After last week’s market cancellation, we’re itching to get back at it this coming Saturday. Weather forecast says sunny, high of 53, so should be a good day for it. We’ll have plenty of duck eggs, chicken eggs, and microgreens. Hope to see you!
Next question for our evolving FAQ list…
Will the microgreens regrow?
Aside from one exception (peas), none of our microgreens will regrow after harvest. Per our basic horticultural understanding, with any plant, the seed provides the bulk of the resources needed in early growth before photosynthesis eventually takes over. And there are essentially two distinct forms of seed germination: epigeal and hypogeal.
In epigeal germination, the seed rises above ground as the plant grows upward. Thus, when you harvest a young plant which grows in this manner, the unharvested remainder has no energy reserves from which to draw on and, thus, dies. We believe that all of our microgreens varieties aside from peas are epigeal germinators.
With hypogeal germination, the seed remains on the ground (though “hypo” implies that the seed is actually underground) and doesn’t move upward as the plant grows. And you can readily see this with our pea trays. Thus, when you harvest a tray of peas, there are still energy reserves in the seed from which the unharvested portion can draw on and resume growth. However, because the second round of growth is starting from partially depleted resources, the results will likely not be as good as the first… the shoots might look scragglier or thinner, and some of the shoots may not have sufficient reserves to grow at all. So your overall harvest weight from a second (or third) cutting will likely be less than what you’d get on the first cut.