Your Small Kitchen Garden

36 hours after I rinsed my alfalfa seeds and set them to sprout, young shoots had already emerged.

In my last post, I introduced my newest small kitchen garden: a canning jar of damp alfalfa seeds. To encourage you to get started with sprouts, here’s an update.

I rinsed my alfalfa seeds and set them soaking on Monday night. On Tuesday morning, I poured off the water, rinsed the seeds, and poured off all the water. Then I set the sprouting jar top-down on a plate in my kitchen cabinet. I repeated the rinsing and draining at 2:00 PM on Tuesday and again at bedtime. When I rinsed the seeds on Wednesday morning, they had sprouted! The photo at right reveals several tender shoots.

As I started to write this update near bedtime on Wednesday, I rinsed the seeds again and took another photo—the second one in this post. The sprouts are long enough that they’re intertwining. At this rate, they’ll be ready to harvest in another day or two!

My alfalfa sprouts after 48 hours. The young sprouts more than doubled in length in just 12 hours.

Instant Small Kitchen Garden

Sprout-growing has already proven more satisfying than I’d hoped. I get enormous satisfaction from growing food. And, while I’d rather grow tomatoes, peas, spinach, and lettuce, it’s quite a rush to “plant” something that emerges and is ready to eat in less than a week!

As I embarked on this sprouting adventure, I’ve been tickled by a factoid that may not be common knowledge: Alfalfa, this oh-so-popular salad additive, is horse food. Other popular sprouts are also horse food: people shopping for hay are usually pleased to find bales that include timothy, alfalfa, and clover. If, as a kid I’d been told that some day I’d grow alfalfa to feed myself, I’d have most likely rolled my eyes dismissively. Knowing I used to feed alfalfa to my horses has added a bit to the amusement factor of growing sprouts.

My sprout garden has given me a lift. Find step-by-step instructions in my last post to start your own sprout garden. Go ahead, give it a try.

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