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Thanks to Emma Holister of http://www.art-margin.com/ for this 3-part series from her on how to grow a micro-greens salad. The first part was published yesterday, and the last will be tomorrow.

For larger images, just click on any one of these pictures. —Zana

11) Either buy a seedling tray from your local gardening store or make your own by drilling drainage holes in a shallow plastic undertray for a potted plant.  This one has a diameter of 31cm.

12) You will be placing your tray of planted seeds in another slightly larger tray for catching the water.  Your seedling tray will need to be elevated so as to permit the water to fully drain out of the soil rather than having it sit in a puddle.  Here I have used a floor tile broken into bits to provide four stable stones of equal height for elevating the seed tray.

Note for cat owners: if your cats roam freely in the same room as your seedling trays, you will notice that they rapidly transform into cat litters, as fresh soil is irresistible to our feline friends.  Either make sure that your beloved fluffies are shut out of the room for the period that you are growing the greens, or attach a system of protective mesh around the whole set up.  This can be done with sticks of bamboo tied to the table legs, around which you can attach the wire mesh.

13) Put the seedling tray on top of the stones in the under-tray and add two centimeters of (preferably organic) potting compost into the seedling tray and tamp down gently with your hand to provide a flat surface.  You can buy potting compost from any garden store and as you will be putting the remains, after harvesting the greens, into your own compost bin, you will soon be using your own home made compost free of charge.

14) Water the soil so that it is fully moistened.  The smaller the watering can the better because a larger spout is likely to disrupt the surface of the soil with an overly heavy flow.  I find that a children’s watering can is perfect.

15) Now the soil tray is ready to receive the seeds.  Take your jar and scatter the seeds onto the surface of the moist soil.  A few seeds will remain stuck in the jar, just turn it upside down and give the bottom of the jar a few knocks to make them fall out, if any still remain, gently remove them with your fingers.

16) Now, very gently so as not to damage the fragile shoots, spread the seeds out evenly on the tray of soil.

17) Sprinkle a light layer of soil on top of the seeds, just enough to cover them, and very gently tamp down.  This will prevent sunlight from harming the baby shoots that will now begin to grow upwards towards the sunlight of their own accord.

18) The top soil you have just put onto the seeds is dry and will need moistening.  However, pouring water on with a watering can will disrupt the surface of this fine layer of soil, exposing the seeds you have just covered.  Therefore, only ever moisten the top soil with a garden spray of water, as shown below.

19) After two or three days you will see that the little sunflower leaves are beginning to push through.  You will need to use your own wisdom with how much to water the soil in the first three days.  Often it is not necessary to water them at all, but in the hot months of summer, it is important to check that the soil doesn’t dry out.  If it dries out in the first couple of days, moisten only with the spray so as not to disrupt the soil.  However, once the leaves are pushing through, as in the picture below, you will notice that they rise up and at the same time raise chunks of soil into the air.  At this point the watering can is very useful so that water can seep through the soil to make it fall back down to root level.  Naturally, having soil suspended in the air in chunks above the leaves can prevent the sunflowers from growing efficiently.  If, after watering, there are still large lumps of soil suspended above the leaves, you can help it fall back down again by very gently poking it with the tips of the fingers, being careful not to flatten the whole mass down and trap the uprising shoots.

20) Here you can see how the soil naturally falls back down to root level after each watering session, exposing more of your leaves to the air and sunlight.  It is the sunlight which produces the beautiful green in your shoots.  This chlorophyl has highly healing properties as it cleans the blood and body in general of toxins, including the widely prevalent candida.

21) After a couple more days your shoots will be rising up and out of the soil and beginning to lose their black hulls.

22)  Here you can see a tray of sunflower greens that have very nearly reached maturity.  If any shoots have been completely uprooted with their roots being pushed upside down and upwards into the air along with the leaves, then just gently poke the roots back down into the soil with the tip of your finger.

23) After watering, when the leaves and remaining black hulls are moist, gently brush the tops of the leaves to help remove loose hulls.

24) Sometimes the black hulls can be rather stubborn and can be removed individually by very gently pulling the hull off with an extremely light squeeze.  If you apply too much pressure you will pull the leaves off entirely and lose a perfectly good shoot.  Avoid removing the hulls when they are dry as this is when they are stuck more fastly to the leaves.  The hulls can also be gently levered off by catching the lower, sharp point of the hull under the tip of the finger and lifting it up and off the leaves.  Any few remaining hulls will come off after the harvesting when you wash them in a bowl of water.

25) After a few more days, being sure to water the greens regularly, you should have a full tray of mature micro-greens ready to eat.

26) Take hold of them in a bunch and crop, with a pair of scissors, close to the base of the stems, but not so close you get lots of dirt.

27) Put the harvested leaves in a bowl and wash, ready to eat.  The best way to keep them fresh after harvesting is to wrap them loosely in a kitchen towel and leave in the fridge. The remaining leaves in the tray can continue to grow on your window sill, but be sure to harvest them before the shoots begin to sprout another pair of leaves per shoot, as that is when they become more bitter and lose their tastiness.

28) Do your favorite salad dressing, mix with other sprouts if you want, or eat them on their own.

[To be continued tomorrow.]