Microgreens: The Complete Guide

What they are, how to grow them, how to eat them, and why the fresh ones ruin you for anything else.

Written by William — the person building Shadowmere Farm. Updated April 2026.

I'll say this up front: microgreens are the single most underrated food in the grocery store. They've got more nutrition by weight than the vegetables they turn into. They grow in two to three weeks on a countertop. They make a plain scrambled egg taste like something out of a restaurant. And almost nobody you know is eating them regularly — because the ones at the store cost eight bucks for a handful that's already half-wilted by the time it shows up on the shelf.

That's the whole reason I started growing them. Microgreens are one of those crops where small, local, and fresh beats big and shipped every time. There's no contest. So this page is going to tell you everything I've learned about them — how they work, the varieties worth knowing, how to grow them yourself if that's your thing, how to use them in actual food, and where Shadowmere Farm fits into all of it.

If you just want to skip to buying fresh microgreens from us, jump to the shop section. If you want to grow your own, I've got you covered too. If you're a chef and you're tired of the limp, tasteless stuff your distributor is sending over, scroll to the wholesale section. Otherwise, start at the top and we'll walk through the whole thing.

What are microgreens?

Microgreens are the very young seedlings of edible plants. You plant a seed, it germinates, it sends up a pair of little leaves (called cotyledons) and often a first set of true leaves, and then you cut the whole thing off at the soil line and eat it. That's it. The plant never gets a chance to mature. It doesn't grow roots you'd recognize as roots. It doesn't flower. It doesn't set fruit. You catch it in the first ten to twenty-one days of its life, when all the energy it was going to spend becoming a full-grown plant is still concentrated in a tiny stem and a couple of leaves.

The reason people go nuts over them is that this concentration shows up in a couple of places. First, flavor. A microgreen tastes like a turbocharged version of the mature plant. A pea microgreen tastes more like a fresh pea than a fresh pea does. A radish microgreen tastes exactly like a radish — but with a clean, green, peppery kick that hits harder because you're chewing the whole plant. Second, nutrition. I'll get into the data in a minute, but the short version is that microgreens pack more vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants per ounce than the mature vegetable in almost every study that's been done on them.

The history is interesting too. Microgreens aren't new — restaurants in San Francisco were using them as garnishes back in the eighties. But they stayed mostly a white-tablecloth thing for a couple of decades because nobody was growing them at any kind of scale. What changed was a combination of LED lighting getting cheap, indoor hydroponic setups getting simple, and the food scene waking up to the nutritional research. Now they're in farmers markets, co-ops, high-end grocery stores, and — if you know a local grower — in a clamshell that was harvested yesterday and tastes like nothing you've ever bought in a plastic box.

A microgreen is the plant's whole early life, served on a spoon. That's why it hits so hard.

Microgreens vs. sprouts vs. baby greens

This trips people up all the time, so let's clear it up.

Sprouts are seeds you soak and rinse in water — no soil, no light, no real leaves. You eat the whole thing, seed and all, after about three to five days, while it's still essentially a germinated seed with a short white stem. Mung bean sprouts in pad thai are the most famous example. Sprouts are nutritious but they have a food safety history that's made a lot of growers nervous — the warm, wet, dark environment they need is also exactly what pathogens like.

Microgreens are grown in a medium (soil, coco coir, or hydroponic mats), under light, for ten to twenty-one days. You harvest by cutting above the soil line and eating just the stem and leaves — never the seed or root. The growing environment is dry on top, with airflow, which makes contamination a much smaller problem. They're also more developed than sprouts, which gives them more flavor and more photosynthesized nutrients.

Baby greens are the next step up. Same plants, grown for three to six weeks, harvested when the leaves are small but fully formed. Baby spinach, baby kale, baby arugula — the stuff you get in a clamshell marketed as "spring mix." Still young, still tender, but past the microgreen stage.

So the order goes sprout → microgreen → baby green → mature plant. Microgreens are the sweet spot for most people: more flavor and more nutrition than the mature version, safer than sprouts, and fast enough to grow at home without much of a commitment.

Why they're a nutritional big deal

I try not to turn every page on this site into a vitamin sales pitch. But the research on microgreens is genuinely interesting, and it's one of the reasons this crop is worth paying attention to.

The most-cited study is a USDA paper from 2012 that measured the nutrient density of twenty-five microgreen varieties and compared them to their mature counterparts. The short version: most of the microgreens had four to forty times more vitamins and carotenoids than the grown-up plants. Red cabbage microgreens had forty times the vitamin E. Cilantro microgreens had triple the beta-carotene. Radish microgreens were loaded with polyphenols.

There's been follow-up work on specific varieties. Broccoli microgreens have been studied for their sulforaphane content, which is a compound that's been researched for cancer-related effects. Pea shoots have been looked at for folate. Sunflower microgreens are one of the best plant sources of complete protein you can grow at home.

None of this means microgreens are medicine — they're food, and they work the way food works, which is "eat them regularly, as part of a varied diet, for years." But if you're trying to get more nutrition out of the same plate, swapping a handful of shredded iceberg for a handful of radish microgreens is a trade that actually means something.

The varieties worth knowing

There are probably sixty different plants that work as microgreens, but most growers — me included — rotate through twelve to fifteen regulars that actually taste good, grow reliably, and have a place in real food. Here's the lineup I'd start with.

If you're just starting out — either growing or eating — I'd pick three: radish, pea shoots, and sunflower. They cover spicy, sweet, and crunchy, they all grow fast and forgivingly, and between them you'll find a use for microgreens on almost any plate.

How to grow microgreens at home

Here's the real pitch for microgreens: you can absolutely grow them yourself. In fact, for most people, I'd recommend growing a tray or two at home in addition to buying from a grower like us, because microgreens are one of the easiest things on the planet to grow and it's genuinely fun to watch happen.

The basic method is this:

1. Fill a tray with a growing medium. Coco coir or a light seed-starting mix both work. Fill a 10-by-20 tray (or any shallow container with drainage) to about an inch of medium, and level it out.
2. Pre-soak your seeds. Most varieties (pea, sunflower, radish, broccoli, kale, cabbage) do better after 6 to 12 hours in room-temperature water. Some tiny seeds like basil, arugula, and cilantro skip the soak and go straight to the tray.
3. Sow densely. This is the big mistake beginners make — they plant microgreens like lettuce. Don't. You want a thick, even layer of seeds covering the medium. Think "snowfall on a driveway," not "spaced out in rows."
4. Water, cover, and weigh it down. Mist the surface. Put another tray on top, upside down. Then put a weight on it — a brick, a book, a jug of water. The pressure helps the roots push down into the medium and makes for stronger stems. This is the blackout stage and it lasts 3 to 5 days.
5. Uncover and give them light. Once the seedlings are pushing the top tray up on their own, pull the cover off. They'll be pale and yellow. Put them in bright, indirect light (a sunny window works, a cheap LED shop light works better). Within a day or two they'll green up.
6. Water from below. Don't spray them from above once they're uncovered — it invites mold. Set the tray in a shallow dish of water for a few minutes at a time, let it soak up what it needs, and drain the rest.
7. Harvest with scissors. When the cotyledons are open and the first true leaves are appearing (7 to 21 days depending on variety), cut the stems right above the soil line. Rinse gently, dry, and store in a container with a paper towel in the fridge. They'll keep 7 to 10 days, but they're best the day of.

That's the whole process. No grow tent, no pH meter, no fancy nutrient solution. People make microgreens sound more complicated than they are because there's a cottage industry of YouTubers selling twelve-step courses. You don't need that. You need seeds, a tray, some dirt, and a couple of weeks.

Equipment and supply list

If you want a clean starter kit, this is what I'd actually buy. Nothing on this list is exotic, and you can get all of it for well under a hundred dollars.

The essentials

• Two 10-by-20 growing trays. One with holes for the growing medium, one without for bottom-watering. Get the heavy-duty ones (labeled 1020 "heavy duty" or "extra strength") so they don't warp.
• Coco coir or seed-starting mix. One compressed coco block makes around five trays of medium. Either works; coco is cleaner and easier to reuse.
• Seeds specifically labeled for microgreens or sprouting. Don't use packet seeds from the hardware store — they're often treated with fungicides you don't want to eat. Buy from a microgreen-specific seed supplier.
• A spray bottle and a watering can or pitcher. Spray for the seeding stage, pour for bottom-watering.
• A light source. A south-facing window works for one or two trays. Past that, a $30 LED shop light on a timer (14 to 16 hours a day) will give you more consistent results.

Nice-to-have

• A small fan. Airflow prevents mold and makes stems stronger. A $15 USB fan on low is plenty.
• A heat mat. Speeds up germination if your house is cold. Not necessary above 65°F.
• A humidity dome. Replaces the "tray on top with a weight" trick. Useful if you're growing multiple trays at once.
• A scale. For measuring seed-per-tray ratios once you're dialing in your specific varieties. Cheap kitchen scale is fine.

That's really it. The YouTubers will try to talk you into a humidity controller, a dehumidifier, a pH meter, and a nutrient reservoir. For home-scale microgreens, you don't need any of that. If you're scaling up to sell at a farmers market — that's a different conversation, and we can talk another time.

Troubleshooting common problems

Ninety percent of the questions I get from home growers are variations of the same three issues. So let's just hit them head-on.

"There's white fuzzy stuff on my microgreens. Is it mold?"

Probably not. In the first few days after germination, what looks like white mold is almost always root hairs — tiny fine fibers that come off the roots looking for moisture. Real mold shows up as a circular, spreading fuzz that looks different from the rest of the tray, and it usually smells musty. Root hairs are evenly distributed, blend right into the roots, and will disappear the first time you water. If you're unsure, mist the area lightly; root hairs flatten down, mold does not.

If it is mold, the cause is almost always too much humidity, not enough airflow, or seeds sown too thickly in a wet environment. Pull the affected area, increase airflow with a fan, and water from below instead of spraying.

"My microgreens are tall and skinny and falling over."

That's called etiolation — stretching toward light. It means they didn't get enough weight during the blackout stage, or they're not getting enough light now that they're uncovered. Weight them harder next time (a gallon jug of water works well), and move your light source closer — 4 to 6 inches above the canopy is ideal for LED shop lights.

"My seeds aren't germinating."

Three usual culprits: old seed, dry medium, or a cold room. Microgreen seed is good for about two years if you keep it in a cool, dry place. If your seeds are older than that, germination rates drop fast. If the medium dried out during the blackout, the seeds don't finish. And if your house is below 60°F, seeds will sit there sulking. Fix those in that order.

How to actually eat them

This is where a lot of people get stuck. They try microgreens, think "okay, cool, now what?" and end up putting them on a salad one time and forgetting about them. Here's how I actually use microgreens, in the order I use them most often.

Add them at the end

The single biggest rule with microgreens is don't cook them. Heat destroys the texture and a lot of the nutrition. Put them on the plate after you're done cooking, right before it hits the table. They're a finisher, like fresh herbs. A pea shoot goes on a bowl of ramen at the very last second, not into the broth at the start.

As a salad base or booster

A straight microgreen salad is a thing — sunflower and pea shoots will hold up to dressing for a few minutes without turning to mush. Or, easier, toss a handful of radish or broccoli microgreens into whatever salad you're already making to bump the nutrition and flavor.

On eggs

Scrambled, fried, omelet, poached — eggs and microgreens are a near-perfect pair. The fat carries the flavor and the soft texture of the egg offsets the crunch. A fried egg on toast with a handful of arugula microgreens and a little flaky salt is one of the best five-minute meals you can make.

On sandwiches and wraps

Swap out the lettuce. That's it. Radish or sunflower microgreens on a turkey sandwich, pea shoots in a Vietnamese banh mi, red cabbage microgreens on a fish taco. You get more flavor, more crunch, more nutrition, and you use less volume.

Blended into smoothies

Broccoli or kale microgreens blend cleanly into a fruit smoothie and you'll barely know they're there. This is the easiest way to get the nutritional benefit if you don't love the flavor of greens.

As a pizza topping (after baking)

Finish a pizza straight out of the oven with a handful of arugula or basil microgreens. You get restaurant-level pizza with 30 seconds of extra work.

Recipe ideas by variety

Here's a quick reference for matching varieties to dishes. This isn't exhaustive — microgreens are more flexible than people think — but it'll give you somewhere to start.

The general rule: match the microgreen to the plate the way you'd match fresh herbs. If basil goes with it, basil microgreens go with it. If cilantro goes with it, cilantro microgreens work. Once you start thinking about it that way, you'll find a use on basically every meal.

For chefs and restaurants

If you're a chef reading this, you already know most of what I've written so far. So let me just talk to you directly about what matters: the stuff the big produce distributors can't deliver.

Freshness that actually means something

The typical clamshell of microgreens in a restaurant walk-in has been harvested three to seven days before it shows up, sitting in refrigerated trucks and distribution centers the whole time. That's why they're floppy. That's why half the tray is already yellowing. A local grower like Shadowmere can harvest the morning you need them and have them at your back door by lunch. The difference shows up in the plate and in your food cost — you're throwing away less, and what you're using actually looks the way it's supposed to.

Consistency and reliability

Indoor hydroponic production isn't at the mercy of the weather. I'm not going to miss a delivery because there was a storm in Arizona. The tray I'm growing for you in week two looks like the tray I grew for you in week one. That matters for a menu with microgreens as a recurring element.

Varieties that actually suit your menu

Most distributors carry the same four or five microgreens — radish, pea, broccoli, a "mix." If you want something specific (amaranth for a plated course, red mustard for a steakhouse, basil micro for pizzas) you probably can't get it without buying a case bigger than you need. As a local grower, I can grow what you want in the volume you actually use, with enough lead time to dial it in.

Custom varieties and test runs

If there's a microgreen you've been wanting to try on a dish, I'll grow you a small trial tray so you can taste it and plate with it before you commit. No distributor is going to do that.

How we grow microgreens at Shadowmere Farm

Since the whole point of this farm is transparency, let me walk you through exactly how our microgreens are produced. No mystery inputs. No "proprietary process" hand-waving.

The setup

I use hydroponic rack systems — trays sitting on stainless shelving with LED grow lights directly above. No soil. The growing medium is either coco coir (for denser varieties like pea and sunflower) or hemp grow mats (for the smaller-seeded ones like broccoli, radish, and cabbage). Coco is a byproduct of coconut production, hemp mats are a byproduct of hemp fiber processing — both are compostable and neither requires a pesticide to produce.

The water

Filtered, pH-adjusted, and tested weekly. I use a mild nutrient solution at about half the concentration you'd use for mature plants, because microgreens are harvested so early they don't need the full profile. Every nutrient that goes into the water is listed and traceable — I can tell you the exact brand and composition of what the plants drank.

The seeds

I only source from suppliers that sell seed specifically intended for sprouting and microgreens — meaning the seed hasn't been treated with fungicides, insecticides, or other chemicals common to agricultural seed. This is a harder category to source from, and it's more expensive, and I think it's worth it.

The rest

No pesticides, ever. No post-harvest chemical wash. Harvested by hand with sanitized scissors. Rinsed in cold filtered water, spun dry in a commercial salad spinner, and packaged in clamshells that afternoon. Refrigerated immediately and delivered within 48 hours of harvest — most of the time, 24.

That's the whole process. If you want to see the setup, send me a message and I'll give you a tour (video or in person) — the whole point of building it this way is that there's nothing to hide.

Should you buy or grow your own?

Honest answer: most people should do both.

Growing your own gets you the freshest possible microgreens — cut and on the plate in the same minute. It's also fun, educational, genuinely cheap once you've bought your first round of trays and seed, and it's a low-stakes way to dip into home gardening without any of the scheduling or seasonal pressure of outdoor gardening.

But growing is also a small commitment. You need space, light, and a cycle of trays going so you have microgreens when you want them. If you go on vacation for a week, the tray you just started is going to be unhappy when you get back. And if you want variety — basil micro one week, cilantro the next — you have to start multiple trays, which means more space and more attention.

Buying solves the logistics. A clamshell shows up, you use it, done. Especially for the slower varieties (basil, cilantro) or the ones with tricky germination, it's often easier to let a grower handle it. Especially a grower who is very clear about how they're grown (that's the part the grocery store usually fails at).

My recommendation: grow radish, pea shoots, and sunflower at home. They're the easiest, the fastest, and they cover most daily use. Buy basil micro, cilantro micro, amaranth, and specialty varieties from a local grower. That's the combination that gives you the best of both worlds without turning your apartment into a farm.

The real economics of microgreens

One thing I want to address head-on, because it comes up every time: microgreens look expensive.

A 2-ounce clamshell at a grocery store will run you $4 to $8. A comparable bag of baby spinach is $3 for twice the weight. On a pure price-per-ounce basis, microgreens are four to ten times more expensive than mature greens. If you've been eyeing them at the store and quietly deciding they're a luxury item, you're doing the math correctly.

Here's the other side of that math. Microgreens are eaten in handfuls, not cupfuls. A single 2-ounce clamshell tops somewhere between eight and twelve meals, because you're using a pinch at a time, the same way you'd use fresh herbs. So the cost-per-meal is usually 40 to 80 cents, not $4. That's in the same range as a tablespoon of olive oil, a slice of cheese, or any other finishing ingredient you reach for without thinking about it.

The reason they cost what they cost from the grower side is also worth understanding. A tray of microgreens takes 10 to 21 days, uses premium seed (often at $15 to $40 per pound), requires a clean growing environment and controlled light, has to be hand-harvested with scissors, gets washed and spun, and has a shelf life measured in a week. Scale up to restaurant-quality consistency and you're paying for labor, space, electricity, cold storage, and delivery — all for a product that can't sit around waiting for a sale. There's no "store it for three months" option the way there is with dry goods. What you pay for microgreens is basically the cost of time, labor, and freshness, with a small margin.

Where it gets cheaper is when you cut out the middle. Grocery-store microgreens pass through a distributor, a warehouse, and a retailer — each taking a cut and adding days. Local direct is shorter, fresher, and usually priced better than what you'll find in a chain store. Growing at home is cheapest of all once you've amortized the trays and lights; after that, you're paying for seed and water, and the per-ounce cost drops to roughly a dollar.

So: yes, microgreens cost more than most vegetables. No, they're not a luxury in practice — they're a finishing ingredient that lasts longer than it looks and delivers more per bite than almost anything else you can put on a plate.

Frequently asked questions

Get fresh microgreens from Shadowmere Farm

If you've made it this far, you already know the pitch. Fresh-harvested microgreens from someone you can actually talk to, grown without pesticides, in varieties that actually taste like something. Weekly subscriptions are in the works. Right now, you can get on the list and be the first to know when ordering opens in your area.

Real food, grown the right way, by someone you can actually talk to. That's the whole idea.