Microgreens are exactly what they sound like …. tiny vegetable plants. But despite their size they contain more healthy nutrients and phytochemicals per gramme than mature vegetable crops.

Also, their flavour is enhanced, so a tablespoon of 2cm radish, beetroot or kale seedlings will give dishes a real kick. Eat them raw; sprinkled on top of soups, salad, stir fries, pizzas or sandwiches. As it only takes a short time from sowing the seeds to eating the crops, they are perfect growing projects for the impatient gardener.

I don’t have a lot of windowsill space to grow on, so I used half seed trays or standard mushroom trays with a few drainage holes in the bottom. Coir compost is good to grow in as it’s peat free and fairly sterile, so I can avoid those pesky, tiny flies that often emerge from damp compost indoors. Coir doesn’t contain many nutrients, but my microgreens don’t require any extra feed as they are harvested after a few weeks.

I water my microgreens from the bottom, which means I stand my seed trays in a tray or flat-bottomed bowl and put the water in that – letting the seedlings draw up the water they need. This makes it easy to water the seedlings – I make sure there is about 1cm of water in the bowl and top it up when it’s empty.

I prepare my tray by filling it loosely with coir, then I level it off and use another tray to press down on the coir and consolidate it, so it is flat and about 1.5cm below the edge of the tray. Then I sow the microgreen seeds close together – they don’t need much space as they’ll not be growing to their full size. I usually put a mix of at least three different seeds in a tray, so I have a combination of flavours when I harvest them.

This month I’m sowing a mix of Pink Kale, Salad/Spring Onion, Amaranth ‘Red Army’ and Radish ‘Sango’. Once I’ve sown the seeds, I sprinkle a thin layer of coir on top of the seeds and put the tray in a bowl on my windowsill. I cover the tray for the first few days to keep heat and moisture in and encourage germination.

After the seeds start sprouting, I remove the cover to allow for good air circulation. I also turn my trays every day, so my seedlings don’t lean over towards the sun. After two weeks I’ll start to harvest the seedlings with a pair of clean sharp scissors as and when I need them. I sow a tray every couple of weeks to give me a supply of fresh microgreens throughout the winter months.

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