Rocket microgreens
Microgreens are the LATEST food garnish – you’ve probably spotted them on all the cooking shows and in restaurants.
Microgreens are essentially very young seedlings of edible herbs and leafy greens, that you grow in a compact space and harvest when they are only a few weeks old.
On the left is a punnet of rocket microgreens – they have been growing for just over a week! They’ve germinated nicely and you can see the roots in the soil and the lovely green cotyledon (or the first leaves).
Within another 1 week these rocket seedlings will be ready for harvest. And the intense rocket flavour from such tiny leaves is really delicious.
To harvest – just snip off the leaves as you need them!
Try using your old strawberry or other fruit punnets to grow microgreens in!
To grow microgreens you will need:
- a small pot (or recycle some strawberry punnets!)
- some seed raising or potting mix
- a spray bottle (to spritz them with water daily)
- and some seeds!
Put about 3-4 cm of potting mix in the bottom of the punnet, generously sprinkle over the seeds and give a light dusting of potting mix over the seeds (it doesn’t matter if they are not fully covered).
Then spritz with water and place on a window sill (a west, north or east facing window sill is best). DO NOT LET THE POTTING MIX DRY OUT! It doesn’t need to be soaking wet – but just moist. So a spritz of water morning and night should be plenty.
Snip off the leaves of the microgreens as you need them. Unfortunately once you’ve cut off the young leaves that seedling won’t re-grow – but if you plant a succession of punnets you can have a continuous supply.
Watching microgreens grow is GREAT FUN for kids!
Try growing ANY edible leafy green or herb as a microgreen.
Experiment with….
- mustard
- endive
- rocket
- lettuce (any type)
- basil
- coriander
- watergress
- or try mixing up seeds of different lettuce for a multi coloured microgreen crop!
Microgreens have a lovely fresh and strong flavour for their size and are SUPER easy to grow. They are a great way to add a “chefy finishing touch” to your home cooking!
