Growing Green (sprouts) #HedgewitchChronicles

Small garden pot with new coriander and fennel seedlings — Coriander (dhanya) and fennel seedlings. Good scattered on almost anything. (Maybe not ice-cream.)

Three days ago, I marked my 27th month of Long Covid, and I am NOT going to write about it because I am so beyond bored to screams with the whole thing, and with being sick. I’ve been thinking of practicalities instead, and FOOD. Cooking with LoCo (if you have the kind that’s affected your sense of smell and taste) is a kind of suduko of the kitchen: finding out what takes the least effort with the maximum nutritional wallop AND please dear goddesses, SOME flavour and scent, or at least not distorted or unpleasant flavours.

Then there’s the problem of shortage of energy, money, foodstuffs themselves. Very early on in my Covid journey (at the pneumonia stage), I discovered I could generate greens (crunchy, tasty stuff) for free and with almost no effort right at home, even while almost too limp to move. It meant going back to the sprout habits of my hippy youth, but with some interesting new twists. No boring lentils, mung beans with slippy skins or expensive alfalfa. Instead, I discovered that those pea shoots and sunflower sprout posh restaurants scatter about, and which cost a fortune in delis and health shops, can be grown for almost nothing on any sunny windowsill.

This is a potential boon for the homebound, those frail, households experiencing shortages (as seen across the world as food costs go ape) or suffering infrastructural collapse and even rioting (right here at home: thinking of KZN, devastated by floods, and last year, by anarchy and looting). Seeing the queues to get into shops for basics made me realise that while sprouts and a pot of spinach on the balcony aren’t going to keep hunger at bay, they CAN keep greens (nutrients, vitamins, fibre) on the table during rough times. Plus they make meals a lot more interesting for vegetarians and vegans. For everyone, in fact.

This time, I started with the contents of my pantry. Yes, you can go online and buy gorgeous seeds for sprouting from half a dozen tempting sites, but look in your cupboards first. I had lobia beans and black-eyed beans, which make good sprouts, but the real treasure was green marrowfat peas (basically whole instead of split green peas — available from any shop selling Indian foods and spices, for pennies). My next discovery was that a fifty-ront sack of sunflower seeds (parrot food) from the pet-food aisle lasted a YEAR (with a continuous production line running). Then I managed to grow fennel, methi (fenugreek), mustard and dhanya (coriander/cilantro) directly from the stuff in my spice drawer. The coriander was a bit tricky: the seeds benefit from being soaked, then bashed with a bottle or rolling pin, then wrapped in a damp cloth and put in the sun for a day or two before scattering in a pot.

But let’s start with the easy stuff. For sprouts, get some wide-mouthed clean glass jars (start with small to medium sizes). Soak about two tablespoons of legumes overnight (note that not all beans will sprout, but black-eyed beans seem to be foolproof). Try whole peas for starters. Make a lid from those plastic mesh bags that onions come in and a rubber band (see pic). Twice a day, rinse the peas/beans thoroughly. After two to three days, you’ll see signs of life as the legumes grow little white whiskers. Congratulations: you have produced sprouts. Once the sprouts have reached a size and crunch factor you enjoy, keep them in the fridge, and wash once a day. They’ll last about a week before getting a bit slimy, in which case, chuck them into the veg garden and hope.

Sunflower sprouts getting going. True magic.

For sunflower sprouts, a staple in my kitchen, get out two shallow plastic trays (I recycle the kind that food or sushi comes in). Use a wooden skewer or the tip of a sharp knife or scissors to make about half a dozen small holes in one tray (take care not to stab your hand like Muggins here keeps doing). Put this tray inside/on top of the second one, resting on a few flat pebbles or bits of bark or wooden skewers, so there’s a little bit of room for liquid to trickle through from the top tray into the bottom one. In the holey tray, spread a thin layer of soil (I scoop mine off the molehills). Now sprinkle a single layer of sunflower seeds over the top. I soak mine overnight — about half a cup, and I pour the lot, water and all onto the soil in the tray, then cover it with another black plastic food tray (this apparently makes the germination more feisty). Put this somewhere safe and wet the soil and seeds once a day. By Day Three, you should see signs of life (it’s miraculous if you think about it, and your children will be enthralled — I hope).

Remove the covering tray (you won’t need it again) and put the bottom stack on a sunny window ledge where the cats won’t knock it over. I use a spray bottle/mister to soak the lot once a day, and I turn the tray every two days as the little sunflower seedlings lean yearningly towards the sun (they start young). These just keep growing and going. You’ll need to knock off the seed husks by fluffing the tops of the baby plants or just picking them off, but otherwise, start cutting them to sprinkle on your soups, salads, sandwiches and stews (or as a snack) as soon as you see green leaves. BTW, YouTube will present you with dozens of professional videos showing you how to do this Properly, with grow lights, etc. But my hit-and-miss methods mostly hit.

Back to the whole salad in pots vibe: If you have even a small balcony or a wide windowsill and access to a little soil, you can fill flowerpots or trays with soil (fill pots two-third full, and trays at least two inches deep). Scatter seeds quite thinly across the top and cover very loosely with a bit more soil. Water gently or use that mister, so the seeds don’t all rush into one clump. The foolproof and quick ones for me are fennel, fenugreek and mustard. Coriander takes much longer, but it’s very satisfying when you see its lacy little leaves unfolding. I transplant a few of these to the main veg bed and shake my fist at the snails. Who sometimes leave them alone.

Fennel was one of the few flavours I could taste during my first year of LoCo, so easy to see why fennel sprouts/seedlings became a favourite (I also ate truckloads of liquorice). I could taste food with a burn, so I ate a lot of hot dishes cooked with chilies. Fenugreek sprouts “match” the flavours of curry, and scattering them over my dhal meant I could tell myself I was sort of adding a fresh green veg. It took another year before I could taste coriander again, but once again, it was a good way to add raw green to curries and Asian dishes.

But my absolute favourite means going back to those whole peas: after soaking, instead of starting the sprouting regime, I’d plant them out into a tray of soil, poking them gently into the earth with a finger, and scattering a thin layer of soil on top, then misting once a day. One week later, gorgeous pea shoots for salads, omelettes, etc. Sometimes I’d leave a few uncut, and to my delight they’d produce flowers and tiny crisp juicy pea-pods. I couldn’t taste them, but the crunch and juice in my mouth, for someone taste-deprived, was very heartening.

Good luck with your efforts to pep up your menus and meals with El Cheapo Hedgewitch Greens. Don’t be discouraged if at first things go a bit pear-shaped — failed experiments can just go into the compost heap.