Winter Sprouting for Healthy Living
Filed Under: Do It Yourself, Organic Gardening, Susatainable Living on December 26, 2009
Happy Boxing Day, you Canuks!
Well, for the rest of the non-Canadian world, it’s the day after Christmas. Eh. For all of us in the northern hemisphere, it’s winter. We’re past the solstice, sure, but it’s still cold and it’s likely the worst of the winter weather is still to come. On a high note, though, this doesn’t mean you have to resort to grocery store salads and lettuces that are shipped from hundreds of miles away.
Instead, you can keep growing your own salads at any time of the year, easily. I’ve talked about sprouting before, way back in June, when I showed you how easy and healthy growing your own sprouts can be. There are a wide variety of sprout types you can grow, from Chinese Mung to traditional alfalfa. All of them are good for you, healthy, and extremely tasty too!
I prefer the 3-part salad mix which is three seeds mixed together: alfalfa, radish, and mung. This is a great all-in-one mix that needs nothing but a fork once it’s grown. Splash on a little vinaigrette, maybe some sun dried tomatoes, and eat up!
Growing in rotation, a family of three can stay in salads for daily intake using only about a pound of seeds a week. I buy seeds in three pound bags for $12/bag, so that’s a cheap salad! Figure 6 salads a week times 3 people at $4 per week. That’s 18 salads at $4 total or only 0.22 cents per salad! Can it get any cheaper?
For that, you’re eating a daily ration of vitamins, minerals, and tons of healthy stuff. The best part is, all you need is a window that gets 3-5 hours of sunlight per day, some seeds, and a way to grow them. I have a kit that grows about a pound of finished product (about 2 tablespoons or 1oz of seeds) per tray. I rotate the trays to get a harvest every three days. That keeps us in salads.
I mix and match seeds, swapping as I go, so we might have my favorite salad mix for a few days and then an alfalfa and onion mix, then mung and radish, and so on. There are literally dozens of seed types to choose from with a lot of different flavors. Some take longer to grow than others, with mung and other thick sprouts taking about a week while alfalfa takes only 3-4 days.
Overall, it’s an excellent and very inexpensive way to stay healthy and eat well all winter long. The seeds are usually cheaper online, though if you live near a health food store, you’ll probably find them there as well. Buying in larger quantities makes them cheaper, of course, and most are organic to boot.
Eat well! For more on growing your own sprouts, read my DIY Sprouts In Your Home Are Easy and Healthy!
