Microgreens.

Conditions at a glance

• Light A bright sill, or about 16 h under a lamp 15–30 cm above
• Warmth Ordinary room temperature — no heat mat needed
• Humidity Cover for the first 3–4 days, then uncover
• Water Mist until sprouted, then water from below — moist, never saturated
• Pot size Any shallow tray · 2.5–4 cm of growing mix is enough
• First harvest 7–21 days · brassicas often 7–8

Grow it in your space

1. Fill any shallow container with 2.5–4 cm of moist soilless growing mix — a takeaway box with drainage holes will do.
2. Scatter the seed far more thickly than you would outdoors (roughly a tablespoon per seed tray), then press it gently onto the surface. Don't bury it.
3. Cover for the first few days to hold moisture; most seed sprouts in about 3–4 days.
4. Uncover and move it to a bright sill or under a lamp — around 16 hours of light keeps the shoots compact instead of stretched.
5. Mist at first, then water from below by standing the tray in a shallow pan of water. Moist, never waterlogged.
6. Cut with clean scissors just above the mix, once the seed leaves are fully open and the first true leaves are showing.

How to tell it's ready

• Seed leaves open, first true leaves just showing — that is the stage. Cut earlier and you have something closer to a sprout; leave it weeks longer and it becomes a baby green — both fine, just different things.
• Cut just above the growing medium — clean scissors, one sweep. The roots and the mix stay behind, which is what keeps the harvest clean.
• Expect one cut per tray — a few (peas especially) push out a second flush, but plan for a single harvest and re-sow rather than waiting on a tray that is finished.
• Start a new tray each week — the crop is fast enough that one tray a week gives a steady supply instead of a glut and then nothing.

Watch-outs

• Treated or coated seed — buy seed sold for microgreens or sprouting — untreated and uncoated. Seed dressed for outdoor sowing carries coatings that belong in soil, not on a shoot you cut and eat whole.
• Not the same as sprouts — sprouts are germinated in water and eaten entire — seed, root and all. Microgreens grow in a medium and you cut the shoot above it. Different method, so don't follow a sprouting guide.
• Damping off and mould — grey fuzz or seedlings collapsing at the base means too wet and too still — uncover sooner, water from below, and give the tray some air.
• Leggy and pale — long floppy stems leaning one way: not enough light. Move it nearer the window or lower the lamp.
• Sown too thickly — a solid mat with no air between stems holds damp and rots. Thick is right; matted is too thick.