I was wondering if you were familiar with growing microgreens and whether it would be feasible for people to grow them in countries under economic constraints. I had mentioned microgreens and growing plants from kitchen scraps to a member from Venezuela but I don't really know enough about South American countries.

The advantages that I can see with growing sprouts or microgreens include:

1. Fast turn around
   Most greens can be harvested between 8-12 days

2. Maximizes Growing Area
   Growing microgreens should be considered as growing them on an assembly line. Once the plants reach a certain stage of growth, they are moved to a different area. For the first days, the grow trays need to be compressed. This means they can be stacked. Then they need to be sprouted in a dark zone and the final days need to be in sunlight.

The disadvantages that I can see include:

1. Labour Intensive
   Most crops that are planted in the ground require less attention. Once the plants are in the ground, occasional "maintenance" needs to be done, but usually, it isn't necessary to monitor your crops on a daily basis. Growing greens require watering on a daily basis. If the crop that you are growing takes ten days to mature, you need to check and handle ten trays twice a day.

2. More Watering
   Normal cropping practices can expect that at least some precipitation will occur naturally. Growing microgreens means daily watering. Can people collect enough water and store it in cisterns or do they need to buy it?

3. Monetary Requirements
   Growing microgreens require shelves, trays, growth mediums, and more seeds. One aspect of growing microgreens is that it is possible to scale up an operation quite easily. This allows a person to grow more than their particular requirements. If the society is amenable to eating greens, this could provide an income flow to pay for the added costs. While it is less effective, a paper towel can be used for the growth medium.

Here is a video to review the process:

Do you think that this could be a series that you could do in addition to your Permaculture series?