I'm not knocking Gold and Silver Stacking, in fact, I think that's a great strategy and firmly believe in physical commodities that you can hold in your hands.
Sprouting seeds are one of those commodities and in my world, I think they are even more valuable than the highly sought after precious metals.
Here's a picture of part of my household's seed hoard:
You can see most of my seeds are coming from a company named Mumm's. They are located in Saskatchewan, Canada and all their seeds are organic. I also have organic seeds from A.Vogel's, from Germany and seeds from Veseys Seeds, located in Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Where ever you are getting your seeds, make sure they are for "sprouting" and I would highly recommend that you only buy organic, non-GMO. Most people who are interested in growing sprouts are also keenly interested in nutritional density. If you are making the time to grow sprouts, you want them to taste exceptional.
Sprouts grown from organic, non-GMO seeds, taste extraordinary.
If push comes to shove, the last thing you want to be doing is lining up to buy a can of soup at a grocery store with hundreds of other people, if the Supply Chain goes down or some type of disaster strikes.
I'm located in Canada and from my vantage point, it feels like the later is eminent for my friends to the south in the USA.
Sprouting can be done easily with nothing more than a wide mouth jar, 4 tbsp of sprouting seeds, water, a piece of fine weave cheese cloth or thin cotton fabric, an elastic band, and a fine mesh strainer.
Here's what to do:
- Put the 4 tbsp of seeds in a fine mesh strainer and rinse and drain them.
- Place the rinsed and drained seeds in a wide mouth jar.
- Cover the seeds with 2 cups of water and let the seeds soak for 12 hours.
- Place the cheese cloth or piece of cotton fabric over the mouth of the jar.
- Use the elastic band to hold the cloth or fabric in place over the mouth of the jar and make sure that the fabric creates a tight covering over the mouth of the jar.
- After the first 12 hours, drain the seeds by inverting the jar at an angle in a sink or large bowl.
- Rinse and drain your seeds twice a day. (You want the seeds to stay moist but not too wet.)
In about 3 days time, the jar will be filled with growing sprouts that you can eat. Once sprouted, the sprouts should be kept in the refrigerator. They will keep for a few days, but should be consumed as soon as possible to take advantage of all the amazing nutrients.
I never used the jar method but I did buy a small sprouter at my local health food store. It lets you rinse your trays of seeds and then the 3 sprouting trays, drain into a catch tray or reservoir at the bottom. The benefits of a wide mouth jar or a small sprouter is that they are relatively inexpensive and won't take up very much space in your kitchen. The draw-back is that you have to remember to water them regularly and they have to be drained really well or your sprouts will start to mold.
A few years ago, I upgraded my sprouting activities and invested in an apparatus which makes sprouting seeds virtually fool proof. It's called an "Easy Green Sprouter".
I just cleaned it today, so you can see the growing space. At the back is the water reservoir and a combination fan and mister which you plug into a timer so that you can set it to mist the seeds every 6 hours.
The growing space holds the seed trays. I try to only have a single layer of seeds in the bottom of each tray. I find that most of the seeds sprout if they aren't over-crowded. The Easy Green sprouter has drainage tubes or small hoses that drain the entire system very well. So, it needs to be placed somewhere near a sink or somewhere, where you can let the hose drain into a large pail.
I have a selection of different sized trays. These units are made to stack so that you can sprout a large volume of sprouts at once. This would be important for large families or restaurants.
This is a tray of Marrowfat Peas that I am going to sprout.
Here's my micro-farming kitchen garden in almost full production.
Here is a video showing each component of the Easy Green Sprouter. It was created by the Raw Nutrition Company. It was uploaded to YouTube on Nov. 8, 2013.
I generally try to keep lots of sprouting seeds on hand. Here's a list of the seeds I have, just to show the diversity of sprouts you can grow in your own kitchen:
- Spring Salad Mix (a blend of broccoli, radish, alfalfa, and clover);
- Crunchy Bean mix (a blend of peas, lentils and garbanzos);
- Broccoli;
- Marrowfat Peas;
- Garlic Chives;
- Red Clover;
- Alfalfa;
- Green Kale;
- Sunflower;
- and Mung Beans
The thing about seeds and sprouts is that they are incredibly nutrient dense because they have to contain all the key elements for the plant's survival. A broccoli sprout for example, contains 50 times the nutritional benefit of full grown broccoli. Just a handful of broccoli sprouts contain as much "sulphoraphone" as a pound of full grown broccoli and in the middle of winter, nothing can beat fresh sprouts, you have harvested with your own hands, from your own kitchen. It's a precious thing.
Physical silver and sprouting seeds are my preferred store of wealth.
I welcome your comments and invite you to follow along with me on my journey.
~RebeccaRyan