Home Indoor Plants Easily Grow Delicious Salad Sprouts Year-Round

Easily Grow Delicious Salad Sprouts Year-Round

by Dawn
indoor salad sprouts

Growing Salad Sprouts All Year is Easy

If you’re anything like me (and you probably are if you’re reading this), you LOVE, LOVE, LOVE cool and different things in your salad.  Why not grow them?

It’s soooo easy to do and guarantees you’ll have fresh yummy greens for your salad any time of year.  All you need is seeds, a few containers to soak them in, and a pot for growing.  I can guarantee you already have most of what you need at home. 

Seed Selection

First, you’ll need to either order or buy seeds.  I buy my sprouting seeds from High Mowing Organic Seeds because I like their quality, and I can often find them at my local stores, but you can get seeds anywhere you would like.  You can also get whatever varieties you want.  Check out High Mowing Organic’s varieties here.  

One quick caution: If you want to grow sunflower sprouts, DO NOT plant the seeds you buy for wild birds and eat those sprouts.  That seed is treated and is NOT safe for you to eat.

Maybe you’d also like to broaden your horizons and try your hand at growing herbs as well. You’re in luck! I have a post on Growing Indoor Herbs just for you!

Seed Preparation

Next, I always soak my seeds for 24 hours before planting.  I do it with all of them, even if the packet doesn’t recommend soaking.  I simply use a few jelly jars full of water, one for each variety.  For the bigger seeds (like sunflower seeds), I use 1 tablespoon.  For smaller seeds (like radish or broccoli), I use 1 teaspoon.

measuring sunflower sprout seeds
A tablespoon of sunflower seeds will give you a lot of sprouts!

Planting Containers (pssst…don’t spend a lot of money)

Once they’re soaked, I plant my seeds in really expensive, impressive, matching containers.  Nope, just kidding.  Well, ok, they do match, but they’re actually the tops of those disposable metal lasagna pans you buy at the grocery store. 

I never need the tops for cooking, but they’re great for seed sprouting!  You don’t even need to punch holes in them, drainage isn’t a problem for the sprouts. 

You can really use just about anything to grow them, I just prefer all my sprouts in one pan.  Conventional flower pots would work just as well, if that’s all you have.  Check out the dollar store for cheap lasagna or roasting pans as well. I just recently scored 19 pans for $13. YAY ME!!!!!

sprout seeds in growing container
I just section off my pan and put each variety in 1/4 of the pan. I don’t bother to bury the seeds, except for the pea seeds because otherwise they are difficult to cut off when harvesting.

Soil

Regular old potting soil works fine too.  You can add some compost if you have it, but the sprouts only grow for about 2 weeks, so they don’t need much in the way of nutrients.

Keeping the Seeds Dark

Once they’re planted, I water them thoroughly.  Since I don’t bury the seeds, and most seeds need dark to germinate, I put them in a large tote for two to three days.  Just a Rubbermaid tote or even a cardboard box will work fine, just as long as it’s dark. 

If your pan or pot is opaque, you can cover the seeds with damp newspaper and put them on a shelf, and that will work just fine.  I can’t do that since my pan is see-through, and I’m afraid they’ll get too much light.

small sprouts in container
After 2-3 days, depending on temperature, you’ll begin to see sprouting.  This is when you can bring them into the light.

Light Needs (after they start to grow)

After two to three days, depending on temperature, you can bring your pan out and put your sprouts under grow lights or in a sunny windowsill.  If they’re in a windowsill, you’ll have to rotate them occasionally as they lean towards the light quite a bit.  I’ve even found that they do that under the grow light if the light isn’t quite even.

salad sprouts 4 days old
These are the sprouts are about 4-5 days old. You can see how fast they grow!
sprouts 10 days old
10-14 days old (depending on temperature) and ready to harvest!

Harvest your Sprouts

Once your sprouts are the size you want, just cut them off at soil level and add their yumminess to your salads or sandwiches.  You can see above that the pea shoots grow faster than the others, so you can harvest them sooner and put the others back under the lights for a few days longer, if you would like.  The pea shoots will actually regrow after you cut them, but I wouldn’t do that more than once because the eating quality suffers.

salad sprouts fully-grown
Even Missy thinks they look yummy!

When to Start More Sprouts

After I’ve harvested my greens, I throw the soil on my compost pile and start another round right away, which works for me. 

You might love them so much that you’re going through them before the new round is ready.  If that’s the case, just start a second round a few days before your first round is ready for harvest so you have a constant supply of yummy greens all year round.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and will give these greens a try. 

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There are some pinnable images below if you have relevant Pinterest boards. I’d greatly appreciate a pin or two! Comments are always welcome as well.

Related Indoor Plant Posts

Growing Indoor Herbs

As always, smile and have a crazy organic day!

Assorted Salad sprouts
indoor salad sprouts

Growing Salad Sprouts All Year is Easy

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15 comments

Faith 01/10/2019 - 3:20 pm

I will definitely give this method a try! The simplicity of it just might work for me.

Reply
Dawn 01/10/2019 - 3:47 pm

It really is very easy. If you have any questions once you get started, don’t hesitate to email me or comment here. I’d be happy to help!

Reply
Kristan Braziel 12/05/2018 - 10:45 pm

Yay!! Such great info in this post! We moved out to the country about a year ago and I’ve talked about starting a garden but I don’t know where to start. You make it seem so easy, I’m gonna do it this coming year for sure.

Reply
Dawn 12/06/2018 - 11:49 am

It is easy and a great way to get started gardening. You can even do it now in your house if you have just a little space and some sunlight or a fluorescent light for them to grow under.

Reply
Deborah Regen 12/05/2018 - 10:13 pm

Thoroughly enjoyed this post and especially the pic with the kitty checking things out at the end. You are right, freshly grown sprouts are so good for you and add a different taste and interest to salads. This looks like an easy DIY to try.

Reply
Dawn 12/06/2018 - 11:49 am

It’s very easy, and you can have them in just about 2 weeks, which is an added bonus!

Reply
Mary Beth 12/05/2018 - 9:19 pm

Do you have special lights? I’ve been growing mint and had to order a special light to make them grow. I gave up on the basil. Sad.

Reply
Dawn 12/06/2018 - 11:48 am

No, I don’t, I just use fluorescents from Home Depot. They’re not picky and because they only grow for a week or two, it doesn’t matter if they aren’t quite getting the light they need, you’ll use them before they get leggy or sick.

Reply
Mary 12/05/2018 - 9:00 pm

Oh, these green babies are gorgeous! You made me crave them in y salad. I used to have about 20 components to my salad dinners 🙂
Now I have less time and use less of them. I’d love to grow sprouts, but I have 3 little kids around and no windowsills. No idea where to put it without risking to have dirt all over the house. The countertops in my kitchen are covered with old homework papers and crayons.

Reply
Dawn 12/06/2018 - 11:48 am

Yikes! Anywhere you could have a little table and set a grow light over it? They don’t require much and a fluorescent light from Home Depot or somewhere would do the trick (that’s how I grow mine). I can’t put mine in a windowsill because of furry babies who would eat them!

Reply
Yolanda 12/05/2018 - 5:53 pm

Hi Dawn, I found this post very informative. I’ve been planning to start a small garden in the Spring. And I definitely will use you as a reference. This post was very helpful.!

Reply
Dawn 12/05/2018 - 5:59 pm

I’m glad you enjoyed it. These sprouts are so nice because they can be grown now (and all year really) without much space or experience with gardening. They’ll pretty much grow as long as you remember to water them! LOL

Reply
Elizabeth 12/05/2018 - 2:04 pm

In the UK, our windows can be quite cold this time of year. Will these work in winter or are we better to wait until the spring?

Reply
Dawn 12/05/2018 - 2:21 pm

It probably depends on how cold is “quite cold”. I would think they’ll grow down to about 55-60 degrees F but probably not much below that. The colder it is, the slower the growth will be, but they should still grow. Another thing: As they grow, don’t let the plants touch the glass at all. I learned that the hard way with a few plants. When they touch the glass, the cold gets distributed from the glass into the plant and it will kill them. I hope that helps.

Reply
Elizabeth 12/05/2018 - 4:04 pm

Fantastic. Thanks Dawn x

Reply

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