Sprouts!

I started sprouting about three years ago after visiting a friend of mine who was sprouting seeds in her house. She spoke to me many of the health benefits, but she had me at cancer preventing. She gave me a jar full of sprouts, some seeds, and some ideas of where to get more. Since then I have sprouted off and on. I do it more in the winter when access to good greens is harder.

 I have made my own version of the sprout jars. For the most part a sprout jar is a mason jar with a special lid that will let water pass through but not seeds and sprouts. You can buy these special lids that will fit on wide mouthed mason jars. The trouble with those lids is they are about four bucks a pop. When I really have my sprout farm going, each jar is in rotation for about two weeks. One week growing, one week eating. I start a set of jars about every three days; two or three jars at a time. That means that at any one time I can have between nine and fourteen jars going, about $60 in lids alone; not to mention the mason jars themselves, which are about $15 a dozen. Instead I made my own lids. I took the metal ring section from the mason jar lid and hot glued window screen from the hardware store for $7 a roll. I had to use two layers of the screen because the holes are just a little large for my smaller seeds. It works perfectly and I will never run out of the screen. After that I just add one to two table spoons of any sort of seed I want and begin sprouting. I won't use this space to discuss the method of sprouting cause the internet is abound with that information.

For a green future I think we should all adopt sprouting. Sprouts can be grown with out light for the first several days. They require only the equipment which I have described above and water. I use about a gallon a day to water my sprouts. However, that water could be recycled and purified and they would only need about 1/2 a cup to grow a quart jar full of sprouts. To grow sprouts with that little water would require a lot of work on behalf of the humans involved. If you are trying to grow them in a completely closed environment where water is scarce, it could be done. Whether your goal is just having a salad growing in your window or if you want to try a bio-dome experiment, sprouts are a great option.

Currently, on my shelves I have broccoli, radish, clover, and fenugreek. They are flavorful and in some cases, sort of spicy. They go great on salads as a garnish, or cooked into things like you would with spinach. Seriously, if you are still reading this you should start sprouting.