Microgreens

We've been seeding greens in previously planted SIPs up on the roof. I like to give them a good start in the full, late-season sun before bringing them down and replanting in the raised bed/low tunnel with winter cover. Up top, lotsa mustard greens and some arugula.

Ruby red chard from Bountiful Gardens,

still awaiting their first true leaves

I've always savored these intensely flavored tiny greens, and apparently there's also every nutritional reason to love these babies:

Gene Lester, a researcher with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and his colleagues at University of Maryland, College Park, have conducted the first scientific analysis of nutrients in microgreens. The results, Lester tells The Salt, "totally knocked me over." The researchers looked at four groups of vitamins and other phytochemicals – including vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta carotene — in 25 varieties of microgreens. They found that leaves from almost all of the microgreens had four to six times more nutrients than the mature leaves of the same plant. But there was variation among them – red cabbage was highest in vitamin C, for instance, while the green daikon radish microgreens had the most vitamin E.

 Fetal kale

 

As young as these mustards are, they explode with flavor and make an ideal bed for just about anything on the menu.

Add a few roof tomatoes.

Top with some sauteed Jimmy Nardello peppers, garlic, and scallops and you get...

My idea of a perfect lunch