Tiny but tasty

Nowhere to grow edibles? Or all out of room in the garden? All you need for these babies is a windowsill or bright spot inside or out

- chloe thomson

Microgreens are small but mighty flavour explosions that are super-easy to grow and harvest. You don’t need a lot of space to grow your own microgreens — even a kitchen windowsill is enough — so they are great for people in apartments or those with an already overflowing veggie garden.

By mass-planting herb, salad and vegetable seeds into small trays or punnets, you essentially create a mini forest of young shoots that can be harvested with a simple snip of your scissors. These young herb, salad or vegetable shoots are full of flavour, just like their grown-up versions, but their leaves are tender, brightly coloured, full of nutrition and delightfully small.

Don’t get microgreens and sprouts mixed up — they are different crops in several ways. Sprouts are germinated in water and the whole sprout (including the original seed) is eaten. Microgreens, however, are germinated in soil and only the top of the shoot is harvested soon after the first true leaves have emerged.

GROWING

To get growing you’ll need: