Microgreens farming. My best ever piece of advice for beginners.
Are you ready? Here it is ….. JUST START GROWING! It will tell you pretty much straight away whether you enjoy doing it, which is the foundation of your entire business.
I know growing your first ever microgreens can be daunting when you’re first thinking about starting. I dragged my heels for ages too in the beginning because I wanted to get it just right.
I’m not suggesting you don’t research the business first. Read and take action on my free Mini Business Guide for example. See if you have people and places in your local area you can potentially sell to etc. I just recommend not over-researching so much that you forget to start growing! I’ve lost count of the conversations I’ve had with people over the years who have spent ages (sometimes years!) designing their growing space to within an inch of it’s life, buying all the stuff… but have never yet sown a seed. You might get lucky and your time and financial investment are worth it, but I personally wouldn’t chance it.
I know how exciting the prospect of this business is (and it is nice to buy stuff sometimes too!), but first things first.
If you have the following kit, you can start your first grow:
A waterproof container that you can poke holes in the bottom (your seed tray) and something for it to sit in to catch the water - can include plastic vegetable containers, a seed tray you already own, a milk carton laid on it’s side with the panel cut out! (see here). Lots of options for your first grow!
Some compost or coco coir. Any fresh peat free compost will work well and you can order coco coir from here. My preferred grow medium is compost.
Some seeds. Ideally ones that are sold as microgreens seeds (it means they’ve been tested properly for pathogens). I recommend these two places for your seeds - Grown Local and Grow Sow Greener.
A window sill that’s not draughty.
A small watering can (or something you can water with) and a spray bottle.
Something waterproof for covering your seeds during germination and a weight to go on top. Like the tray below.
That’s all.
And here’s the simple process of growing your first ever microgreens:
Fill a regular garden seed tray or tub with compost/coir and press it down evenly with your hands.
Sprinkle your seeds evenly on top. I recommend starting with one of the radish varieties - probably the easiest (and tastiest!) micro of them all to grow!
Spray generously with water (not to waterlog though), then cover with a spare tray or tub on top and add a heavy weight. This can be a brick, large pebble, can of beans, what ever you have. This will force even germination.
Keep them somewhere warm until the seed shoots are forcing up your weight above! This will be after 3 to 4 days for radish. Take off the cover and weight.
Then pop them on a window sill and keep them nice and warm (17C or above ideally, but not essential). Fill the bottom tray up with water and do this whenever the bottom tray dries out.
Harvest (cut) them around a week later (radish).
Eat and enjoy the amazing taste.
Become addicted to growing microgreens!
Get good at it and experiment with growing different varieties.
Repeat, expand and sell.
Now you have a business!
FROM THIS… TO THIS!
The photo on the left is the first EVER tray of microgreens I grew! All the way back in March 2017.
The variety is China Rose Radish and I sowed them in a cherry tomato tub full of compost, then placed this inside a lunchbox and popped it on the window sill in our conservatory. I watered it a bit from the sides every few days and 10 days later, I had this crop and I was amazed! 10 days is a bit longer than usual to grow radish, so my room must have been quite cold and my seed density was WAY too high! Not much air flowing through these babies! But despite them being very wet on the stems when I cut them, they tasted delicious and I was excited.
I’ve grown them every single week ever since! (and got a bit better at it in the process!).
One of the great things about microgreens is that they have very short grow cycles (7 - 21 days). This means you can learn the skill quickly! If you mess up one batch, you only have to wait a week or so for your next one. And each time you’ll tweak, learn and improve. I just kept doing this for years and didn’t stop!
Top tip when doing grow trials - always make notes on your seed density, variety, time in germination, time out of germination and anything else worth noting! This will massively help you troubleshoot your future grows.
The photo above on the right is my grow room last summer 2022. It’s the exact same process of growing, just done on a larger scale. The more I grew, the more I then learnt about adapting the growing space climate. The better my grows got, the more confidence I had to sell them. These skills will come more easily once you’ve nailed your growing and understand your crops.
Why it’s important to get good at growing first:
The most obvious answer - because that’s your product! A consistently excellent quality product will sell much better (and cause you much less stress!), than a rubbish and inconsistent product.
Getting good at this first will be your biggest hurdle and when you’re growing incredible microgreens, you’ll feel amazing and confident to sell them! :)
When you do scale up, if you have a solid foundation to your growing skills, you can do this on almost auto-pilot and then you can focus more on your sales and expanding and developing the business.
It will make you very happy and you’ll have a constant supply of the most nutritious foods on the planet to eat!
If you’d like a more in-depth guide (with photos!) to growing your first microgreens well AND learn exactly how to sell them, then I recommend my FREE 14-page - UK Microgreens Farming Mini Business Guide (it’s really good!)
Download now to get it sent straight to your inbox!
In your guide, you’ll get:
5 great reasons for starting a microgreens business in the UK right now
A basic equipment list
A step-by-step guide to growing and harvesting radish shoots and pea shoots, including UK pricing suggestions and profit margins.
A how-to guide to selling your microgreens to chefs, restaurants and your local community.