Eating your sprouts?
By Mark RoachNo, not brussel sprouts… Blech! Normal sprouts. I came across this “micro indoor hydroponic home food production system” called ‘Kitchen Gardening‘ a few weeks ago, where you simply put your seeds in bottles, add water until they sprout… and eat them. After all, isn’t that what sprouts bought in the shops are? Seeds that have started growing and are then packed and sold to be used in soups, stews and even in sandwiches as a filling.
This is certainly one way of growing your own food but it reminded me a bit of an article I read a while back. The article was about a non governmental organisation (NGO) whose project to provide a poor rural community with the tools and the knowledge to produce their own food, had failed dismally – Because the people, too poor and hungry to wait for their crops to grow, had immediately gone out and sold their tools to buy food. The classic “Quick Fix” syndrome.
Isn’t this ‘Sprout Garden‘ concept the same sort of thing? Isn’t it a bit like selling the tools of the trade before you’ve made your products? I mean a handful of sprouts can by no means be called a full meal. It would also take dozens, if not hundreds of seeds to produce a small handful of sprouts whereas that same handful of sprouts, if they were planted out, grown and then harvested would provide a much, much bigger harvest of food.
It’s that whole “quick fix” thing that gets to me, not to mention it being a great waste of seed.How many seeds would you have to go through just to provide enough sprouts for one sandwich filling per day for a month? Now compare that to the harvest of a tomato plant grown from just a single seed.
Growing the sprouts is of course a lot easier than growing vegetables and, without the need for a garden (of any size), this would make it appealing to quite a few people. The health benefits also seem to be a big plus for those who are unable to grow their own vegetables during winter. In fact, the health benefits from eating sprouts seem to be a big plus at any time. I wouldn’t go quite as far as some have in calling sprouts the equivalent of a “Fountain of Youth” though 
What do you think? Would you try this at home? Are you already doing it and if so, how is it working out?
Happy gardening
Mark
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Hi Mark
where can I buy a vertical sprout garden from – like one in the article above?
rgs
Heidi
ps. Brilliant site!! well done!
Hi Heidi
You can try the KitchenGarden.co.za website for that specific sprouter. I see that GoNatural.co.za also have the same unit but there are no prices on the website. My wife has just purchased the Hemp Sprout Bag from Healthmakers.co.za to test the concept with and we’ll be posting a bit more on this sometime soon.
Hey Mark ~ The information presented is top notch. I’ve been doing some research and this post answered several questions. Thanks!
Green Moong sprouts are the best and the tastiest and the easiest to do
Would it not be a good idea then, to plant out seeds during the growing season, eat 90% of your crop and let 10% go to seed that you can sprout in the non-growing season – assuming they are the right kind of thing to sprout – nobody is going to eat a tomato sprout as it is toxic, but beetroot sprouts are delicious and if you leave one beetroot only to go to seed, then you have many many seeds that you can save and plant out again next year.
This might sound like a daft question, but once you have sprouted the seeds can they be planted to develop into a full size plant? I have the kitchenGarden sprout kit and regularly grow my sprouts for eating, but have always wondered if i could grow them further in soil! if so, which ones would work for proper planting?