats, using oatmeal, plant/dairy milk, sweetener, fruits/berries. As it sits in the fridge overnight, the chia swells up, becomes “pudding” and begins the sprouting process. The next morning, you can eat it cold or heat it up for hot oatmeal, but it does not need to be cooked, just warmed up. People add chia seeds to a lot of things, and if you look on youtube for overnight oats and also for chia pudding, there are lots of excellent and interesting ideas there.
I went by my Asian market today, and bought some soybeans and mung beans to sprout. The mung beans were $2.35 for a 14 oz pak ($2.70 per pound.)
I have some chia seed on hand, and for the life of me cannot recall what the heck I bought it for. I'll start putting it in my cereal. Funny you should mention Chia Pets, since I read nothing on sprout websites about leaving these to actually grow like they do on those terra cotta models.
I just started a batch of broccoli sprouts and a batch of broccoli/clover/alfalfa blend sprouts. I had forgotten how much I like sprouts. It's been years, but I used to have them all the time. I put a handful of black mustard sprouts on a sandwich for lunch, and then the same on a burger for dinner. I also put a pile of fenugreek sprouts on my dinner salad, as I've been doing every night since the were ready to eat. Good stuff. I want to try my hand at growing microgreens. My friend who owns his own greenhouse says there is no vermiculite or perlite to be had this year...COVID shut down the manufacturing plants. I'll have to pick up some regular potting soil.
Didn’t you say (somewhere ?) that you have also gotten one of the sprouting trays, @John Brunner ? One that came with a little black bag to cover it at first ? I have one of those, and I use it to grow micro greens . You would probably have to layer it with a paper towel for tiny seeds like alfalfa , but for fenugreek and lentil micro greens, the screen is small enough to work. Mine has two size screens in case I want to make two different sizes of micro greens at once. I found that the lentil micro greens will regrow, so you can get 2-3 cuttings from them with one sprouting. I let my fenugreek one grow to long and had to toss them on the compost pile, but I have had really good luck with the lentil micro greens. You just add water to the bottom of the tray up to the fill line, and spread your seeds out on the growing screen, cover, and let them get started, and then uncover while they grow and turn green. I set mine by a window.
@Yvonne Smith Yeh, I ordered a tray but have not received it yet. I don't know what their instructions might say. As with everything else, the web is all over the place with microgreen instructions. And as with everything else, I'll beat this to death...so if I'm ruining the party, I'll stop. I did an internet search on "Difference between sprouts and microgreens" just to educate myself, and to see if there was any benefit other than aesthetics for the extra effort. Everything I read says the main difference is that microgreens have additional nutrients that are extracted from whatever medium they are grown in (plus I would assume some chlorophyll.) Some "How To" websites say to use soil. The SproutPeople recommend coconut coir (holds water throughout an entire growing cycle) and hemp felt. They also sell liquid kelp concentrate fertilizer to add to the water as an option. Yet other sites use paper towel as your tray instructions (and likely mine, too) state. Obviously, not all of those are gonna add nutrients. I have no idea the degree of difference each method may (or may not) make. I wondered about getting multiple "harvests" from a single planting. That makes microgreens incredibly inexpensive. I'm curious what other seeds will regrow like that. I'm also thinking that potting soil can be reused many times over (garden soil certainly is), and if I do, what will happen with the remnants from the prior harvests. I know they will eventually decompose & return nitrogen, but in the meantime I wonder if they will resprout in the middle of any new crops. This all might get me back on the path to gardening again! I forgot how much I enjoyed growing stuff. As an aside, The Sprout People's website has instructions on growing Chia microgreens. So no terra cotta critters are required!!! I found this pic of home-grown Chia pets from a defunct web site: Cute, huh? Anyone could make these with some peat moss (or soil wrapped in cheesecloth) and a bottle of celery seed from the store.
I have one of those microgreen trays and I use peat-based growing medium in it. A nearby garden shop sold them last year and I picked one up. It came with a sprinkling head that can be put on a standard water bottle to keep the seeds damp. Coir would probably work fine for this too, but it doesn't work for other things I do, so I use peat-based stuff for everything.
When I was a kid I had one of these: Notice the little yellow hydroponics kit in the middle with the plants sticking up. It came with vermiculite, and I'm pretty certain I used some of the chemicals to add nutrients to the water. Then I put some navy beans in it and watched them take off. Fascinating stuff. I ordered a little coconut coir just to play with it. I've used vermiculite, perlite and peat with indoor house plants, but am not familiar with this medium. I also ordered a quart bottle of concentrated kelp fertilizer. It will make over 33 gallons of fertilizer to add to whatever I use. Some folks spray it on seeds to make them sprout faster, whether they're just raising sprouts or they're growing beyond that stage. I'm thinking that long-term I'll just use regular potting soil with the kelp so I can "turn under" the each crop's remnants to feed the future generations. I would imagine that the coconut is not reusable once a crop's roots have become entwined. I'm not certain how rapidly the remnants will decay in the soil once I've harvested the green tops, so I might end up cycling through trays of dirt as the prior ones take time to reasonably compost. Any suggestions are certainly appreciated!
Some folks believe the coir is more "environmentally responsible" than peat, but most in the know realize that peat can be harvested in a responsible manner as well. Coir doesn't seem to break down well for me, and it doesn't hold water nearly as well, but for hydroponics and aquaponics it is apparently fine.
That's interesting. The hippy sprout website I've been on says it does a great job retaining water, and if you start with it wet, you can grow a crop of microgreens in it without having to rewater. I also read where they "amend" it with worm castings to add needed nitrogen. As an incidental aside, the product package says the ph is 5.5-6.5 (mildly acidic), while their web description says 6.0-6.8 (closer to neutral.) I bet they changed suppliers along the way. Regarding responsible peat harvesting...I don't think sustainability is sustainable. Regarding those hippies...their prices belie their stated lifestyle. $54 for a pound of special microgreen seed mix??? I guess they learned from those early failed farms they wrote about.
Give the coir a try. Not all coir is the same, but I make soil blocks for planting, and the coir does not work for me and many others, but some folks say it works for them...but those people are generally the ones selling it. The hydroponic people here use it as a replacement for rock wool, largely I think, because it doesn't retain as much water and drains clean. A pound of microgreen seed can be quite a lot depending on the blend.
I bought the coir mainly to play with, just to have the experience. I had never heard of it before, but it's been a long time since I've done any gardening. As you said, it's likely being pushed because it's "being green," meaning the effectiveness is less than half of normal. Regarding rock wool: I had never heard of it being used for anything but insulation, and that was a pretty long time ago. I'm still at the baby phase of this. You're right that a pound of seed can produce a lot. A few tablespoons make enough to last a week, and that's when I eat some twice a day! I started some of the broccoli seed and some of the blended seed on Sunday, and the broccoli either starts slowly or it's gonna have a low germination rate. Even the broccoli seed in the blend is slow-going. Funny how that food-use fennugreek and black mustard seed took off so fast. I wanted to toss some business to that guy whose website I've been using so much, but his prices are more than just a little higher than everyone else's. I might circle back later and pick up something. Maybe I should get some of his broccoli seed and compare it to the stuff I bought elsewhere. The Yield-per-Dollar might be better.
The Coco Coir doesn't have much in the way of nutrients in it, but it absorbs moisture very well and works great as a base for a soil mixture, which might differ from one plant to another. Lingonberries grow well in a mixture of about 50% coir or more, the rest being regular soil but, for most plants, I use a larger ratio of soil to coir. But I also use peat for my lingonberries, as I think peat and coir are pretty much interchangeable, and I suspect that sustainability is mostly about getting people to pay more for something. I also use coir as bedding for my worms, which will turn the coir into rich soil with their castings. I don't know how it would figure into growing sprouts, however. When I grow sprouts, I don't use any soil.
Yeah, neither coir or peat have much in the way of nutrition. They are pretty much neutral media and are used as such. I have tried coir but found it unsatisfactory for my uses. I bought 600 pounds of peat this spring and am down to about 100 pounds now. I mix it with compost to make soil blocks for plants. I used coir for several things on the recommendation of a local garden shop, but I didn't like it at all and didn't hold moisture or hold together in blocks like the peat does. Lots of people use it, but the people I know who use it use it as a neutral medium for hydroponics or hydroponics-like operations. Sprouts are grown without soil, but microgreens use some kind of medium in which to grow generally.