A New Meaning for "Kitchen Garden"

The term "kitchen garden" has been in common English language use since about 1570, just a few years after William Shakespeare was born. It generally refers to a plot fairly close to the home that is used to grow vegetables for the family's immediate use, particularly on farms. It's wider use today includes the urban garden patch such as ours which is less than 100 feet from our kitchen door. But, I've found that we can have at least a small kitchen garden inside our kitchen during the winter months, too.

Lois always likes to put fresh "sprouts" on her salads.  Several years ago, I ordered sprouting seeds from a January gardening catalog. Some of your local organic food stores may carry them, too. The selection was huge - just about any kind of edible sprout you could imagine. We tried broccoli (ugh) and a few others that were much stronger than we wanted. Alfalfa sprouts are mild and sweet, and, I believe they are the ones you see most frequently in your store's produce department.

Getting started with growing your own sprouts is quite simple. You can buy sprouting trays and lots of other stuff, but a simple wide mouth quart jar with a plastic "screen" lid is the easiest when you first get started.

If your seeds are very small, as the alfalfa seeds are, you will start with the yellow screen lid. Place two tablespoons of seeds in the jar. Cover the seeds with a few inches of water and stand it upright.  Wrap a paper towel around the jar too keep it dark and let it stand over night (about 12 hours). In the morning, remove the paper towel and pour off the water through the lid.  Run clean water over the seeds and drain the water again.  As you drain this second time, tilt the jar on its side and spread the seeds along the length of the jar. Wrap the towel back around the jar and lay it flat on its side (not standing upright).

Repeat this process at least twice during the course of each day. On day three, you should begin to see white areas on the seeds. Continue with the rinse and drain process, but leave the towel off now. Your sprouts should be getting long and green over about six days.

As the seeds grow into sprouts, you can change the filter screen to the green one. This will allow some of the seed hulls to wash out as you rinse. The sprouts may be matted together somewhat, but can be fluffed up as you rinse them the last time and wash out some or all of the seed hulls before storing in the refrigerator for use. The sprouts in the above picture are in day four. They will continue to grow larger the longer you leave them in the jar and continue to rinse. I wouldn't push them past seven days or the may begin to get bitter.

I'm just starting "Ancient Eastern Mix" (shown above) sprouts for the first time. These seeds are much larger than the alfalfa seeds. I'll update their progress and report on how they taste in a few days. I'll also add some of the other "winter" garden things I like to have in our house.

TWENTY-FOUR DAYS 'TIL SPRING!