purple daikon radish microgreens

I have some extra purple daikon radish shoots ready for harvest right now so I thought I'd package them up and offer them to everyone here on Mayne Island...I'd like to start up the idea of a once-in-a-while special that I offer when I try growing new varieties or try new ideas for mixes.....so why not start now with these purply beauties?!  

These are the purple-coloured microgreens that are in the shoot salad mix and I love 'em!  I wonder if I should pack them up on their own more regularly for folks?....well, we'll see....they were very popular a couple years ago when I sold them on their own at the farmer's market.  If you're on Mayne Island, you can find them at Farm Gate Store and Happy Tides this weekend.

Here's an inspirational recipe I found on-line for a beautiful, yummy, good for ya winter-time salad using purple daikon radish shoots  Doesn't it look good?!  I might just have to make this with braised black tuscan kale instead, even tho' it's no problem finding dandelion leaves in my garden right now, and some perennial arugula....a mix could be delicious, I think.  This idea and the photo are from http://kitchentonirvana.com which you might enjoy visiting for some vegan and gluten free ideas.

shoot salad mix

I'm so glad that I'm finally producing the shoot salad mix consistently now. A few folks on the island have told me that they've been looking for it in the produce cooler and have been disappointed because it's never there.  From now on, it'll be there!

It all depended on me ordering a new batch of purple daikon radish seeds when they became available. The last order I got had too high a percentage of green plants coming up in the mix and it was causing me grief.  In order for this lovely and delicious mix of textures, shapes, flavours and colours to work the way I want it to, I need that gorgeous purple radish colour with not too much of the green.

These rascals are a bit more special (aka expensive) than the pea and sun shoot seeds but I think they're worth it.

The bag of new radish seeds arrived last week so I got down to planting right away.  There are always a few green ones but this is perfectly purply!  Not quite ready for harvest.  Another couple days.

Sweet little heart shaped leaves.

It's a real joy to have such a nice long line of purple growing in the greenhouse again!

Shoot salad mix for my lunch in the garden yesterday.  Pea shoots.  Sunflower shoots.  Purple Daikon Radish shoots.  Delicious greens with a wee little spicy radish kick. So good in sandwiches too.  yummmy!

greenhouse improvement project

This is the new shelving that we've just put into the glass greenhouse where I grow all the shoots, microgreens and late winter/early spring transplants.  Our friend and thoughtful carpenter/builder Tony just finished this job for me last week.
I'm so thrilled to have four levels of sturdy growing space now!

Still to do:  grow lighting installed under the bottom row of shelving where I'll grow some of the transplants I start for the outdoor garden and for market sales.

A few folks have asked if I've decided to stop winter shoot growing because they haven't seen them on the shelves at Happy Tides and Farm Gate since Christmas time.  No!! is the answer, (I love growing them in winter) ....just needed to do this work in the greenhouse and it meant that I couldn't grow for a short time while we reorganized the space.  January seemed like the best time for that.

This is what it looked like before the new setup.  

By the way,  I took the above photo on the day of the winter shoot growing workshop that I mentioned way back in October.  It's the only photo I have of that day.  Seems that once everyone arrived, I was so busy talking that I forgot to snap some more shots.  Ten of us squeezed into the greenhouse to talk about growing pea shoots, sunflower shoots and purple radish shoots.  This photo shows the containers I planted for a couple weeks before workshop day (one a day of each) to show the succession of growth in an unheated greenhouse during the cool season. 

Radish on top shelf, pea shoots on second shelf and sun shoots on bottom.  On the table in front, the pea and sun seeds are soaking in bowls.  Everyone chose one and planted a container to take home.

There wasn't room for everyone who wanted to join in because the greenhouse just isn't big enough  and it was too cold outside to gather out there...so I'll probably have another one of these workshops this spring sometime and if it's warm enough for us to be outside, more people can come.  

So back to the new shelving project:  While I liked the old metal wire shelving, it didn't fill the whole length of the greenhouse wall, it was wobbly,  saggy, not strong enough and not the right width for the trays.

  So it was time to get the space working more efficiently since I'm beginning to need more of it. 

We took out the old tables and shelving and piled everything up on the other side of the room so Tony could get to work.  A good time to wash all the indoor glass too!

Building in progress......there is now space for 325 grow trays and a possibility of 400+ with another couple minor shelving/table additions in the future.  Exciting!  That'll keep me busy...and a couple other people too!

More greenhouse improvement:  In December Tony built this addition onto the back of the greenhouse.

  For the last couple years, I've had a lot of troubles trying to grow pea and sun shoots effectively in the warmer summer months.  The greenhouse gets too hot.  Especially for the pea shoots.  They overheat  and rot and it's just not any fun.  So, first time this happened, I moved them to a growing area I set up outside. Seemed like a reasonable and good idea.  Except that sprouting pea seed is mouse and bird candy and it looked like they were coming from all corners of the island to congregate on my trays and have a feast. What a mess!  Gross.  And heart breaking too...all that work, what a waste!!

So after a couple years of persevering and fussing over the problem,  this is my more determined effort to solve it.  I will outsmart the varmints, once and for all, oh yes I will!  A cooler pea shoot growing screenhouse (other shoots are happy to continue to grow inside) with a skookum foundation and 1/4 inch hardware cloth to keep out the birds and mice.  I hope it works!  fingers crossed.  Thanks Tony for your great work!

A serious concrete foundation to seal the ground from determined varmints.

Taking no shortcuts!

Tony with bags of concrete.

This was a significant investment for my small operation......a real commitment.  But with more and more requests from off-island stores and restaurants for the shoots and microgreens I grow, it seems like a good idea.  It's time to get ready to grow microgreens and shoots more efficiently and expand production!

Getting the frame up.

While regular window screen would be fine to use to keep the birds out, mice can chew right through it at alarming speed.  Hoping this 1/4 inch welded and galvanized steel hardware cloth will do the trick!  The roof can be covered with hoophouse plastic, if I need to keep rain out.

 Still to do: shelving installed in the screenhouse just like inside the greenhouse.  We'll paint and stain the new wood in the summer after the rains have stopped and things dry out.

Here we go!  The first trays of 2012 have been planted a couple days ago.  Since it has been -7 degrees C at the garden overnight, I've sat them on heat mats and covered them up.  

They're sprouting now and they'll be fine 'til it warms up a bit in a couple days.  So look for pea shoots and sunflower shoots back on the shelves first week of February!

good days

It was a good day at the Farmer's Market yesterday.  

I was offering up some sunflower shoots, pea shoots, purple radish shoots, popcorn shoots and nasturtium flowers and leaves.  At my market display, folks can take a bag (or bring their own) and create their own salad mix.

I was also selling cut herbs, garlic and of course, flowers.  The little sweet pea bundles are snapped up within the first few minutes...I'm amazed at how many people love sweet pea flowers!

The corn shoots have been very popular too.  They have a unique flavour.  The juicy white stems taste like raw sweet corn and the top leafy part, like grass, sort of (some people say wheatgrass)....I'm not too crazy about the taste but sort of like it sometimes too.  It seems I can't really decide.  Some folks have also said it reminds them of stevia, maybe because it's so sweet and is a plant....
I first tried corn shoots at a restaurant in Ottawa, quite a few years ago now.   They were on my plate as a garnish and I didn't know what they were.  The flavour was SO familiar but I just couldn't figure it out!  It was winter-time and sweet corn didn't come to mind.  Then I saw them for sale a couple years ago at a farmer's market I was visiting and I just had to try growing them.

Juicy!

I grow them in trays in a dark cupboard on an earthen floor in the cob garden kitchen to give them that nice yellow corny colour and to make them nice and tender too.  

 I cover the grow tray with another tray just to make sure it's very dark and when the shoots are ready, they're pushing the cover tray up off the grow tray.

These days, I'm planting the trays with many more seeds than this one has....live and learn!

Friday afternoons and evenings are for filling up the garage fridge with bags and bins of shoots and microgreens for Saturday Farmer's Market sales.  By the end of the night, it's all packed full.  It has been fun selling at the market more often this year.  I really enjoy meeting all the folks who buy the things I grow.  I'm thrilled and  a wee bit amazed at how popular and successful these lovely greens have become.  Producing them keeps me hopping.  Thanks to everyone for all the encouraging interest, feedback and support.  It's good fuel to help keep me going!

Here a happy customer is filling her bag with some purple radish shoots....one of my favourites!  They have a radishy flavour, mildly spicy.  These days, I've noticed that growing them in the summer heat seems to make them zingyer!

I grow these in trays too.  And many more of them per sowing than the corn shoots...they've become a staple salad ingredient for quite a few of my customers and for me too.

All in a row on the greenhouse shelves with the peas and suns.

Pretty little leaves.  There are always some green ones in with the purples.

One of my all time favourite lunch time salads:  pea shoots, sunflower shoots and purple daikon radish shoots....with a light honey mustard dressing...oh so delicious!  And apparently the radish shoots are very good for us too.  I've read that the purple colour comes from an anthocyanin that's also in blueberries and black currants and is what makes them so full of antioxidants and so good for us.

These little plant gems are also fabulous stuffed in a sandwich or decorating a bowl of soup, sprinkled on top.

arugula microgreens

I took some of these micro arugula greens to the stores on Mayne Island today.  

It has been almost two weeks since I've delivered shoots and microgreens to my customers because of a nasty little greenhouse catastrophe.  One day a little over two weeks ago when I was away from my greenhouse for a couple hours, the sun came out bright and strong after quite a chilly time and in just over an hour, it overheated all my little plants.

....actually, luckily not all of them but especially these tender and sensitive little cool season pea shoots....they sauteed in their trays!....very disappointing :-(   oh well,  I'm over that now, getting back on track.

 Micro arugula has become one of my true favorites to grow and to eat.  They are so simply deeelicious on a sandwich with tomato and feta....mmmmm, yum.

A few first tries at growing them in trays in my greenhouse this past winter got me convinced that it was an idea to follow and I knew I'd want to be doing this for a while.  I was convinced enough to buy a ten pound bag of certified organic arugula seed.  Even for a person like me who's growing lots of these trays, that's still an awful lot of arugula seed!  yikes!

A few folks have asked me about how I grow these so here's a little bit about what I do.  These days, I try to get 5-6 trays of  arugula planted at least once a week and sometimes 2 times a week.  I plant them on Sea Soil potting mix.

I don't cover the tiny seed with heavy soil...instead, I cover it with a paper towel and wet it thoroughly to keep the seed moist while it's germinating and setting roots into the soil.  

After a couple days, my curiosity has me pulling back the wet paper towel to see what's going on under there!

They grow quite quickly....this is about 4 days after planting.  Look at all those fuzzy little root hairs!

At about 5-7 days after planting, depending on weather conditions, it's time to take the paper towels off the growing green trays...they're now ready to grow on without moist cover.

Happy little plants, standing at attention.

I like to try for a few true leaves in my micro arugula and have learned that the higher the ph of the soil, the harder that is to achieve and moisture seems to effect it too....so I'm still experimenting....

Cut.  Weighed.  Bagged.  Just a few weeks ago, I realized I needed to label the bags now that I'm beginning to do so many different little microgreens...was beginning to worry that folks would pick up some sunflower shoots thinking they were peashoots  or some arugula, thinking it was radish!

A couple boxes, earlier today, waiting to be delivered to Happy Tides and to the Farm Gate Store.

On the shelf at Farm Gate.

         

An amazingly beautiful lettuce from Deacon Vale Farm's greenhouse I saw on the shelf at Farm Gate today.  I wish I was a better photographer....it was so gorgeous in real life!