Will microgreens grow a second harvest? This is a question some might ask when growing! While not all varieties of microgreens grow back after the first harvest, there are some that can.The only Seed Quilt variety we carry right now that grows a second time is Sweet Wheatgrass. The rest grow only once. That’s because you’re really eating up the whole plant! Some folks might leave the Seed Quilt to see if any ungerminated seeds might make it the second go around but most will compost their Seed Quilt in their green bin and plant a new one to get a full lush harvest every time! Photo taken by: Carolyn Severin, Hamama Happiness Team Member When you’re finishing your first harvest, you may wonder what else you could do with your Seed Quilt instead of just tossing it out. Can you upcycle it? Can you use the leftover seeds from your Seed Quilt and grow them into full grown veggies? You can!! :D Upcycling: One of our Hamama Growers @paleogirl99 has published a blog about upcycling the coconut mats. She came up with creative ways to re-purpose them in the kitchen, the garden, with your house plants and as decorations. Get creative with your own ideas as well and share the love with your Hamama family! 💚 Composting your Seed Quilt: The Seed Quilt is also compostable in your industrial municipal composting (as the low heat home composting is potentially not a high enough temp)! Some folks have had success with backyard composting! The paper Seed Quilt cover is biodegradable, compostable, or recyclable - if going into recycling, that cover would be with your regular paper recycling. From Microgreens to Full Grown Veggies: Growing your leftover seeds from your Seed Quilt into full veggies may seem tough (and it’s not what the product was created for, so we cannot guarantee this!), but some awesome experimental Hamama Growers have shown us some pretty awesome success stories! Once your microgreens have grown and are ready to harvest, instead of harvesting them all, take some of the microgreens and transplant them to a pot or raised bed. You can plant the roots just below the soil, fertilize, water and watch them grow! Microgreens have enough nutrition from the seed to grow for 2 weeks, but after that period of time they need supplemental nutrition sources to continue growing. Soil or a hydroponic fertilizer can provide this.🌱 One of our Hamama Growers Ashleigh has a wonderful success story of growing some of her leftover microgreens into full grown veggies! Thank you Ashleigh for sharing your story with us! Ashleigh Davis’ Urban Farming Experiment The short and sweet of our journey is this: We were all getting a bit antsy with Covid-19 and having to isolate ourselves in our condo - thankfully Jon and I both have the capability to work from home were already working from home twice a week - and considering that we work in the same space in the office (different areas but both HR - and unrelated at that), we already spent most of our days together anyway. I had already had interest in urban farming or at least attempting to grow some veggies on our balcony and although I enjoy houseplants, they don't last very long in our condo. So growing microgreens was our compromise :) We took the plunge and ordered our first set from you and your awesome team! We were both crazy impressed at how easy and quick the microgreens grew - I must admit the first batch of microgreens somewhat freaked me out - they just grew like weeds and often changed over the course of the day! When the weather started to get better I wanted to expand our bubble to include our rarely used balcony. We had nothing on it, not even a chair... within 3 weeks it was full of plants. We planted all sorts of edibles: basil, parsley, thyme, rosemary, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, blackberries and green onions. And of course we planted some "typical" plants as well: Hibiscus flowers, Geraniums, Lilies, Day Lilies, West Indian Lantana and Coleus shrubs. We had an empty plot that was itching to have something planted and we had just grown the Super Salad mix microgreens.. then Jon said - "do you think these will grow into veggies if we plant what's left?" We didn't want our greens to go waste.. and I thought, well in a worse case scenario, they die outside, but at least we tried! We had harvested half the greens, planted the remaining seed bed and crossed our fingers. We had no idea if the plants would thrive - I didn't think I had a green thumb... but we're south facing so our balcony gets sun all the livelong day and our summers are hot and humid. So with a little love, regular watering and fertilizer our plants thrived. We didn't know what veggies would fully grow.. seemingly the Kale and Kohlrabi are the survivors! We thought we had arugula but appears as though the Kale took it out :P And so that's our little story - of how a pandemic turned us into novice urban farmers! Here are some photos Ashleigh has taken weekly / biweekly of the growth process. (June- July 27th) :D The Seed Quilt was transplanted on the right side of the balcony planter to the soil! Growing Growing Growing!! The greens are really starting to take off! With a little sun and water these babies are maturing quickly! Can you believe how big they are getting?! Greens with a view! Is it harvest time yet?! What once was a microgreen has now become a jungle of baby greens! Close up shot of just how big and beautiful they have gotten! I think it’s time to harvest, don’t you?! With a little love each step of the way you can really grow some nice veggies! Wow! Look at this giant full-grown Kohlrabi!! Success!! Other Hamama Grower Experiment success stories: 1. Natasha Hensel: “I throw my 'lazy' growers into a jar and sprout them so there is nothing wasted. It takes only a few additional days!” Here is her Vietnamese Rice Paper Salad made with leftover Hamama seeds that she sprouted in a jar! 2. Maryellen Giorgi: “We had some accidental mustard seeds hiding in the compost grow into GIANT mustard plants in our yard this year. We let them go to seed so we can try and make actual mustard with it! Some of the pods dried on their own the rest we cut down today to dry - Can’t wait to see how much we get!” Here are her giant mustard plants grown from leftover Hamama seeds! 3. Karen Chervenak Wiser: “I planted these leftover daikon radish a while ago and they're outside in a small pot. I should have put them in the ground! As you can see they are not producing radishes but getting nice greenery and flowering seed pods!” Here are Karen’s leftover Daikon Radish seeds that she potted outside! 4. Candace Davenport: "In other parts of my garden, I have other kohlrabi, broccoli and cabbage growing, (although I may just get the plant rather than any of the veggies with these due to heading into winter.) I've harvested mustard (actually my favorite) and other greens - all from putting the covers into the soil. So it is possible to get additional benefits from your micro-greens!" Candace's full grown Kohlrabi! Have an experimental success story of your own? Share it with us in the comments below! :D
