The Sprout Adventure - 5 days later

It's absolutely astonishing at how fast these little buggers grew. They grew so much that they were pushing the sprouter open after only a few days. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the seed measurements that the Sprout People recommended as the containers were overflowing so early. Perhaps I read the directions wrong, I re-read them a few times because I wasn't so sure about it, live and learn.

After soaking the seeds in water overnight on Monday, the seeds were placed in the sprouter Tuesday morning. Since then I have been punctually rinsing and draining the seeds 3 times a day (morning before work, evening when I get home from work, and night time before bed). It's definitely paid off as of Thursday I was already harvesting a small amount of alfalfa and clover sprouts (perhaps prematurely) and a small amount of the mixed batch of beans (even more-so prematurely). The biggest reason for early harvesting of the alfalfa and clover sprouts is that they were the main offender for pushing the lid off of the sprouter.

Thus far, we've been pretty inventive with integrating the sprouts into most of our meals (mostly as a salad topper), and there have been some epic failures as well (specifically the PB&Sprouts I made for lunch). Unfortunately, we haven't made Phở in a while, so the bean sprouts weren't utilized to their full potential. When I finally detox from all these sprouts and decide to grow some mung beans, I'm planning on making sure Phở is on the menu at least a couple of times.

I'm curious to see how well the sprouts hold in the fridge, I made sure they were dry before packing them (as per the directions). Not sure we'll be able to eat them all up before they go south, worst case scenario the compost bin should be happy with the bit of variety :)

Day 1:

Forgot to take a photo of the seeder

Day 2:


Day 3:


Day 4:


Day 5:

The Sprout Adventure - Unpacking and Setup

My package from Sprout People arrived yesterday, very exciting times. I documented unpacking it and setting it up with the first 2 batches of seeds. They had to soak overnight, so this is basically day one and day two.

Day 1 - Unpacking:

1. The goods arrived in a cardboard box with a bunch of non-biodegradable packing material, the contents included the Kid's Sprout Kit, 1 pound of mung beans and documentation on growing and care of the sprouts:
   
   


2. The Kid's Sprout Kit contained some kid friendly documentation, 4 pre-measured sprout mixes, a magnifying glass and 2 tiered sprouter.
   
   
   
   


3. After deciding what two packets to start with (Moo Mix and Beanie's Mix) I gathered two bowls and a measuring cup.
   
   


4. Emptied the contents into the bowls
   



5. And added 1 cup of cold water to each bowl and stirred up the mix gently
   
   

The beans soaked over night on the counter...

Day 2 - Setting up the Sprouter:

1. I forgot to mention that I covered the bowls with plastic wrap the night before
   
   


2. The next morning revealed that the larger beans soaked up almost all of the water
   
   


3. I proceeded with washing out the entire sprouter with warm soapy water and hand drying it
   
   


4. Next came loading the trays with the seeds and rinsing them. The seeds need to be rinsed 2-3 times a day and all of the excess water removed by shaking and tilting the tray around
   
   


5. Final step for the initial set up was to assemble the sprouter and wait...
   
   

Milk as a Fungicide?

The ornamental rosemary Christmas tree I bought for my wife last year started to show signs of powdery mildew recently. I did my internet research for both the causes and treatment / cures. I was surprised to read some of the bleak forum posts that the only way to cure it is to remove it from the dirt it's in, wash the roots and plant thoroughly and then replant in fresh dirt. Seemed a bit extreme, or maybe I'm just overreacting. After researching topical treatments, I opted not to use anything with bleach in it, as it's an herb we often use in our cooking. Baking soda was going to be my pick until I came across information about using milk. Seemed interesting enough, so I loaded up a spray bottle with 1 part skim milk and 9 parts water. I read about many different proportions, ranging from 1:3 all the way up to 1:9. Figured is 1:9 doesn't give me any results after 3-4 days I'd try a higher concentration. One ray of hope I read is that often times the plant needs to be dried out and the powdery mildew will simply go away. Considering the amount of rain we received a few weeks back, and the fact that some of my larger pots are still drying out, it made sense. Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to be cold again this week, hopefully the sun will be shining bright.