About Sprouts

We like alfalfa sprouts on sandwiches and salads, but we find it impossible to use up a pint box before they start to age. Many years ago, we had grown our own on the kitchen counter and I decided it was time to try that again. I recently searched for and purchased a bag of sprouting seed in the local hippie mart. The store has sprouting jars for sale and the instructions on the bag match the jar. But I had a memory of sprouting alfalfa seed on a new, rinsed kitchen sponge. I sprinkled seed on the wet sponge and then sprinkled water on the seed. I watered the seed very lightly each day. Here are the results after one week. You can see the sponge gets stained from the chlorophyl.

After the harvest, I put the plastic dish in the dishwasher to sterilize it and rinsed the sponge, removing any plant bits. I microwaved the sponge to kill most bacteria and started again.