While I know that a lot of this blog details programming and art projects, I also thought I\u2019d take a minute to show you about a small, new obsession of mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Microgreens are a kind of gardening\/farming, where you plant a lot of seeds in very close proximity to each other, let them grow for about a week, and then harvest them before they grow into the entire plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While this seems a little counter-intuitive, let me explain. When a seed first sprouts, it will generate two or three very small leaves which are, essentially, their starter leaves. Based on what I\u2019ve been reading, these leaves contain a huge amount of protein while also containing a lot of the flavor of the finished product. So, for example, the initial shoots\/leaves of a pea plant will have the flavor of peas, spinach sprouts will have the spinach flavor, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wanted to explore the idea further. So I wound up investing a little in grow led lights, that can be powered via USB, and spent probably more than I should have on various collections of seeds and soils as a way to test and experiment with different ways to get plants to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The videos that I\u2019ve watched suggest letting the plants go several days without light so they can sprout up \u2018seeking sunlight\u2019 so I have planted a number of different crops and am covering them up. I\u2019ve started with lettuce, sunflower, peas, and spinach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s been about three days, and while I\u2019m seeing some growth on the peas, the other seeds are not doing much of anything. My theory is that I probably overwatered them on the initial planting, but I\u2019m going to give them some time to air out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have a number of different seeds, as I mentioned, and the next batch that I\u2019m going to try and grow will be amaranth and a variety of corn that supposedly doesn\u2019t require any sunlight at all to get to the growth stage where I can harvest it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why am I doing this? Well, in the unlikely event that I need to be able to produce food for the short or long term in a basement, this seemed like a likely skill I would want to possess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also found some backup power supplies for -real- cheap at Walmart this past week, which spurred my jump into all of this. Normally, these power vaults sell for $260 on the manufacturer\u2019s website, but Wally was selling them for $89. I had the additional funds at my disposal so I picked up a couple of them, and after some testing it looks like I can run a strip of the grow LEDs for 8 hours and only sacrifice one \u2018block\u2019 of battery life (out of what appears to be seven on the indicator). If this is correct, I can grow plants for 3 weeks using these power supplies (one week per power supply) and that\u2019s only for the days that require light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw a posting on Facebook that said there\u2019s a process to \u201cForce\u201d rhubarb to grow in complete darkness (harvested by candlelight) and they went on to say that you could actually hear the plants growing. Personally, I think that would be too horrifying to listen to in the middle of the night when I was trying to sleep, so no rhubarb seeds in my supply, thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, I wanted to take a short break from everything else I\u2019ve been talking about to discuss another of my recent little obsessions. I hope you are all doing well. Have a great rest of the week!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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