I probably should put this in the sprouting section, but since this is important and not enough people probably check the sprouting section to benefit from this, l will write it here.

The major point of this thread is to say that green sprouts should NEVER be grown in jars.

why we should always avoid jats for sprouting greens
1. Far too much time messing around pulling the sprouts out to dehull.
2. Creates far too much heat inside the jar for most sprouts on warm days and can rot and create bacteria.
3. Never creates a perfect green. Jars cramp and deform the sprouts and they never grow to their full size and green potential. They are unhappy sprouts living in crowded conditions and the underside pale imitation of their true selves is never revealed.
4. Jars don't let enough light in the middle of the bunch, don't allow enough air in and create too much heat.
5. Sprouts can dry out at the top of the jar
6. A better harvest/value for money over jars

Growing sprouts in a greenhouse with ventilation on open trays is the best way. It allows plants to grow upright and fully green like they do in nature, not weak undersized and moderate greens like in jars.

Doing it this way can cut time doing 12 large jars of sprouts from 45 minutes per day (working fast) to only 5 minutes per day with superior results.

All we need to do is soak the seeds, put on a tray basket, put them in the greenhouse and spray them twice per day. The hulls will fall off by themselves, and when you do the one and only rinse you can rinse away the remaining hulls.

l'll get more into this as time goes on. But for now...here are some pics.

Tray grown fenugreek - no crowded conditions, all sprouts have equal opportunity for sunlight and air and can gropw health till fullness





Using a tray with slits is important, see the roots coming through?



There is a good reason why we use slit trays. More on this later, but fly wire can be very useful also.

Grow all your greens on soil or soil-less trays/baskets, never jars.

Alfalfa getting started


You will soon see how the alfalfa heads are much bigger than normal jar grown alfalfa heads. A happier more robust sprout = a happier more robust person.

Buckwheat lettuce grown on soil - a fabulous drink


Soon we'll talk about growing buckwheat, wheatgrass, sunflower etc without soil.

Jars are only for sprouting legumes, sprouting some seeds and sprouting most grains.

I grow heaps of large trays of wheatgrass, chia grass, buckwheat, pea shoot greens and sunflower greens, but bewteen all these trays l can still put in over a dozen trays of seed greens like alfalfa, brocolli, fenugreek, clover etc that will still yield a high volume of juice.


I'll post more pics and details soon. If you are a serious greensman, this is the way to do it. Spend the time in getting set up right and then go for it. There is no reason not to be eating fresh grown greens, nor is there an excuse for paying too much for greens and not having enough of them. Grens are great, so get stuck into them. Have greens everyday, lots of them.


What is a grenhouse?
It can be just a plastic bag.
It can be some shelves on wheels covered in clear plastic.
It can be a handmade tent
It can be a box with all clear plastic sides and roof.

Place the greenhouse under the trees. Place it where ever.

Remember folks - minimise the work.

www.thesproutarian.com



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2013 06:23AM by The Sproutarian Man.

THeSt0rm Wrote:
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> So you grow some sprouts without soil...

l am largely doing this for people who live in apartments. Personally, l want to start growing everything on soil including fenugreek, alfalfa, chia etc.

The sunflower greens without soil will be interesting, but never grow them in a sprouting tray or else they get caught up in a twisted mess and never lose their hulls - a 15 minute dehulling process for striped grey sunflower takes well over an hour when dehulled in sprouting trays.

People talk about dehulling sunflower greens taking too long, but a 12.5 inch by 16.5 inch tray should take about 15 minutes maximum when grown and prepaired properly. The more expensive black sunflower seeds are far less time.

There is a technique for pulling the sunflowers off. Soak them in water and fondle, then pull the hulled sunflower greens through your fingers and pull of the hulls off last with each handful. Using H202 and good warm growing conditions in a greenhouse also helps alot imo.


>do you
> worry that plastic chemicals leach into the
> sprouts?

No....l do the best l can so why worry. Still, l am aware of it and will try to improve the growing methods as l go along. Lots of things l can do to improve the situation like put wood hatch frames on the bottom of each plastic basket, or try and find some type of glass filter to place along the bottom etc. Just doing experiments for people at the moment, so we'll perfect it later on.

Anyway.,..toxins don't bother me these days. I do the sea weeds, greens, algaes and filtered waters....my body will take care of it.

No need to worry about anything these days if you are doing good things. Worry is a waste of emotion and l am over it. I've got my third eye and basic nutrition knowledge....that's all l need....they can take the rest.....i've got the most important things (the true gift of enlightenment), so why worry. If l have to live in a paddock with the cows, so be it. There are two Australian blokes who have been living on weeds in the bush for decades, and one is very very sane, so if he can live on weeds, so can l. One man brought his kids up as raw vegans and then left the family to live in the bush. He makes his own shoes and barters bark sandals and pots to barter for clothing. He has NO bank account and earns no money....completely out of the system. He lives in a hut and his diet is 100% weeds.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2013 08:11AM by The Sproutarian Man.

Beautiful. You are an inspiration.
I grow greens indoor, my latest problem is with sunflower, they mold and do not come out right, I need a good supplier of sunflower seeds.

RawPracticalist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I grow greens indoor, my latest problem is with
> sunflower, they mold and do not come out right, I
> need a good supplier of sunflower seeds.

Try the following in order to reduce mold:

1. Putting the sunflower in a plastic tent or on shelves covered in plastic to maximise the hulls that fall off
2). Soak the seeds in water, but add 1 teaspoon of H202 to the water.
3). Each time you water the greens, use a sprayer and add 1 tablespoon per 1,000 ml of water.

As a man who owned a nursery for 30 year recently told me, "horticulture isn't easy, they make it look easy on t.v, but it is quite challenging in reality". He is right too - i've had every challenge you canm imagine over the years that should make any person give up.

Challenges l have had while growing greens:

* snails and slugs getting into greens
* rats eating 50% of my greens before they have a chance to sprout
* wind and heat killing the greens
* being too cold to grow greens properly
* mold
* direct sunlight getting on sprouts during the morning
* quality mung beans dying no matter what, so l had to end up using filtered energised water and spray them at 100 psi to get them to grow.

No matter what happens, there is always some challenge. One disaster happens, and when that's fixed another disaster will happen.

The most time consuming things to grow are sprouted nuts. Shelling is always a drag, then you need to high pressure spray them at least twice a day on a tray with holes. The hardest sprout of all to grow are walnut sprouts, they take so long to prepare.

My trusty air compressor - used for spraying microgreens, nuts, chia, flax and stubborn legumes. You can also use a bike pump instead, + it has the benefit of getting you fit, buit it takes much more time to water things.


An filtered water system with spoecial water energisers to alter the electrical frequency of the water, and then put into a specially altered spray bottle to create a vortex when watering


One of a few compost areas - HHI do it the same way



The highly elusive walnut sprouts


Brian Clement and Sproutman say to sprout nuts with their shells on, but they are wrong. I tried sprouting walnuts with shells on and they only started to crack the shell open after 6 months. What am l supposed to do, sprout walnuts in their shells for one year lol?

The funniest thing ever
Dr Clement says to put walnuts on soil and just cut the greens off and juice that. But but but, that means we would need to sprout a sack of walnuts just to get the juice and then disregard the entire walnut. No way!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2013 11:14PM by The Sproutarian Man.

Good information. Do you know any sprouts that would be good for vision?

RawPracticalist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
I
> need a good supplier of sunflower seeds.

Micheal should be the best guy to buy off, he knows his seeds better than anyone.

The seeds (black sunflower - the best)
[www.wheatgrassgreenhouse.com]

This is how they will grow when done Micheal's way, nearly every hull falls off and a much better juice yield Micheal tells me.
[www.wheatgrassgreenhouse.com]

l'll be changing to black sunflower hopefully soon, depends on whether l can talk a man into selling me amounts in bulk.

Alfalfa grass grown properly







Not every hull will fall off, so the key is to wash the hulls off before serving, but also give them a fast second rince to remove nearly all hulls. Jar grown alfalfa could never achieve this result. The alfalfa is straight, robust and green.

The ultimnte key to success
Check the roots and harvest before they turn yellow. I had two failures with alfalfa and fenugreek rotting, so timing is everything with soil-less sprouts.

Keep the trays on plastic bags for the first 4 - 5 days. When the roots have developed you can elevate the greens alittle so the roots won't rot as easily.

The alfalfa grass is grown on fly wire so the seeds don't fall through. Hardly any work compared with jar sprouts.





l'll get back to this when l have more time.

www.thesproutarian.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2013 08:02AM by The Sproutarian Man.

Beautiful. What do you use to grow alfalfa

Nice pics.

Lovely pictures TSM!

Thanks Cynthia and Anon101.



RawPracticalist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Beautiful. What do you use to grow alfalfa



The tellow tray is for fenugreek and the green tray is for alfalfa. Notice how alfalfa has fly wire on the bottom to stop the small seeds from falling through.




After soaking the alfalfa 4 - 6 hours you lay out the seed on the tray. The seeds don't have to be evenly spread out until the end of the 2nd day (new seeds haven't developed roots yet so even spread doesn't matter). The way you even out the seeds is by using a high pressure water sprayer, this will naturally even the seeds out.




After soaking fenugreek 4 - 6 hours (preferably 5 hours unless really hot weather) you lay out the seed. Don't need fly wire for this one.




Put the seeds in a plastic bag and put them in a dark place. You don't need to keep the bag open because the respiration process hasn't developed yet. Keep them in the bag for roughly two days.

after two days you take them out of the bag and put them on clear plastic covered shelves to get sunlight for the next 4 - 5 days. But check those roots and make sure they aren't rotting. I choose to place the trays on plastic bags in the shelving unit for about 4 days to protect the seeds from drying out, and then remove the bags from underneath and sit them on wood pegs so they are elevated to minimise any chance of root rot.




Chia seeds about to be sprouted on a cloth using a tray. Soak for 4 hours and sprout on tray for 2 - 3 days, just make sure the sprout isn't grassy...keep it meaty instead.



www.thesproutarian.com

Broccoli sprouts - almost ready for tommorrow morning's juice



Those trays work well because they supplement the usual microgreens very well.

Broccoli sprouts finally taken out of the greenhouse this evening to get some extra sun to get the extra dark green



Placed on a dish rack in the middle of the yard. Need to be careful that the roots don't dry up, but two hours exposure in open air will be o.k for a mature sprout, but sprouts in the beginning stages need much more protection from the air because they will dry out and get damaged very easily.

Broccili sprout roots - need to be careful...they are bone white and full of moisture and will rot if left for another day. The broccoli leaves will open up tonight just as the roots are about to start their decline tommorrow - perfect timing!




Albino sunflower green



Also doing soil-less sunflower greens and they are growing well. Will do soil-less wheatgrass and buckwheat lettuce soon too.

The hardest thing to grow soil-less seems to be fenugreek so far because it takes a day longer than most soil-less greens and the roots can rot on the final day before the leaves open up. Best to do fenugreek on soil me think.


The real colour, but still needs another two hours of darkening to get that deep green


Nice and tall and straight - equal opportunity sprouts that get equal amounts of air and sunlight and room to grow. Jar sprouts never equal opportunity sprouts, they are jail sprouts



www.thesproutarian.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2013 07:40AM by The Sproutarian Man.

Sunflower greens without soil


Still needs improvement because some of the leaves have spots. I reckon higher elevation of the sprouts after 3 days on small stands might work.


Happy greens - broccoli, ryegrass, sunflower, buckwheat, alfalfa, fenugreek


www.thesproutarian.com

OMG. I will read this later tonight and see if I can implement. I have lots of seeds, a tribest sprouter, but I want to try it this way, jars no good I agree.

i get high just by looking at photos of green sprouts and grasses lol

raises my vibration