One reason I have been working to get my preparedness binder in shape is that otherwise I get distracted with side projects. Take sprouting, for instance.  I was reading about food storage and clicked off on one link or another and was reading about sprouts.  A lot of nutrition, a good way to have something fresh and green with your food storage meals.  Apparently pretty easy to add sprouting items to your preps.

I remember a couple of my Mom’s friends who I suppose looking back, were homesteaders. They raised rabbit for food, had gardens, chickens and compost piles.  I don’t think we called it that, they were hippies. When I was there, meal time was very strange to me. I seem to recall everything had wheat germ in it. Anyway, 35-40 years ago were those times, and that’s the last time I ever really had “sprouts”.

So, reading about sprouts, picked up a kindle unlimited book to read and found learning about growing sprouts are often paired with learning about microgreens.  Well, I pay a fortune for pea shoots whenever they are available at my local New Seasons.   I can grow those?!  In my house?

Pea shoots are amazing. Tons of vitamins, far more than the actual peas that they would eventually produce.  Pea Shoots are a nutritious leaf with high levels of vitamin C and vitamin A. A 50g portion (about 2/3 a cereal bowl full) of these tasty greens offers more than half of the RDA for vitamin C, a quarter of the RDA for vitamin A and significant amounts of folic acid.   They aren’t a significant source of calories (only 9 for those 50g), but for nutrition and for varying your diet and preventing food fatigue, And just because I love them and they are expensive to buy, this sounds like something I “need”.

I tried to figure out online why kind of yield I could expect from a pound of pea seeds.  One site selling organic seeds suggested it’s only 1 pound per pound of seeds. The OSU extension office had far different yields. However, I think that was geared towards large scale growing with multiple harvests from each seed rather than indoor 20″x10″ planting trays, harvesting at the base when they reach a few inches.

So never mind I have a lot more important items to acquire first, I decide that I just have to test it myself. A few days pass.  Ding dong!  My box from sprout people arrived!

(In addition to my pea shoot experiment, I also got a pound of a seed blend for traditional sprouting.) So 1 lb. of this particular pea seed was about 2 1/2 cups, and to do half the tray (as you can see, I got a split tray; that way I can stagger the plantings) should take about 3/4 cup.  So my daughter is excited about this experiment too.  She measured out the seeds and set them to soaking so tomorrow we can “plant” them.

Of course, there is no way she will eat these. Probably. She might tolerate them in her salad; she does love a salad.  Time will tell 🙂