How to Grow Microgreens Indoors Without Soil – Winter Nutrition

Grow microgreens indoors without soil, or with very little soil, to boost your families winter nutrition. During the dead of winter, when the thoughts wonder towards next years garden, growing an indoor micro garden could chase some of those blues away.

You don’t need a lot of fancy equipment to have a winter microgreens garden. Mostly you need some seeds, a colander or other tray with holes, a base to catch the water and artificial lights (in some cases).

My Favorite Winter Microgreens to Grow Indoors

My favorite microgreens to grow indoors are; sunflower sprouts, mung beans and pea sprouts. All of these grow fast and are packed with flavor. Of these I simply adore sunflower sprouts.

Sunflower Sprouts

Sunflower sprouts remind me of summer. They have a full sunflower seed flavor. Yet they are a green veggie! Personally I have a 50 pound bag of sunflower seeds that I bought last year. It is actually bird food, but hey, it sprouts and tastes GREAT.

Pea Shoots

Pea shoots are my second favorite microgreen. They too are packed with sweet goodness. And they grow fast.

Mung Beans – Bean Sprouts

Mung bean sprouts are the only microgreen that I truly grow without any soil. They grow FAST. In three to five days you can have more mung beans than you know what to do with. Kids love growing these.

Now that you know which microgreens we are focusing on growing indoors, let’s get down to specifics of how to do it.

How to Grow Sunflower Sprouts and Pea Shoot Microgreens Indoors

While you can spend a bunch of money to grow microgreens indoors, you don’t have to. The thing is, I’m cheap, and I like to recycle. So with that in mind, I like to re use old things I have around the house. You will need a container that holds about an inch of dirt. I don’t put drain holes in mine.

For this batch of sunflower sprouts I used an old “greens” container.

The Steps to growing sunflower sprouts and pea shoots;

1. Soak your seeds overnight – or about 24 hours
2. Put about an inch of dirt in your container of choice
3. Drain your seeds
4. Dump them on top of the dirt
5. Mix them into the dirt
6. Cover them with a layer of foil or paper towels
7. Put a bit of weight on them – dry beans in a plastic bag works fine
8. Wait a couple days
9. Take the foil or towels off
10. Wait until you have a couple leaves on your sprouts
11. Cut them close to the soil to harvest
12. Store in the fridge wrapped in a moist paper towel – you can put them in a baggie but don’t seal it. Plants need to breath.

How To Grow Mung Bean Sprout Microgreens Indoors Without Soil

Mung beans aren’t technically microgreens – though you can grow them to the leaf stage if you want.

The Steps to grow mung bean sprouts;

1. Soak your mung bean seeds for 24 hours.
2. Place a paper towel in the bottom of a colander.
3. Put the colander over a bowl.
4. Pour your mung bean seeds into the colander.
5. Put a second, wet paper towel on top of the seeds.
6. Place a plate on top of the second, top paper towel.
7. Use a can on the plate as a weight.
8. Cover the whole shebang with a towel- they like it dark.
9. Keep this near the kitchen sink as you need to run water over the seeds three or four times a day for the next four or five days.
10. As the sprouts grow you can remove the top paper towel.
11. Keep them in the fridge in a paper towel in an open plastic bag.
12. Be sure to rinse the seed covers off of them before using.

Notes on Growing Mung Bean Sprouts

Mung bean sprouts are prolific. You only need a couple of tablespoons of seeds to get a HUGE crop. In the video they use about 2/3 cups of seeds – unless your family LOVES bean sprouts, start with couple tablespoons. You can always sprout more often.

She also is meticulous about putting the seeds in the colander, just dump them in, it will be okay.

Incorporating Microgreens Into Your Life

Growing microgreens is a lifestyle in the winter for some of us. We just incorporate it into our weekly chores. You can add these bits of deliciousness into soups, salads, meatloaf. It is a great way to get added nutrition to your families diet while the garden pickins are slim.

Get the kids involved. I find if the kids are part of the process they are more likely to eat the sprouts too.