MycoGreens

MicroGarden

Microgreens grown in biodegradable pots on soil inoculated with beneficial fungi.

About these MicroGardens

Microgreens begin to lose their nutritional value very quickly after they've been cut. We sell them live so you can harvest right before enjoying.

Our MicroGardens come newly sprouted or ready to harvest. The MicroGarden is 100% biodegradable and can be placed directly into your garden, a potted plant or green waste bin when you are finished!

  • The soil in your microgarden has been inoculated with beneficial fungi commonly known as Wine Cap mushroom or the Garden Giant, (Stropharia rugoso-annulata).

    It feeds on the soil particles, dead roots and the pot itself, eventually colonizing completely it if the conditions are right.

    At the end of the Microgarden’s life the pot can be used to grow mushrooms in your garden or discarded into a green waste bin and recycled by a local composting facility. They are 100% biodegradable and all natural.

    The Fungus is hungry. Feed the fungus!

  • Your Microgarden pot is made with 100% tree fibers sourced from sustainably managed woodlands with no added chemicals, plastics, resins, glues, or binders. The pot contains no harmful PFA’s, “forever chemicals”, is OMRI and USDA Certified Biobased Product as well as peat and coco coir free. Your pot is 100% biodegradable and can be placed directly into your garden, a potted plant or green waste bin when you are finished.

  • Not only are we using the most environmentally responsible and natural pots on the market, the introduction of fungi into these pots has additional water-saving, carbon-sequestering and yield-increasing benefits. It also improves the food safety of our products through the mycoremediation and fermentation of the soil. This gives the Mycogreens cultivation process a built in layer of food safety you won't find with standard microgreen production. Wine cap Mushrooms (Stropharia rugoso-annulata) have proven themselves capable of killing and eating dangerous bacteria like e-coli and salmonella in clinical studies. It can also hunt and consume nematodes living in the soil that feed on plant roots, therefore protecting the plants from damage and the spread of soilborne pathogens. It does this by forming “acanthocytes” in the soil which tear and damage the body of the nematode as it squeezes by. The wine cap mushroom then moves in to consume the carcass for its available nutrients. By having Wine Cap mushrooms in the soil it's like having a fungal bodyguard protecting your plants from danger. For us, this begs the question, why aren't Wine Cap mushrooms, and other similar fungi, being used to enhance all of humankind's agricultural systems?

This is a quick guide on how to care for your MicroGarden. Keep reading if you have specific questions and for a bunch more info.

Care and Use Instructions

STEP ONE

Place your Microgarden in a sunny, well-lit location. The window sill in your living room, or over your kitchen sink, will be perfect. If the pot is light in color and dry to the touch, or if your microgreens are wilting, place your microgarden in a dish of water. Once your Microgarden has absorbed water, half way up the pot, remove the micro garden from the standing water and place on a dry dish. return the pot to a sunny location and repeat until you're ready for harvest!

STEP two

Harvest within 2 weeks of receiving.

STEP three

Some varieties can be harvested again. Continue to water and repeat if you have one of them! See below.

If not, compost or transfer to an indoor container, or your backyard garden, to expand the fungal life in a new environment. Remember to mulch!

STEP four

Add mulch & continue to water regularly until mushrooms appear. It should take a few weeks for the fungus to bounce back. After a few weeks, take a peek by parting the mulch, if you see a white network growing uniformly, that’s the fungus! If it hasn’t fruited yet, add more mulch! Feed it! A good rain or watering can trigger fruiting.

For the most part, a single harvest

Broccoli, Kale, Arugula, Radish, Mustard

Harvest again

 Peas, Beans, Clover, Alfalfa, Chickpea

Harvesting Microgreens

  • Microgreens are typically ready for harvest anytime after the maturing of the “cotyledons”, aka the water leaves, and when the true leaves mature. The true leaves are the second set of leaves on a newly germinated plant and are generally similar to what the mature plant leaves will look like. By harvesting between these stages of the plant's development, you will be able to enjoy your microgreens when they're most nutritionally dense.

  • Use a pair of sharp scissors for best results. Cut the stems just above the soil surface. The best time for harvest will be sometime in the first two weeks or so, after receiving newly germinated Microgardens. The pre-grown Microgardens are ready for an ideal harvest within the first week of receiving them. After that, the optimal window of harvest begins to decline. They will then need to be fertilized, or planted.

  • For any “legume” variety, cut just above the first or second “internode” aka branching point, so you can harvest again from the remaining branched sections beneath the cut. The pre-grown legume Microgardens are typically ready for harvest within the first week of receiving them. They can grow and be harvested for up to a month or so before they will need to be fertilized or planted.

    Whatever variety you have, you can harvest them all at once or spread out your harvest to use over multiple meals. By doing this you can taste the microgreens when they're at different stages of growth, texture, and flavor. The choice is now yours! Take your time! Harvesting is half the fun!

Watering

    • Generally every 1-4 days.

    • If your microgreens are wilting or falling over.

    • The bottom of the pot is dry to the touch.

    • The pot has lost most of its water weight.

  • If the container is heavy, appears dark in color or is dripping wet around the bottom portion, then it doesn't need any water. Protect the pot from staying wet for too long!

  • The best way to water this microgarden is from the bottom. Place it in a dish or shallow tray so the migrogarden can wick up the water from the bottom. Let it soak up the water until it reaches half way up the pot, then dump off the excess water and put it back on the tray.

    Don't let the Microgarden sit in standing water. This will cause a few issues that may result in the fungus dying and mold taking over. Make sure the pot can dry out before it begins to break down or the plant roots begin to break through the walls of the pot, unless that's what you want? This would make sense in a planting situation.

    Depending on the size of your microgarden, it will have different watering needs. On average, your small Microgarden should receive 25-50ml or 2-3 (tbsp) of water every day. Your medium Microgarden should receive about 50-100ml or 3-5 (tbsp) and your larger microgarden will need about 100-300 ml or 5-10 (tbsp) per day. If you're unsure that it's hydrated enough, add more water in increments until the container gains a noticeable amount of weight. A few tablespoons daily, is usually the best approach. Don't water again until some of its water weight is noticeably gone or if the pot is noticeably dry.

    We like to place them in front of our kitchen window and crack the window during the day, just a little bit, so any excess moisture near the bottom can evaporate more quickly. Placing them on a wire rack will work as well as it will increase airflow under the pot. Anything that can be used to lift the pot, to allow airflow underneath, will work. This practice will also help “air prune” the roots so they don't grow through the pot's wall. If they are kept outside they will dry out faster due to increased airflow, which will mean you'll have to water more often, probably every day.

Lighting

  • We have found that they will usually do fine in a kitchen window or any window that receives direct sunlight for more than a couple hours of the day. Turn the pot once every day. This will help even out the growth of the canopy of your microgreens and it will help aid in the consistent water evaporation of your Microgarden. If you don't turn it, it's not the end of the world, growth and hydration will simply be less consistent. This will still make for a beautiful outcome and will diversify the stages of maturity of your harvest.

  • If you don't have any windows with natural sunlight but have an LED or fluorescent light source, place them close to it, around 6-10 inches, and expose to the light for 8-14 hours per day.

Transplant your MicroGarden to Grow Mushrooms

  • If you have an outdoor garden, raised bed or a potted plant in your home, with at least 1 inch of space to add Mulch on top, you can use the Microgarden to grow mushrooms! By adding your microgarden to your potted plant or outdoor garden, the fungus inside your Microgarden will have a larger area to live in, feed from and will have a better chance of producing mushrooms. This process is called “inoculation” or “spawning”. After a few weeks, the fungus will colonize most, if not all, of the upper mulched surface and you will have to water less often than usual. Don't let it dry out though! It is best to water in small increments to keep the mulch especially hydrated. (More on mulch below) If any mold occurs on your mulch, you're probably watering too often or the area where it's kept might be too high in relative humidity, or both. First reduce your watering before moving anything heavy unnecessarily to a spot with more airflow. You'll likely have new plants pop up, after the inoculation is made, from any ungerminated seeds in your microgarden.

  • The term “Inoculation” simply means to introduce a microorganism into a new environment. To inoculate a new environment with the fungi living in your Microgarden, plant the whole pot just beneath the soil surface or break up the entire Microgarden into little pieces (this includes the pot) and evenly spread it around and on top of the soil surface of your pot. Immediately and evenly add mulch on top, before the shredded microgarden dries out. A good rule of thumb is to add mulch and water within 6 hours after inoculation. You should wait until you have your mulch ready and your potted plant is due for a watering before you move forward with the inoculation.

  • The key to growing mushrooms is to mulch after inoculation. This means covering the inoculated surface by adding an even layer of mulch. When we use the term “mulch” we mean anything from dried hay, dry grass, dried and crushed leaves, woodchips, woody compost, or sawdust that can be added directly on top of the Microgarden’s pieces without disturbing their evenness. Often it is that most potting mixes qualify as mulch for this scenario. Make sure to not add any more green material or fresh plant scraps besides what’s already in the Microgarden. An excessive amount of “green” material will be prone to contamination by other microorganisms and can cause issues for your fungus. The particle size of your mulch should not be too large or too small. Keep the particle size between ¼ - 2 inches. Water immediately after this introduction. To grow evenly, the mulch layer should be hydrated and not dried out. Try and aim for even hydration. A spray bottle helps with this. You can take an extra step by pre-soaking your mulch in water for at least 8 - 12 hrs, then drain the water and let the mulch sit in a container or outside until it stops dripping, before adding it on top of your inoculated surface. This will help even the hydration of your mulch which your fungi will appreciate.

  • About 1-3 months after inoculation, the fungi should have colonized the majority of the mulch layer and will be ready to fruit any day, so make sure to visually check for mushrooms or signs of contamination every day or two. If your mulch surface contaminates, don't worry, just add more mulch to the contaminated area and halt your watering of that location. Hopefully the wine cap mushrooms grow faster than the mold and end up overcoming the contaminated location. This isn't uncommon. They grow very fast and you don't want to miss out on watching them grow. Wine cap mushrooms will typically fruit when the temperature is between 65 - 85°F and the ambient humidity is close to 100%. The mulch layer will act as a “humidity regulator” for the fungi to form baby mushrooms in, scientifically known as “Primordia''. Fruiting can occur after a heavy watering and if the temperature is right. Wine Cap mushrooms typically fruit in the wild from springtime to early summer after a heavy rain and/or a sudden temperature increase.

  • We can not guarantee that you'll be able to grow and harvest a flush of mushrooms due to the specific growing conditions that fungi require for colonization and fruiting. That being said, If you follow the instructions below, you MAY be able to produce a successful harvest of mushrooms. It all depends on the growing conditions: the ambient humidity, soil hydration, material used for mulching, temperature of the environment, lighting conditions, etc. Mushrooms are very particular. The easiest thing to do is to plant them outside, otherwise feel free to dispose of your Microgarden after microgreen harvest if you're not up for the challenge.