Healthy Food ideas- How to grow sunflower greens

Info found at: http://www.ubraw.com/aids.html and http://www.rawfoods-livingfoods.com/sunflower-sprouts.html

Sunflower Greens
"Grow your own!"

Sunflower Greens are one of the best things you can add to your raw & living food diet to improve your overall health and well being, they are delicious, nutritious, they make for a beautiful presentation and they are fun to grow. You can use sunflower greens as a great addition to salads, juices, sandwiches and wraps, of course you can also just eat them by themselves. Sunflower greens are a nutritional powerhouse packed with vitamins A, B complex, D, and E; they also contain minerals including calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus and zinc. In addition to these vitamins and minerals, sunflower greens are a rich source of lecithin which helps break down fatty acids into an easily digestible water soluble form, and chlorophyll which benefits many functions within the body, including building blood supply, revitalizing tissue, calming inflammation, activating enzymes, and deodorizing the body. Sunflower green are a fantastic source of protein and can easily supply you with all the protein your body can use! You can harvest a new crop every 7 to 8 days.

 

 

How to grow Sunflower Sprouts from whole Sunflower Seeds

Sunflower sprouts are baby sunflowers. They make an inexpensive and tasty nutritional addition to any salad or green smoothie.

Fresh, crunchy, and slightly nutty in flavor they are grown indoors all year round, providing lovely fresh greens in the depths of winter.

They can also be grown outdoors when the weather is warm. They need protecting from hungry wildlife with netting or some squirrel proof wire mesh.

 

Growing Sunflower Sprouts

Soak a cup of unhulled sunflower seeds for 8 hours or overnight, and then rinse and drain them. Leave in a warm dark cupboard and rinse twice a day until they start to sprout. You will see a small white 'root' appear out of the sunflower seed shell.

Prepare a seed tray, or other container, with a good quality compost. Make sure that you gently push the compost right into the corners of the tray. Tip the sprouted seeds into the middle of the tray, and gently spread them out evenly. It's fine if they touch, but try not to overlap them.

Cover the seeds with another thin layer of compost, and leave in a warm place out of direct sunlight.

Check daily to see if they need watering. Water gently, and keep out of direct sunlight. They will need more water if the temperature's hot, and less if it's cool. Over watering makes them prone to mold and rot, while under watering may mean they die of thirst, and will certainly stunt them.

As the sunflowers grow I give them a gently shoggle (technical term) with my fingers to encourage the top layer of compost to fall down into the tray.

 

They are ready to harvest when their smooth seed leaves are large and green, and the second hairier leaves have not yet grown. Most of the husks will have fallen off the sprouts by this point, but you will need to pull a few off by hand.

 The above tray of sunflower sprouts is only just ready for harvesting. You could happily leave them for another day or two, which would give most of the smaller sprouts time to shed their husks and open their seed leaves.

To harvest the sprouts cut off near the base with sharp clean scissors, rinse in cold water to remove any traces of soil, and spin dry in a salad spinner.

Enjoy fresh in your salad or green smoothie, or store in an airtight container in the fridge. Refridgerated they keep fresh for 5-7 days, providing they're almost dry, and all the husks have been removed.

Hoover or sweep up all those pesky husks