Microgreens all winter long

When my outdoor harvest was completed late last fall and my last collard plant was composted, I felt a sense of loss--the cold winter was really on its way--and I immediately started missing all the fresh greens from my garden. Luckily I had discovered a fantastic resource called The Urban Farm Podcast. I love this podcast and have listened weekly all winter, storing ideas in my brain for how to improve and expand my urban farm.

One of the guests on the podcast around the darkest time of the winter was Peter Burke, who wrote a book called Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening on how to grow microgreens easily indoors all year long. I had seen local microgreens in the grocery store for around $5 for a pint. If I could grow my own, it would not only give us healthy winter food, it would be a way to keep my garden going, so it was worth a try. All I needed was a window sill, seeds, seed starting soil mix, newspaper, and some aluminum bread pans.



I found the seeds at my local garden store, and the brand I purchased has instructions inside the seed packets. They have a great selection of different varieties at this store, so I was able to try a lot of different options. My favorite turned out to be sunflower for general salad use, though the Savory Mix (a mix of radish, chard, mustard, cabbage, etc.) is very good on my Microgreen Caprese Salad:



The directions I follow are very simple. Mr. Burke's book and the seed packets gives additional information.

1) Soak seeds in a small cup of water for a few hours (I usually do this for just 2-4 hours). Start with two tablespoons of the smaller seeds or three tablespoons of sunflower seeds. Adjust for your next planting based on how dense your greens were.

2) Fill bread pan 2-3 inches deep with seed starting mix and water until it feels like a damp sponge.

3) After soaking, spread seeds over moist soil in a single layer. The seeds should be very crowded.

4) Cut a few sheets of newspaper to fit your pan. Get these wet and lay on top of the seeds. (I tried using a layer of dry soil over the seeds, and it creates very dirty microgreens, so this step is very important!).

5) You can then put the bread pan in the dark or in the window (though it will dry out faster in the window). Either way, keep the newspaper moist until the sprouts start to push the newspaper up.

6) Once the cotyledons have emerged, discard the newspaper, make sure the pan is in your sunniest location, and keep it moist.

7) To harvest, use scissors and cut the greens close to the soil. I let mine get 2-4 inches tall (6-10 days after planting), but I harvest them before they get their first true leaves. Bonus: you can then compost the soil and roots.

8) Microgreens can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days (don't wash them before storing, however).

Some money saving tips:

• I found the aluminum bread pans at the dollar store (3 for $1).
• Because my family eats so many sunflower microgreens (I start a new tray almost daily so we can have a salad for dinner) I bought organic sunflower birdseed instead of the more expensive packets of human seeds. I save a ton of money and then I can spend more on the non-sunflower microgreen seed mixes. Just don't tell your friends you're feeding them bird seed.
• Some of the instructions I've seen on the web mention using fertilizer. I don't use fertilizer.
• Also, many of the web instructions talk about "bright light" in your sunny window. In Wisconsin we don't have very sunny winters, and the sun is low in the sky even on the brightest days, and my microgreens do just fine.

I ran right out after the podcast and started microgreen farming that day, so don't be afraid to experiment first and learn the intricacies later!

My birdseed salad right before harvest:

How to eat all that food (plus a bonus recipe)

I was fortunate to attend a screening of the documentary Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story in Madison a couple of weeks ago. It was sad to see how much food is wasted from grocery stores, in homes, and even wasted on farms when food goes unharvested. I questioned again conventional agriculture's claim that we need to buy expensive biotech seeds and chemicals to feed the planet-- we first need to look at the food we waste and how food is distributed, since we are tossing so much of it in the landfill. A few things have stuck with me, and I have been moved to change my ways and evaluate how I treat food.

To start with I am working on eating all the food in our fridge and making sure we are eating the food we have before buying new food. Putting all of the leftover containers in one area and eating those first is a good reminder for a busy family. Plus, if you don't feel like cooking there are likely to be leftovers to nosh on (so much easier, healthier, and cheaper than ordering a pizza!). Shopping with a list is also very helpful so I don't buy too much food or bring home food that no one will eat before it spoils.

For the farm this growing season, I have a much larger project:

• Make a list of all the food in the chest freezer and cabinets, and then create food menus to eat everything by the time we start harvesting veggies this spring.
• Select seed varieties based on food that my family will actually eat and make sure the veggies and fruits we grow are ones that will be eaten quickly or stored.
• Most importantly, I need to learn to can! Last year my smaller garden produced enough that my chest freezer was full. This year my goal is to provide more of our calories, so I will have a lot more to save back. I am really looking forward to eating good, homemade food next winter!

One fruit that we had an abundance of last year were raspberries. I froze them individually on baking sheets and then stored them in baggies. This method keeps them separated and looking just like store bought frozen berries. Below is a recipe for one of my favorite winter treats. It is a delicious muffin adapted from Jae Steele's "Raspberry Millet Muffins" recipe found in her vegan cookbook, Ripe From Around Here. I highly recommend this book. It is a great resource that encourages local cooking and eating, and it also contains my very favorite waffle recipe!

I changed this recipe to use ingredients that I more typically have on hand.





Raspberry Chocolate Muffins

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour (I use a coarsely ground flour I pick up in bulk at the local organic co-op)
2/3 cup dry steel cut oats
1/3 cup fair trade turbinado sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk (any kind)
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/3 cup expeller pressed canola oil (or other flavorless oil)
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups frozen raspberries (the star of the show!)
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips

Method: Preheat oven to 375F. Lightly spray a 12 cup muffin tin with baking spray. In a mixing bowl stir together the flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the milk, apple sauce, oil, and vanilla. Stir until just mixed, then gently add the frozen raspberries and chocolate chips. Spoon into muffin tin. Bake 25 minutes.

Eat these muffins right out of the oven for a warm winter breakfast and save the leftovers in an air tight container in the fridge. They won't last long!

Things are coming together

Spring is starting early in the Midwest, and my job in big agriculture is behind me. The dream of urban farming as a profession has finally come true, and the years of planning are over. Now is the time to jump in and do this thing!

My family and I live in the upper Midwest in a suburb of Madison, Wisconsin. Our urban lot is 0.26 acres (including the 1500 sq. ft. footprint of our house). My gardens are currently located in our backyard and in a plot at a local community garden. I am also an avid cyclist, and I bike for pleasure and transportation. The Madison area has many, many miles of bike trails and lanes and a great cycling community. Other than growing food, a good day includes getting outside and riding around.

The goal of this blog is to document my first year of full time city farming while living a fun, sustainable, urban lifestyle.