We love growing microgreens, but sometimes miss the bright colors that mature plants bring with them. Fortunately for us, there are some microgreens that are not your usual grass green. For a splash of color in our microgreen garden, we add kohlrabi microgreens, a vision in purple or white!
You may have heard of kohlrabi, passed it over at the supermarket, or even eaten it. If so, then you know it is a funky looking plant, which is why many gardeners shy away from it. The micro-green version of kohlrabi is much more toned down in appearance and surprisingly easy to grow. Its sprouts have beautiful, purple or pale white stems that produce two bright green, lobed cotyledons.
Kohlrabi microgreens aren't all looks, however. Each sprout is high in vitamin C as well as calcium, potassium, vitamin B6, fiber, iron and many other nutrients, nutrients and antioxidants. This purple green contains health benefits for your heart and blood pressure, and can even help fight disease and cancer! With their sweet beet or broccoli taste, kohlrabi microgreens are a tasty addition to most dishes.
Are you ready to take the plunge into kohlrabi territory? We assure you that the microgreens are very easy to grow (and pretty quick too!). In just 1-2 weeks you will be enjoying a harvest of some winning white or bright purple vegetables.
Good products on Amazon for growing kohlrabi microgreens:
Kohlrabi Microgreens Short Info
Purple Vienna microgreens are distinctly purple in color.
| Taste: | Sweet beet / broccoli flavor |
| Soaking: | No |
| Rinsing / emptying: | No |
| Germination: | 2-4 days |
| Ideal harvest: | 7-14 days |
Growing kohlrabi microgreens
Kohlrabi microgreens are as simple as it gets, so this process can be applied to many other microgreens as well.
We have a fantastic intro to microgreens video for you to watch that covers the essential principles, and you can find it right here!
materials
Here are the basic requirements for growing kohlrabi microgreens. You can reuse most of them for other microgreen projects.
- Seeds: You won't get very far without kohlrabi seeds! We provide you with some suggestions below.
- Container: Choose something flat, e.g. B. a simple seed starter tray (you need at least 2)
- Growing medium: Soil mix for the seed start or coconut-coconut is perfect for microgreens
- Grow Light: We prefer a T5 fluorescent lamp
- A mist bottle
- Kitchen scissors
Our most popular microgreens seeds come from the True Leaf Market. Your seeds are of high quality and have good germinability. Here are a few of our personal favorites for kohlrabi:
Choose your kohlrabi microgreens seeds wisely, especially when it comes to color. While most of the varieties are purple, some are white (like the Early White Vienna). You can definitely grow white kohlrabi seeds as microgreens, but you need a strain like Purple Vienna to get that beautiful color (the health benefits are the same).
Microgreens, kohlrabi or others need fine-grained soil. The seed-starter-soil mix is perfect for this as it is only formulated for seeds and micro-plants. Coconut coconut is another great option because it holds water well, contains nutrients, and is extremely environmentally friendly.
After all, every microgreen benefits greatly from a grow light. Although this is the most expensive material, it can be used one harvest at a time with great results! Microgreens grow quickly, healthily, and evenly when their light source is about a foot directly above them. When the light is shifted through a window like sunlight, the microgreens will tilt to the side and grow unevenly. Having a grow lamp for every microgreen bowl is an investment that will pay off in the end.
soaking
Purple kohlrabi seeds are small, hard, and round. Due to their size and germinability, they do not need to be soaked beforehand.
plants
Kohlrabi seeds are small and dark in color.
Let's start growing our kohlrabi microgreens by filling the bowls. You need two dishes for each culture, one with drainage holes and one without. Since they have to be the same size, we recommend buying non-perforated trays and punching holes in one of them.
Fill the perforated dish to ¾ with growth medium. Level the surface and then moisten it with the spray bottle. Then sprinkle the purple kohlrabi seeds over the entire surface with your fingers or a shaker bottle. They are known to ricochet off the bottom and out of the bowl, so sprinkle them very close to the surface. The kohlrabi microgreens seeds should cover the soil tightly without overlapping (you will need about 20 seeds per square inch).
Instead of covering the would-be plants with soil, place the second, perforated tray directly on top of it. The tray should literally sit on the floor surface. Make sure the seeds are completely in the dark and place a small weight (up to 5 pounds) on the cover tray.
Keep the kohlrabi microgreens seeds in the dark for the next 2-3 days while they germinate. During this time, baby stems grow from the purple kohlrabi seedlings, which together push the cover shell and its weight upwards. When you see this, you can remove the tray and move on to the next phase of growth.
Growing
Now that the cover tray is removed, you can see that the kohlrabi microgreens are pale and leaning forward. Place the seed tray directly under the grow light and start giving them about 12 hours of artificial sunlight each day. They stand up quickly and turn a beautiful purple with green leaves.
Like most plants, water the kohlrabi microgreens when the soil begins to dry out. Unlike most plants, however, microgreens need to be watered from below instead of from above. Although they are easy to grow, microplants are very susceptible to bacterial growth and disease – especially when the plants and the soil surface are moist.
To water your microgreens, take the bowl you used as a cover and add a few inches of water. Place the microgreens bowl in it and let the soil fill for about 10 minutes (it should contain a medium amount of water). The end result will be moist soil and perfectly dry microgreens.
harvest
After a week, your kohlrabi microgreens should be a few inches tall with some pretty green cotyledons. Once these tender green leaves have fully opened, it's time to start harvesting. Kohlrabi microgreens can be harvested for about a week until their first real leaf grows. Once this is the case, the taste profile will become more bitter and the nutritional value may change.
After you've cleaned them well, cut the kohlrabi microgreens in bundles with your kitchen scissors. Cut the stems off just above the ground. The purple kohlrabi microgreens don't grow back after harvest, so you can put the soil in the compost bin and reuse the bin for another plant (maybe a few broccoli sprouts?).
storage
Any gardener will tell you that the products taste best fresh (and home grown!). Eat your microgreens crop right away for the best taste and health benefits. Tender kohlrabi microgreens taste amazing when added raw to salads, sandwiches, eggs, and anything else you cook.
Keep all unused microgreens in the refrigerator. They hold up well if you remove as much moisture as possible, so don't wash or soak the vegetables before you eat them. Keep them in a sealed container and wrap them in a paper towel. With this storage system, your microgreens crop should retain its fresh taste for up to a week.
frequently asked Questions
The Early White Vienna variety is very bright white.
Q: How do you use kohlrabi microgreens?
A: Kohlrabi Purple Microgreens taste best raw and fresh, so eat them as a salad base or lightly garnish with sandwiches, omelets, or pasta.
Q: What does Kohlrabi Microgreen taste like?
A: These microgreens have the taste of a slightly sweet turnip or broccoli. Since kohlrabi is a Brassica plant, its taste can be assumed to be reminiscent of any other related cole plant such as radish or cabbage.
The green fingers behind this article:
