photo by fred_v
During February we’ll be focusing on sprouting. Sprouting is the process of germinating seeds to be eaten. If you have never tried sprouting, I’ll show you how you can get started quick and easy. We’ll cover the ins and outs, different seeds to sprout, different sprouting methods, and ways to use your sprouts–stay tuned throughout the month, this is going to be fun!
So today we’re starting with the benefits of sprouting, specifically with survival in mind. You’ll see there are quite a few reasons you might want to include sprouts in your preparedness plan.
1. Sprouts are high in nutrition. Before seeds sprout they are dormant little plants. Sprouting changes the chemistry of the seed and adds vitamins and nutrients that weren’t there before. It’s like storing extra vitamins in your food storage.
2. Sprouts grow fast. You can have fresh produce in as little as 3-5 days. How does that compare to your garden?
3. Sprouts require no soil and very little space to grow. You can grow fresh, nutritious foods with no garden plot. This is especially great if you live in a place with a small yard, an apartment, or a rental house. You can even grow sprouts while you’re traveling!
4. Sprouts are easy to grow. Easy. Even if you’ve never had a garden work for you or are notorious for killing houseplants, you can grow sprouts.
5. Sprouts grow during any season. You don’t need to wait for spring or summer to plant and grow sprouts. Sprouts don’t care that it’s the middle of winter.
6. Sprouts don’t even require sunlight. You can grow them in the winter in Alaska. Which would also make them a good source of fresh food in any disaster in which the sun isn’t shining so brightly (volcanic eruption, etc.).
7. Mature sprouts are approximately 2-10 times the volume of food as their dry seed counterparts. For example, one cup of wheat berries equals over 1 3/4 cups of sprouted wheat. 1/8 cup zesty sprout mix (alfalfa, clover, radish, other small greens) grows to over 2 cups of sprouts! This means you can store a lot of food in a very small space.
So if you want a source for fresh food with some high nutritional content that is easy and quick to grow and adds variety and versatility to your food storage, you’re going to love sprouting!
I’m sooooo looking forward to this series! I love sprouts and growing them myself has always been something I’ve wanted to look into.
I just found you and I will have to continue following, You have a lot of great info. Thanks
I sprouted beans once and gave them to the hens. I sprouted something like kidney beans and found them to be nasty. Obviously the hens thought so, too.
What a great article and series. I’m looking forward to it.
Hey Angela! I was just looking at ordering some more alfalfa sprouting seeds and the thought came to me, “Can I freeze these seeds to make them last longer?” I know you can freeze garden seeds, but wasn’t sure about sprouting seeds…
Have you ever frozen them and then tried to sprout them? Did they work??
Thanks for your awesome help as always!!
I never have frozen them before sprouting, but there’s no reason it wouldn’t work. I just keep mine in jars on the shelf. Although I did have some sprout mix in mylar bags that the mice found a few years back. GRRR. Not doing that again.
Oh no! I’m sorry. :( It never would have occurred to me that rodents would like sprouting seeds.
p.s. I had a goofy idea I thought you’d get a kick out of…
So last night I went to a nearby Starbucks and asked if they did “Grounds for Gardeners”. They gave me a big bag of coffee grinds and I took it home. My Dad said worms go nuts for them, so I decided to try it out for my composting worm bin and my garden. Well, I had no idea they would stink so bad it would give me a terrible headache! As I drove home in my self-induced misery, all I could do was shake my head and think, “Man, the crazy things I do for prepping…”
Then I thought, “Hmm… If preppers had profiles like on Mormon.org, I could think of a great little intro title for me. It would be something like, ‘Hi, I’m Heidi. I eagerly comb my backyard for chicken poop to throw in my garden. I jam emergency blankets and water bottles in every empty nook and cranny of my minivan. I lay awake at night excitedly planning a spot in my backyard to start aquaponics. I’m a prepper!”
Anyhow, it gave me a good chuckle to think of all the odd prepping things I love to do and I’m glad I’m not the only one. :)
Hilarious! I love it!
LOL! I’m glad! I learned to get a free bucket from the bakery first, THEN go over to the Starbucks inside the grocery store and put the coffee grounds inside the bucket so I can’t smell it in the car.
By the way, thanks for the tip on getting buckets like that! I’ve gotten so many over the years and now plan to get more to try some container gardening in them. After poor success in our traditional garden for three years in a row, I’m hoping the containers will solve what I now suspect to be a drainage problem. (And, admittedly, a weeding problem. And a slug problem. Both of which I hope will also be remedied in containers).