Gardening for Dummies

  If I told you that there is a type of gardening that requires no digging, no weeding, even no sunlight and would provide (semi) instant gratification would you be interested?

Sprouting seeds in jars has been around for thousands of years and only recently it has become associated with the "hippie-granola-head crowd" but pound for pound there are few foods on this planet more nutritious than sprouts. Sprouts are very easy to grow and require little hardware to get started. They make numerous sprouters that are available online but if you just want to try sprouting a quart-size mason jar is sufficient. Other than the jar you need a fitting canning ring and a piece of cheese cloth or window screen that will fit over the mouth of the jar.
Getting the seeds, however, is more difficult. You can't head down to the garden supply store and buy a packet of seeds, dump them in you sprouter and Viola!- sprouts. You need seeds with a high germination rate that are sold by the pound. Sprouts seeds are light in weight and shelf stable so ordering them from an online retail is a good idea. Other than that check out your local whole earth market. You know they type of place- they sell grass fed alpaca steaks from Chile and amazonian Acai berries, the parking lot is full of Subaru Outbacks, tandem bicycles and VW buses and the dudes that frequent the place look like ZZ Top rejects. If they don't carry sprouting seeds chances are that they will know where to get your hands on some seeds.
Now that you gave the guy down at the market with the hemp shirt a hard time about being pro-sprouts but anti-veal (think about it - it's the same thing!) and have your seeds- now what?  It's bath time! Put about 1/4 cup of seeds into the jar and fill it with cool water then let them soak for about 12 hours. When they are done soaking, secure the screen across the top of the jar with the canning ring and drain the water out. Put the jar, upside down, in your dish drainer so no water will pool around the sprouts. Once a day or so rinse the sprouts by filling the jar with water, drain the water then return the jar, again upside down, to the dish drainer. I usually rinse my jars in the morning (yes I have multiple so I can rotate 'crops'). In about 3-6 days your sprouts will be ready. You will know when they are ready because they look like sprouts not seeds.
Sprouts are great in salads-or as salads for that matter. They add a welcome crunch to sandwiches/wraps and make a nice topping for some stir fry. How about breakfast? Try a sunny side up egg on top of a handful of sprouts and crumbled bacon- awesome!