Sprouts and Black Stockings

More Sprouts, Weird Sprouts and No Sprouts

Saturday night, I started a second batch of mung bean sprouts. Sunday morning, I drained, rinsed and popped them into a small jar. They were plump and begging to unfurl little sproutie things, which they did 6hrs later. Gazooks, that was fast. I have high expectations for this crop.

I’m a semi-seasoned sprouter now; this is my second batch, so I gave myself permission to sway from pedantic adherence to instruction (rinse, drain every 8hrs, cover with muslin, etc). I had a different idea. I’d sing “I’m a Little Tea (no) Pea Sprout, Strong and Stout” to encourage rapid growth. When that didn’t work, I came up with another less clever idea.

I grabbed an new pair of black stocking knee-highs, and stuck one of them over the jar pulling the stocking tight across the top and down to the bottom. The idea being that the black stocking shades the bean sprouts so that the chlorophyll isn’t triggered by exposure to light. So far so good. The sprouts are snowy white but it’s early days, early as in the green shells are still stuck to the beans even though they’ve sprouted well.

So anyway, I started this batch on Saturday night, and Wednesday night we ate half of them on a green salad. I’ll start another batch tomorrow.

I also have some green lentils in a jar with a black stocking pulled over tight. So far the lentils haven’t shown any willingness or intent to sprout, and that’s after soaking 24hrs. This is day 3. Nada.

The quinoa seeds sprouted within a few hours after soaking for just 8hrs. The sprouts were long and thin, and reminded me of something you’d expect to see coming out of a puppy’s bottom. I tossed them across some veg soup. I won’t be repeating that experience. The quinoa sprouts tasted like rye grass. Edible but not particularly pleasant. I’m still having nightmares about thread worms and puppy bottoms.

Quinoa Sprouts on Day 2

Quinoa Sprouts on Day 3 (above and below)

Quinoa sprouts hidden in the depths of vegetable soup

The potted herbs are doing very well on windowsill. I cut the chives back to about 3-inches, and then gave them a good feed with liquid plant food. The basil received the same treatment; cut back hard and fed. I used the basil for fresh pesto with pine nuts. The chives went into a fluffy omelette that had shaved parmesan folded through it, and then topped with the last of the bean sprouts.

I’m also trying an experiment with spring onions. I chopped what I needed of the green tops, and then popped the white parts into a glass of water on the windowsill. The green tops are growing back and new sprouts have appeared. I believe I’ll have an endless supply of spring onion tops, if this works as I think it might. Photo 1 is on day 1, and photo 2 is on day 3. All of them have sprouted new green shoots and a root system is growing.

So, tell me … what are growing indoors right now?