County AG Report: Microgreens

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (WAGM) - Looking for a project to pass the time, or maybe you want some more greens and garnishes for your meals. In the second part of his focus on inside plants for The County Ag Report, Rob Koenig leans about growing microgreens at home.

“It’s too early to start seedlings for your garden, so now, you can start microgreens.”

Donna Coffin is an Extension Professor for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. She has published many papers and articles on tending to plants in different ways. While there’s not much to take care of outside this time of year, microgreens are a great project that’s not only fun for yourself, but also something to get the kids involved with.

“You’re starting some seeds in a seedling mixture, a soilless mixture, usually. You get them to grow up to a certain height, and then you cut them and eat them when they’re small. So, it gives you some greens for your salad, or accents for your dinner. But the important thing is that it gives people something to grow, something green, and something to tend to.”

Coffin has tried multiple varieties of seeds during her exploration of microgreens and found one type to be particularly fast to grow under the right conditions.

“Some of the faster growing ones, and one that I tried last fall was a corn seed. The important thing is to make sure they haven’t been treated with any insecticide or fungicide, so you want to have clean seed. You can actually go to the grocery store and get popcorn or sunflower seeds… The corn seed, after I grew them, I grew them in the light, so the top turned green… I learned later that it’s better to grow the corn in complete darkness, and then you can eat the whole plant, the whole seedling, and it tastes delicious, they’re really sweet and succulent.”

Some of the other seeds that you could use include field peas, red amaranth, mustard seed, basil, dill, beets, and scallions. For more information on microgreens, you can reach out to Donna directly here, or check out the University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s Website.

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