Clippings: the micro vegie trend, plus gardening jobs for April

These baby vegetables taste great and are really good for you. And as Jackie French explains, they are incredibly easy to cultivate.

Micro-greens are green veg picked as babies. Instead of one large, coarse cabbage, eat tiny, sweet, tender baby cabbage – delicious, better for you and easy to grow.

MICRO-GREENS ARE MAGIC

You can grow them anywhere, any time and they are incredibly fast growing. All you need is a sunny spot, which could be a pot or hanging basket by a sunny windowsill, potting mix, slowrelease fertiliser and scissors.

HOW TO BEGIN

Fill your pot, hanging basket or even styrofoam box with drainage holes with a high quality potting mix. (Beware the cheaper potting mixes that are a coarse, acidic mix of just slightly rotted wood chips.)

Scatter seeds on thickly, about

2mm apart, but don’t go mad trying to be accurate. Try mixing 2 parts sand with 1 part seed to keep seeds from clumping together. There’s no need to cover seeds with soil unless they’re out in the very hot sun. Water seeds with the finest possible spray of water to keep them in place. As soon as they are as high as your little finger, add slow-release fertiliser according to the directions on the packet.

WHEN TO HARVEST

Seeds should sprout in three to seven days. You can begin to harvest them as soon as they are big enough, in about one to two weeks. If you feed and water well, most will keep regrowing for months.

WHICH MICRO-GREENS TO CHOOSE?

Try lettuce, bok choi, basil, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, mustard, watercress, English spinach, silver beet and endive.

Micro-reds: These may be more nutritious than greens. Try red cabbage, lettuces and red-veined chicory. Multi-coloured chard has green leaves but the multicoloured stems are a delight – even more so when tiny.

WHY MICRO-GREENS (AND REDS) ARE GOOD FOR YOU

Micro-greens can have up to 40 times the vitamins C and E and beta-carotene as their grown-up siblings. Red cabbage microgreens significantly reduced the levels of “bad” cholesterol in mice fed a high fat diet as well as producing higher levels of polyphenols and glucosinolates – compounds that lower cholesterol. They also resulted in reduced triglycerides – a fat that can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. They may even help people lose weight.