tiny garden: microgreens, progress & troubleshooting.

Forgive me my public garden journal, but here’s an update for anyone interested in how the growing’s going in my very tiny garden plot.

Good news first: We have sprouts. Lots of them.

On the suggestion of two readers, including a mircogreen green grower, I helped the initial sprouts along by covering my tray with a cookie sheet for a day or two. The idea is that covering the seeds will help the tray retain moisture and encourage the seeds to sprout, and it certainly seemed to help things along. Just a few days after planting, we saw little shoots.

Now, a little more than a week later, all three seed-types have sprouted their adorable cotyledons. The arrival of the sweet duo of tiny first leaves gives me hope that more or less things are moving right along as hoped.

Above, the sorrel cotyledons with their tiny empty seeds still clinging to the top. If everything goes according to plan, the true leaves will come next. These leaves should resemble the leaves of the mature plant and they’ll be the ones we eventually harvest.

The less good news is that while the purple basil actually sprouted just fine, I mistook the fuzzy stuff around the seeds for mold. (Novice microgreen gardener alert.) I’ve since learned that the fuzzy white stuff is actually cilia, or root hairs, begging for water, poor things.

Of course, instead of giving them the water they needed, I laid off watering the basil altogether. The problem got worse not better. Within a day or two, many of the basil sprouts withered away, but the fuzz, as you see, remained. I’m back to watering now and hopeful that the little basil babies that have hung on so far will continue to grow. And here, a tip: For anyone else out there worried, a hopeful sign that any fuzz you spot is cilia and not mold is that when watered the fuzz—or cilia— shrinks back into the soil and all but disappears. Also: it’s white and odorless!

The more you know.

What else? What are you guys growing?