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Best Way to Grow Microgreens

The images and basic directions in this article about how to grow microgreens are by Gaby Bronstein from Garden Sprout. It was originally published in Garden Culture Magazine, US3 in 2014 under the title, “How To Make Soil Tacos for Growing Micro Greens”.

Say hello to the cleanest way to grow microgreens! No matter how gently you apply water from above, grit ends up on the leaves and stems of plants that lie close to your growing medium. Here’s a great way to make sure your microgreens are super clean every time… and it doesn’t include bottom watering.

Better yet, no fancy gadgets of tools are needed. Anyone can grow microgreens in small to large quantities using The Soil Taco Method with average supplies and quality potting mix.

What’s Needed to Grow Microgreens:

  • 2 seed starting trays (no drainage holes)
  • potting mix
  • seed
  • paper towels
  • spray bottle

Growing Microgreens: Step by Step Directions

  1. Use 46” of good 2-ply paper toweling. Cheap brands or recycled towels don’t work. Try Bounty or Brawny.
Using a paper towel is the first step to grow microgreens

2. Lay one end of the towel in the tray. Spray the towel in the bottom of the tray with water to hold in place.

Adding soil to a paper towel to grow microgreens

3. Add your microgreen grow mix. Spread and smooth it out. Only half fill the tray’s depth.

Microgreen growing mix being added to a bed

4. Fold other half of the toweling over to cover your growth media in the tray.

Toweling being folded over the microgreen tray

5. Tuck the paper towel in between media and tray on the end and both sides.

Tucking the paper town in a bed of growing microgreens

6. Wet down the top of your soil taco with water from your sprayer.

Water is added to the microgreens soil bed

7. Sprinkle a handful of seed over the wet surface. Mist the seed. Cover with an empty tray.

Seed being added to the microgreens bed to allow them to grow

Grow Microgreens Results!

8. Mist with plain water 3 times a day. Constant moisture, and you’ll have these sprouting microgreens 2 days later.

Sprouts from microgreens growing in the soil bed

9. Remove the tray on day 3. The yellowish microgreen sprouts will quickly green up under lights.

Day 3 results from growing our microgreens

Give the microgreens a treatment of Earth Tonic Concentrated Ocean Water now, and once a week until harvest. Water the trays daily.

Even if your crop is harvested super fast, like this one, the quality of that harvest is greatly dependent on the quality of your potting mix.

Gaby Bronstein’s Grow Microgreens Potting Mix recipe:

  • 80% peat moss
  • 20% perlite.

 Add:

  • a little oyster shell to improve pH
  • a little Earth Recharge from Progressive Earth
  • a tiny bit of worm castings

Mix well and moisten before filling microgreen growing trays.

And there you have it, The Soil Taco Method to grow microgreens. Fast and easy, with the cleanest harvest you’ve seen yet!

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2 Comments
  • T says:

    Skip the soil just grow on the paper towels 3x

    • Amber says:

      At the time this article was written most people were growing microgreens in potting soil. The idea of keeping them soil-free by covering the media with paper towel was unique. But that was back in 2013. Indoor gardening/farming has progressed by leaps and bounds since then.

      That being said, I would think twice about growing them on paper towels. Do you have any idea the chemicals used to turn wood pulp pure white? And then into paper? Not anything I’d want to eat! Coir or hemp growing mat is a far wiser choice. No chemicals for the microgreens to take up through their roots and no gritty bits on the greens.