Kitchen Garden Blog

Well: still no salad, of the lush leafy kind anyway, but at least I have some seedlings on the way now. The first of the salad sowings went in this month so I have a tray of mixed lettuce, plus three other kinds of lettuce (tried-and-tested favourite ‘Salad Bowl’, a heritage red butterhead ‘Merveille de Quat’ Saisons’, and some ‘Lollo Rossa’ - another old friend). I’ve also sowed the first batch of parsley, my tomatoes and some sweet peppers: so all coming along nicely.

But not quite here yet. At this time of the year, growing things to eat in salads requires lateral thinking. So: if all you can grow in February is seedlings… why not eat those?

Microgreens are perhaps the fastest veg you will ever encounter. You can get results in less than a week with the very quickest varieties, and even with the slow ones it’s not much more than a fortnight.

That’s because you’re eating the plant at its seedling stage, when it’s barely even formed new leaves. You get something to eat in double-quick time, and you’ll never taste anything so tender, so delicately crisp, or so intensely-flavoured.

This is one of the few food fads of recent years worth sitting up and taking notice of. Because the seedlings are so tiny, the flavour is super-concentrated – so although you get less in terms of volume, what you do get is quite extraordinary. It’s the essence of the plant, you might say, in concentrated form, and it’s very special indeed.

I’ve been growing microgreens for a couple of years now, long enough to have developed some firm favourites. I don’t think I’ll ever bother growing radish as a root vegetable again: we’ve always been quite lukewarm about the roots, but the seedling leaves have all the clean, peppery flavour of a radish with none of the doubtful earthiness of the mature plant. It’s an odd sensation to be eating crisp leaves, yet have the taste of a radish in your mouth: but that’s an odd I can get used to.

Growing microgreens is simplicity itself: all you need is one of those plastic takeaway trays (or an old margarine tub) and a handful or two of potting compost.

• Soak about a tablespoon of the seeds in water overnight – not strictly necessary but it does speed up the process, and after all speed is what it’s all about.
• Punch some drainage holes in the bottom of the takeaway tray and fill with about an inch or two of compost.
• Sow the seeds sparingly over the surface of the compost and cover with a little more in the usual way (leave very small seeds uncovered).
• Place somewhere bright and warm, but out of direct sunlight to germinate: I grow mine on a west-facing windowsill.
• When they’re up, you should get at least a couple of harvests: snip away the first flush of top growth with scissors, and allow the rest to grow up for a second harvest a few days later.

You can try out pretty nearly any type of vegetable seed as microgreens – though not parsnips, whose shoots are poisonous. Here are a few I’ve tried myself.

Radish: small, easy-to-handle brownish-orange seeds. Fastest of all to germinate – sowing to eating in five days. And what an amazing flavour! Spicy, peppery, like a cleaner, fresher version of root radishes.

Peas: large, easy-to-handle seeds swell dramatically once soaked, so you only need to sow a few for a good crop. They start sprouting almost immediately – second only to radishes for speed. The shoots are meaty and substantial, and I loved the flavour – like raw mangetout.

Sunflowers: I soaked far too many – they doubled their size overnight, so don’t overdo the quantities. The sturdy seedlings were at eating size in a week, plus a few days to shed their hard seed coats. They had an interesting, nutty flavour, and there was plenty to eat, but it wasn’t my favourite – I couldn’t help thinking I’d rather have had the sunflowers.

Chard ‘Bright Lights’: big, corky seeds which were straightforward to handle and sow. They took ages to come up, though: they might do better germinated somewhere warmer, like the airing cupboard. As a result they were ready 12 days after sowing – but it was worth the wait: the shoots were a gorgeous tapestry of red, green and orange stems, and the superb flavour, like tender spinach, was a firm favourite.

Celery: The seeds were too dust-like to handle properly so I ‘watered’ them onto the compost with the soaking water. They were slow, too: a week to germinate and another before you could harvest. However, the delicate leaves had a spicy taste, intense, sharp and delicious – worth the wait (just).

Basil ‘Purple Ruffles’: Small dark seeds which needed careful handling to avoid them disappearing down the sink. Slow to germinate – perhaps another one which could have done with more warmth – and the deep burgundy-coloured shoots took two weeks to arrive. Very, very pretty, and fragrant with a spicy, savoury flavour.

Tags: 52-week salad challenge, baby leaf salads, basil, celery, chard, lettuce, microgreens, peas, radish, salads, seedlings, sunflowers