I am just crazy for anything I can grow and eat here at home…
…particularly in the winter, when the weather is inhospitable for gardening or even venturing out to a favorite restaurant. I keep herbs on the kitchen counter. That’s also why I sprout everything from wheat berries to mung beans to adzukis to alfalfa to add to breads, salads or other dishes. Sprouts boost the taste AND the nutrition in one fell swoop. So when I saw the recent proliferation in seed catalogs for microgreens, the cartoon light bulb over my head lit right up.
KA-PING!!! I bet I can grow these in my light garden! Then I can have gourmet greens in my own kitchen 12 months out of the year. Why didn’t I think of this before?
To get started, I ordered a set of microgreens seeds from Cook’s Garden, which included Beet Bull’s Blood, Broadleaf Cress, Kohlrabi Chancellor, Cutting Celery, Pea Green Arrow and Spinach Rembrandt. Each seed was packaged separately. Cost: $13.95 for six typical packets of seeds–.4 grams to 2 oz each. I also ordered the spicy microgreens mix from the Sprout People, which included Daikon Radish, Cress and Arugula. These seeds were mixed together. Cost: $9.95 for a one-pound bag of organic seeds.
Clearly, the Cook’s Garden quantities were minuscule compared with the Sprout People seeds, especially when you consider that the plants aren’t going to mature to big plants, but will be hacked off at the roots and eaten as baby plants. You will need quite a lot of seeds for microgreens.
I planted one box of soilless potting mix with the Cutting Celery and Broadleaf Cress from Cook’s Garden and one with the seed mix from the Sprout People. All of the seeds sprouted and grew beautifully in the light garden in just a few days. I was able to clip off just what I wanted to add to salads or to add atop sandwiches. The sprouts have stayed crisp, fresh and zingy for several weeks while I continue to clip them. Fabulous!
If you want to try your own microgreens, you can plant them in traditional plastic sprouting trays on a windowsill or under grow lights. The Sprout People also offer a hemp bag sprouter that looks quite handy and can be used for microgreens.
So now I can have teeny tiny salad greens year round. Now that’s a fabulous find!
Robin
First, let me say that I am not a Martha Stewart basher.
I was not among those who took glee in the fall ofAmerica’s Domestic Diva. I acknowledge that it seems that she can be quite, uh, mean-spirited and brutal on her minions. But I also recognize that she has made some significant accomplishments. She has created a huge empire from nothing. She raised homemaking to an art during a time when high-powered careers were more in vogue. I also think she has suffered mightily from some highly publicized personal embarrassments—an icky divorce when her husband ran off with her former assistant and a financial scandal that probably wouldn’t have meant jail time for most investors.
So it’s not as a Martha-basher that I have decided to air my disappointments in her new garden.
The March issue of Martha Stewart Living was my first look at her garden at Cantitoe Corners, Martha’s newest renovation, a 152-acre estate inNew York’s fashionableWestchesterCounty. The article, “Fruitful Endeavors,” features her vegetable garden and, according to the author, some “clever and innovative techniques.”
Frankly, I’m disappointed in Martha’s Fruitful Endeavors.
First, Martha has chosen to surround the 90 by150 feetgarden with a seven foot-tall metal fence that looks more like it belongs around her former prison home than around a vegetable garden on an “estate.” I understand the need for a fence of some height. After all, those white-tailed deer can leap tall buildings in a single bound, right? But why a metal fence? There are so much more lovely alternatives.
For example, how about the highly functional and also attractive fence surrounding the vegetable garden atMount Vernon? George Washington designed this beautiful fence with a brickwork base and picket fence top. Despite the fact that it’s over seven feet tall, it doesn’t look like a prison exercise yard. Rather, the fence adds architecture and grace to the garden.
Second, the article boasts about her clever use of rotating crops. That’s “clever and innovative?”
What’s more, it appears that the vast majority of the garden is laid out in rows, or, as the article puts it, rows in a “rigorous geometry to yield maximum results and easy access.”
Why maximum results? As far as I know, she lives alone. Is she feeding a small nation army I’m not aware of? If not, why is she sacrificing beauty purely for the sake of “maximum” production?
I
t seems that old George (Yes, George Washington again.) was feeding a heap more people, what with the slaves and all. His gardens seemed quite productive and also managed to be a place that you could tarry as well as toil. Why must a garden only be for work and production?
Personally, I believe a garden should be as much for pleasure as for produce. (You can see more of my garden here.)
Finally, I see NOT ONE SINGLE PLACE TO SIT in her garden. Surely she must have a lawn chair stashed somewhere that she drags out when the photographers go home, right? And you know I value a place to sit in a garden.
Too bad about Cantitoe Corners. With Martha’s talent, money and hoards of help, her garden could have been something to rival the gardens of the likes of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
I’m sorry so say, Martha has let me down.
Robin
