8 days to go... Sewing some sprouts in jars

8 days to go.  This is getting serious!  

I should be getting nervous, but I'm really just anxious for this thing to start!  The weather is cooperating really well and hopefully I will still have fresh leaves and things still growing in the garden to eat on November first when it all happens.  

I've been making lots of plans.  Watching lots of gardening and vegan videos on YouTube.  Collecting seed from plants in the garden that I can eat or sprout.  Amaranth, beans, sunflower seeds and winter squash.  

I have pretty successfully weened myself off sugar in the last week or so.  I've cheated a few times.  But this is one of the things that is the hardest for me because I have such a love/hate relationship with sugar.  My boyfriend Mike loves to cook, and he loves for people to eat what he cooks, so when he makes things like apple crisp, I just have to eat a little.  Last week he made lasagna.  I won't be having that for awhile, so I ate as much as I wanted.  Yesterday we went to Reid's in Lockport.  Reid's, for those of you who do not live near me, is Lockport's family owned Drive In Restaurant that has been there for 70 years!  It's a summer time favorite for most people around here and neither time, nor Corporate American have ruined it's charm.  I had to go just one last time.  I am human, after all.

I think a staple in my winter food consumption will be stuff growing on my kitchen counter.  I have started some sprouts and some micro greens that will provide me fresh greens all winter.  I feel like this is cheating a little, because I'll be buying some of the seed.  However I am growing them myself, so technically it counts.  I'm not just eating the seeds.  I'm growing them into sprouts or tiny plants, so it counts as food I've grown.

The difference between sprouting seeds and growing micro greens is that sprouts are "sprouted" in a jar, rinsed everyday with water, and take about 5 to 7 days to be ready to eat.  Micro greens are grown in flats or trays and left to grow 10 to 20 days depending on temperature, light and variety of seed to be grown. Sprouts are eaten with the seed attached to the sprout, and micro greens, you just cut the tops off like a small salad leaf or shoot.  Both are highly nutritious and really versatile.  Either one is good for smoothies, juicing, in salads, on sandwiches or burritoes.  Higher end restaurants use micro greens as garnish.  

There are also scads of different seeds to spout.  Sunflower seeds, radish seeds, lentils, peas, clover, grains and beans to name just a few.  Each seed has a different flavor when sprouted or grown for shoots.  Yesterday I started some sunflower seeds and some lentils in jars to sprout, and then I planted a few shallow trays with oats so I can juice the oat tops.  

It may be easier to show you the techniques for growing these in a video, so I won't go through every detail here.  I'll try to film something and let you know.

I'll keep you updated.  Have a wonderful day.