Discover the difference in growing process, varieties, and nutrient content in Microgreens versus sprouts!
Hello hello everybody this is Tate with beyard Farming Supply and Academy and we are back for another nerd session our apologies if you were on the previous little stream we had going there we had some technical glitches going on so we figured we’d just drop that start back
At the top so I am going to introduce my buddy Leif here and he is actually a previous professional micro greens grower here in Denver Colorado so I’ve known Leif for a good amount of time and why don’t you tee yourself up Leif tell everybody who you are yeah so
I’m Leifer uh have a degree in horiculture from Kansas State University uh I specialized in organic agriculture uh basically focused on just promoting good healthy food systems through organic production um about well four years ago now uh when Co hit I had you know a job loss and my
Wife had a job loss so we decided to kind of test out some other ideas for ways to make money and we found the idea to grow micro greens had a lot of the supplies that we already needed things of that nature so yeah we started up a
Micr greens business uh ran it for about two and a half years uh and kind of decided that our other career get back to our other careers and you know kind of go back to the route we were on but that was a really good way for us to
Kind of survive the pandemic a little bit uh to promote you know our beliefs on healthy food and to really share a lot of healthy food into the local markets that was definitely lacking at that time from all of the different stuff that we were all dealing with and
Uh supply chain issues and all of that so um that was kind of who I am and where I came from I guess on this topic um so yeah for sure and let’s everybody let everybody know how how we met and how long we’ve known each other so I’ve
I actually met Leif back in about 2016 as a grower that was actually using the keeto life nutrients and so take it away yeah I met Tate uh through a mutual friend at the time and uh was given some samples of the ktl nutrients and immediately saw
Some really good results with them so uh the production scenario I was in we were I don’t even remember about 25,000 sare ft or so uh we were able to slowly transition over to all keto life nutrients and we’re able to increase our yields qualities everything became uh
Better for us through those nutrients so uh out of that situation I decided to go or had T was gracious enough to have me to allow me to go try to promote his nutrients so I did some sales for him for a while um was able to help some
Other Growers really make some big changes from traditional systems to organic systems uh through the use of those nutrients so yeah that’s definitely fully support Tate and everything he does for that reason thanks brother you too man yeah no I I met Le and I just recognized instantly
The knowledge and the passion that he had for agriculture and horiculture and uh it was it made my job easy because I didn’t have to explain that much to the guy so you know we’ve just kept in touch over the last few years and I I noticed
That he was doing the micro greens thing during the pandemic and during the covid era and so I figured I’d bring him on today to talk about micro greens and sprouts and at the end of the day a lot of you guys have taken the backyard farming Academy course the seed starting
Blueprint and if you guys have taken that whether you uh went all the way to setting up a full-blown seed room or just adopted some of the basic principles you’re going to see a lot of overlap with micro greens and Sprout growing with some of the most basic core
Fundamentals of growing and sprouting seeds so if you have gone all the way to setting up a full-blown seed germination room this is another opportunity for you to maximize that space and continue to use it and affect not only your diet but also potentially your wallet with the
Growing of micro greens so grow freshness all year round and we’re going to go ahead and dive in so on today’s live we’re going to go into why indoor micro greens Rock and the difference between sprouts and micro greens and the big debate that there is around those
Two but also we’re going to go a little bit beyond the basics and we’re going to go from the hobby side all the way to the hustle side and what’s the difference really in especially the micro greens realm if you want to grow enough for your family versus enough for
The neighborhood or Beyond some of the key markets that you’re going to look at and some of the key uh core fundamental equipment as well as problems and solutions that you guys are going to need to be able to bring and to identify on your own so let’s go ahead and jump
In but we always got to say this is all about you guys so throw your questions in down below we’re all about everybody’s difference of opinion diet uh preferences budget and everything else so we’re here to bring this to everybody in a good format that is kind
Of a one- siiz fits all while approaching and giving multiple solutions that work for everybody so always throw your comments down below we’ll come back and answer them whether they’re on the socials or the YouTube and don’t ever hesitate to throw your questions out there so some of the biggest things is
Obviously why do we grow greens indoors well for me it’s obviously always and forever about knowing what’s in and on your food and also being able to create memories with your family to be able to take feeding your kid from a day to something that they can do for
The rest of their life now obviously the the other benefits are that we can grow freshness all year round here in Colorado last week it was brutal we were down like way below 0 degrees even into minus 10 and 20° and it was really cold well there’s definitely nothing growing
Outside at that point in time so this is an opportunity whether it’s on our countertop in our kitchen or a whole seedling germination space or in our basement we can really bring a 365 diet to our family also it’s extremely good on the square footage it’s a amazing
Crop to grow for space Saving Solutions it’s also extremely convenient and you can have a lot of control over your micro greens production even if something goes bad it’s pretty quick and easy to reset to allow us to continue on that Journey so with these couple things
What did you see Leif uh we definitely uh saw a benefit from being able to grow year round especially as a commercial producer uh any type of vegetable crop and a temperate climate is going to be difficult for you to produce so uh with greens with the micro greens we were
Able to produce them at full capacity year round there was no lull in season for us um we had a few learning curves uh to learn you know how different seasons change your immediate environment uh through the growing process but ultimately everything could be done year round without any major
Major changes um definitely the space saving solution is huge huge huge in this game because uh just in a small square footage you can produce a lot of greens you can produce uh more than your family could ever eat in very very small space so uh our total production
Scenario um was was about 300 Square ft uh that included our harvesting area our storage area um and then just some extra floor space honestly that we didn’t utilize so we were producing at a commercial ability in a 300t space so if you had an extra bedroom you could
Honestly set up you know a small commercial production scenario uh the convenience and control is always great uh whether you’re doing Sprouts that are ready in a couple of days or micr grain that are ready in a week or two you have the ability to have your food really
Fresh you can you know eat it straight off of the tray essentially so when you to grow them they’re ready when you’re ready for them um and it doesn’t take as much planning as you know a full vegetable crop so it’s a little more convenient in that way um and like you
Said you can put it anywhere you can put it on your kitchen counter in your bedroom it doesn’t matter where you grow them for sure and I’m I’m really sorry to get a little distracted but uh we have a little bit of feedback coming in saying that our live keeps looping a few
Sentences over and over and that the connection is not very good we apologize but hey we’ve got this on recording so we’re just going to keep rocking and rolling and if the live isn’t good go back and check for the YouTube video my apologies Le all good continue no that’s
Pretty much all I had you’re a good start cool awesome um so yeah you know the convenience and control the space savings and the freshness year round are some of the key fundamentals for growing micro greens now micro greens versus Sprouts a lot of people think it’s the
Same thing and it even though it might use the same seeds and at the end of the day it might look very similar there’s definitely a big difference between micro greens and sprouts and I would say and I’d like to hear your opinion on all this Le but Sprouts is definitely more
Like this picture it’s meant for extreme small micro scale that might be just one meals worth of sprouts or one salad worth of sprouts because from what I gather there’s a lot of problems with disease and all sorts of health issues so where are you at with Sprouts Le uh
I’ve only done sprouts for my personal consumption I’ve not done them commercially uh a lot of the reason being is that there like you said there’s a lot of potential for pathogens whether that be a plant pathogen that’s just going to rot or be mold within those microgreens or Sprouts um and the
Potential for you know harmful human pathogens that could be in there what are some most common ones by the way human pathogens uh I would say salmonella probably um leria anything that’s going to be common on any type of leafy green that you’re you know that we
Hear about in any type of uh food recall uh would be very possible to get in the Sprouts as well and the reason being is that they’re just really wet there’s they’re in an environment that promotes that growth they an environment that doesn’t have a lot of air exchange doesn’t have
A lot of extra oxygen in there so it really is promoting uh pathogens to grow if they’re present obviously if you’re very clean and you’re sterile with your practices you can uh mitigate those issues from being a possibility uh but I think that that’s probably why a lot of
Greens aren’t produced as Sprouts in the commercial setting because uh you’d have to you know Harvest them and consume them before any of those path pathogens could be present right um so I think that that’s kind of why the Sprout market isn’t as popular as the greens Market um overall especially in our
National food system right especially when we think about things like Logistics where we got to get crops from point A to point B and you know considering that these Sprouts are often a two three 4 day type of life cycle but it takes 10 to 20 days to get the Sprout
To the actual Marketplace or especially in a big box store now that just presents a lot of problems that I think is going to ultimately continue to keep keep that market in more of a homegrown environment yep yep or very very local uh like Farmers Market type settings
Where you know maybe people are selling them as a whole jar setup that are already starting to sprout and you finish out the process I’ve seen more of that type of stuff in the local market setting that makes a lot of sense you know and maybe there’s some solutions
That we can bring to the table there like beneficial enzymes or you know potential beneficial mic mobial inoculant obviously depending on the types of bacteria that are available but there’s a there can be some Creative Solutions so you guys continue to put your thinking hats on continue to experiment and explore with Solutions
Technologies products and methods that might be able to get you to be able to capitalize or be more successful at your Sprout growing career but at the end of the day one of my things that I really like to think about that that’s right here is versatility and I think
Versatility whether it’s microgreens Sprouts vegetables tomatoes peppers carrots onions squash whatever that’s what it’s really all about one of the biggest advantages of being a homeg grower is that you have a versatility of plants which ultimately gives you a versatility of nutrients minerals vitamins and even enzymes for your own
Diet so a lot of different things to be said about Sprouts but I think that the key fundamental here is that Sprouts are really for an extremely small scale and they’re much harder to scale up safely for humans and they’re they’re very quick so if you’re you know thinking in
Two days I want to have a salad with Sprouts on it you could accomplish that goal whereas a lot of the other crops even micro greens you have a lot more planning and lead time before that crop is ready for Harvest so that’s definitely a benefit of sprouts if
You’re looking for something you know real quick real nutritious and you have all the materials you can accomplish the goal in just a couple of days yep yep that’s huge that’s huge so moving on we’re going to go a little bit in the growing process of specifically sprouts
And we’ve all seen some of these kind of countertop units and the prices range all over the place whether we’re looking online or at big box stores and generally it’s a pretty cheap type of system and setup but some are still double triple quadruple the price that
It might be for just a mason jar or something extremely cheap like a paper towel so whether we’re looking at jars and cheese cloth and how that helps him to grow the crop throughout its entire life or some of the growing processes in general like soaking and rinsing or the
Darkness and germination cycle all the way down to harvesting and or hardening of these Sprouts there’s a lot of different things that we can consider and what do you got to say on that for a sleep uh I would everything that’s on that uh slide right there is pretty much
Right on the money as far as what you want to do I will say I think that the rinsing part is very critical not only for keeping the moisture content proper but uh especially if you’re using tap water you’re going to have some antiseptic properties to that water so
If there are molds or you know anything that got in there during your process of setting the jar up this is an opportunity to kind of rinse some of that stuff out or clean some of that out so uh I think the rinsing is very important I tell people uh in vegetable
Production and food production tap water isn’t the scariest thing in the world there’s a lot of benefits to actually using it um obviously make sure your tap water is clean of heavy metals and things that are scary in that regard but uh the chlorines and the chloramines that are there aren’t persistent long
Enough to be harmful to humans when used in a setting to rinse and wash it’s just that that’s a fact and so a lot of the benefit of tap water comes from that property essentially and the Sprouts especially because you’ll be able to wash some of that stuff out of there
That would otherwise cause you problems yeah and once again this all does depend on your water quality obviously if you’re on a well and you have some type of bacteria blooming or if you’re on you know in a downtown suburban area with much higher levels of chlorine or
Fluoride or chloramine like there’s no one shoe fits all when it comes to water quality and water ingredients but I think think that to at the end of the day what Leif is really talking about that we’ve preached a lot in the backyard farming Academy is removing
Your water from the wrapper in in of essence and allowing your water to be a sterilization point for these micro greens to make sure that you’re not spreading and growing any more bad bacteria or bad fungi or vroid and really at the end of the day that’s why
All that stuff is in our water because the plumbing and piping systems of cities and neighborhoods is usually 10 20 30 50 years old and a lot of times there’s bio accumulation in those water systems and that’s exactly why they add these chemicals to make sure that we as
Humans and in this case as sprouts and plants aren’t keeping bad bacteria so it’s really really important for us to think about but we’re going to be nerding out soon in a future podcast all about water we’re going to take this small conbo and we’re going to turn it into the massive
Topic that it is so stay tuned for the future for water and water quality but um at the end of the day you know if you were if you were a sprout grower what would be your number one recommended growing application for the standard household typical mason jar
Yeah I would say any type of Wide Mouth Mason jar would be your best bet uh you could scale down to you know a pint size jar if you want it or you could scale up to a half gallon jar uh and have you know a wide variety of of you know
Production potential depending on your family size uh so yeah I would say mason jar would be most applicable and easy for anybody to achieve you could use a paper tow you could use cheesecloth anything to cover it on the top and you should be good to go perfect perfect so
Yeah you don’t want to have 100% humidity but you want to have high humidity that’s really really important the when we come as close as we can 100% humidity that’s where these problems that LE is talking about is going to be a lot more expressive bad bacterias and
Other things once the oxygen level starts to diminish inside of the Mason jar because the plant is breathing and exudating uh CO2 and O2 now we’re going to be eliminating some of the oxygen potential for the aerobic bacteria that’s when we really start hosting anerobic bacteria but once again giant
Topic we’ll go further into that in the future and I think that one of the coolest things about micro greens and actually right above leif’s head this is actually what my daughter has been doing this year she’s got a small micro greens terrarium and it’s just really small and
They put other fun things in there and it’s more about it’s they don’t even really get eaten most of the time it’s more of a just an activity and something fun to do and I think that that’s something really amazing when it comes down to Sprouts and growing in general
But sprouts and micro greens can be a fun family event and it can really also help you to develop more understanding of the seeds that you’ve got in your collection which ones you should be using for micro greens and which ones you shouldn’t and the sooner that we
Program our kiddos with this knowledge the better we’re preparing them for the rest of their life so what what if have you seen in some of the fun family side whether it was at the uh the farmers market or from some of your customers uh I would say the biggest thing that we
Hear from people a lot of our customers buy micr greens from us but still grow their own on a just really small scale to just understand the process and get a feel for it um but we constantly hear from children that they just thought it was really cool it’s a
Really fast process they don’t get bored with it it’s something that they get to see from start to finish and just handful of days they don’t forget about it they really remember it and it’s it’s really cool for those kids to start putting together like oh this is
Broccoli I’m eating broccoli but I’m eating a different version of broccoli than what I get from the grocery store what my mom puts in my food at home so uh it’s pretty neat in that regard because it like you said it really Fosters the one knowing where your food
Comes from and children but also just giving them the basics of you know what understanding what healthy food even looks like and and what it is so and I think that one of beside A+ totally agree one of the biggest areas that they are going to see is exactly what Le said
They’re like oh my gosh this is broccoli but it’s broccoli that’s this big and it’s little baby seedling Sprout instead of a mini tree like all kids like to think of broccoli and usually that’s how we get convince them to eat it so really really cool stuff and I definitely
Recommend if you guys haven’t checked out and you’ve got especially little kiddos to check out one of the grow and glow terrariums they are a fun family activity I might do one of those yeah you know and what’s cool about it is you can dress it up you can make it look
Exact like you want I’ve even seen some people put insects in there and all sorts of different things and once again you might not even eat the micro that come out of it it’s just something fun yeah a little ecosystem I think it’s really really important
But diving a little bit more into micro greens I think that this is if you guys are really looking to satisfy or use some of your seed starting station and Achieve larger volumes of plant Mass I think I would steer you definitely toward micro greens over sprouts and
Ultimately the flavor Kings of the tiny greens are in micro greens when we look at nutrient density and flavor also texture or G just culinary Delights there’s a lot of different things that we can do with a huge diversity of seeds that we can Sprout as micro greens and
That’s kind of confusing right Sprout is micro greens but all micro greens start as Sprouts but are maybe cultivated in a little bit different format that allows more plants or more seeds to be grown for a larger family or more large dietary uh Target M so take it away Leif
What do you got okay uh micro greens like Tate said are just full of flavor that’s my biggest the biggest thing about them that we consistently heard from customers and restaurants is that you know one or two micro Greens on a plate can make a difference in the
Flavor profile of an entire dish so uh we were growing a lot of things that were you know very very flavorful anything from