How to Grow Microgreens at Home

Microgreens are the fastest crop you will ever grow: seed to harvest in as little as a week, no garden required, and no season required either — a windowsill works in January as well as July, in either hemisphere. Here's the complete method, plus the two beginner problems (mold and 'is that mold?') that trip most people up.

What microgreens actually are

Microgreens are ordinary vegetable and herb seedlings — radish, pea, broccoli, mustard, sunflower — grown densely and harvested young, once the first true leaves appear. They're not sprouts: sprouts are germinated in jars of water and eaten whole, roots and all, within days, which is why sprouts carry a food-safety reputation microgreens don't share. Microgreens grow in a medium, in air and light, and you eat only the stem and leaves cut above the soil.

Flavour-wise they punch far above their size — a pinch of radish microgreens is genuinely spicy, pea shoots taste like fresh peas — and they pack more concentrated vitamins per gram than the mature vegetable.

The easiest crops to start with

What you need

• A shallow tray or container 3–5 cm deep — a repurposed berry punnet or takeaway tray with drainage holes punched in works fine.
• Growing medium: multipurpose compost, seed compost, or coco coir, 2–3 cm deep. Hemp or jute mats also work.
• Seeds — use seed sold for sprouting/microgreens where possible; it's untreated and cheap in bulk. Never use treated (coloured or coated) garden seed.
• A spray bottle, a bright windowsill, and scissors. Grow lights help in dark winters but are optional.

Step by step

• Moisten the medium so it's damp like a wrung-out sponge, and level it — don't compress it hard.
• Sow densely and evenly, far thicker than you'd ever sow a garden row: seeds should almost touch, roughly one seed-width apart. Large seeds (pea, sunflower) benefit from an overnight soak first.
• Press seeds gently into contact with the medium. Small seeds need no covering soil; large seeds appreciate a thin sifted layer.
• Mist thoroughly, then cover the tray — a second inverted tray or a plate — for the blackout phase: 2–4 days of darkness while seeds germinate. Some growers add light weight on top to strengthen stems.
• Once most seeds have sprouted and stems are 2–3 cm, uncover and move to bright light. Pale yellow seedlings green up within a day.
• Water daily by bottom-watering: stand the tray in a couple of centimetres of water for a few minutes, then drain. Keeping the leaves dry is your main defence against mold.
• Harvest when 5–10 cm tall with fully open seed leaves (cotyledons) or the first true leaves — usually 7–21 days. Cut just above the soil with clean scissors.

Mold — and the white fuzz that isn't mold

The number-one beginner alarm is white fuzz around the base of seedlings a few days in. Look closely: fine, symmetrical filaments hugging a single root, which vanish when you water, are root hairs — completely normal and a sign of a thirsty, healthy root. Mold is different: a cobweb-like mat that sits on top of the medium and spans between stems, often with a musty smell. Prevent it by sowing slightly less densely, bottom-watering, and improving airflow — a cracked-open window or small fan is enough. If a patch appears, remove it and the medium beneath it and harvest the rest early.

Do microgreens regrow after cutting?

Mostly no. You cut below the growing point, so the seedling is done — compost the spent mat of roots and medium and re-sow. The exception is pea shoots, which often regrow for a respectable second (sometimes third) cut if you snip above the lowest leaf pair. For a steady supply, start a new tray every 5–7 days rather than hoping for regrowth.

Eating and storing

Harvest right before eating for the best flavour and shelf life; rinse and dry gently if needed. Cut microgreens keep 5–7 days in a sealed box in the fridge with a sheet of kitchen paper. They're best raw — on eggs, soups, sandwiches, salads — since cooking wilts them instantly.

Wondering whether a mystery seedling in your tray is a rogue weed seed? Snap it with PlantMe — the app identifies seedlings from cotyledons and first true leaves surprisingly well.