How To Soak Microgreen Seeds (Best System)
If you want know the number one best way to soak your microgreen seeds in terms of ease of use and efficiency stay tuned, because I'm about to share with you the exact system that I invented for soaking my microgreen seeds.
I have seen the numerous ways that people soak their microgreen seeds and some of them make me laugh. I have literally laughed out loud at some of the videos I have seen of the different processes some microgreens farmers are using, and some are absolutely ridiculous. This process should be insanely efficient and effective. It shouldn’t take much time whatsoever.
I have already taught you in my previous videos why the microgreen seeds need to be soaked in the first place and which microgreens varieties need to be soaked.Now I need to teach you the system that actually gets this done. It's simple, effective, efficient and you can use this as a small farmer just starting out as well as a larger farmer at scale.
You're going to need two things
- a five gallon bucket
- a five gallon paint strainer bag
You can pick this stuff up right from your local Home Depot or any similar store usually in the paint aisle.
For sunflower seeds, they float. You are going to need to keep them under water, that way they do achieve that thorough germination. What I use for this is simply a brick to holds them down under the water. This makes it so they can actually absorb that water and fully germinate.
The goal with this system is to be able to remove the seeds from the water easily, that way you can drain the water and set the seeds back to dry off. With this being said, the seeds drying off is not necessary. I, personally, like to let my seeds dry off a little bit after soaking. I find that it's easier to sow them into the trays when they're not wet. When the seeds are wet, they can clump together, along with being a little messier.
The paint strainer bags that we are using are actually used in the same way for soaking and for the same purpose for painting. You put the paint strainer bag into the bucket, you fill it with paint and then you lift it back out, removing any particles or flaws in that paint. That way, you have fresh paint to paint onto a wall without any clumps or debris. Now for painting, you wanna strain out the debris that could be in the paint, but for microgreens the debris are actually the seeds. The seeds stay in that bag and when you pull them out, it separates the seeds from the water.
Here's the steps of the process.
First, you're going to want to take your bucket, put your bag in there and make sure to fasten the elastic band around the rim of the bucket.
Next, you are going to pour your seeds into the bag in the bucket. Be sure to weigh your seeds out BEFORE you do this. That way, you know how many trays you're going to have to make with the seeds in that bag once they are soaked and ready for planting. For me, the maximum number of trays that I make at a time is six, which means that's the maximum amount of seeds I'm putting into the bags at a time is six trays worth.
Next, fill the buckets up with water. If you are soaking sunflower, be sure to tie the bag and use a weight to hold them down in the bucket.
After the seeds have soaked for your desired time, simply lift the bag out of the bucket, dump the water and then tie the bag to the bucket using the handle on the side.
Boom, that's it! Now your seeds are soaked and they're ready to be planted right into your trays. They have fully absorbed the water that they needed and you're going to get a thorough germination.
Now you know the number one best system for soaking microgreen seeds but this isn't the only farm process that I've taught. So go find me on other social media platforms, that way you can absorb my content and learn this information in other formats.
If you wanna learn how I set up an automatic seed soaking machine, check out this blog post or check out this blog post to learn why we even soak these microgreen seeds in the first place.
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