You don’t need a huge garden in order to grow plants, and there’s a number of areas around the house that double up as ideal spots to keep healthy plants, especially if they get enough light. Having your own herbs or vegetables on hand while you cook can be especially helpful, meaning you don’t need to run out and stock up on any extra ingredients, and can simply whip something together or add an extra ingredient to your plate with little fuss.
Growing your own nutrient-rich greens also makes for a more sustainable home, with less waste produced from buying vegetables in packaging, and there’s plenty that can be kept on your windowsill. From basil to tomatoes, you can even grow lettuce indoors for a delicious salad, and one garden expert has shared his method for growing this one food that’s rich in magnesium and iron, making it an ideal addition to any kitchen. In a video posted on Instagram, the gardener Simon Akeroyd shared how he grows sunflowers from seeds in just 10 days using an item that can be bought in most supermarkets.
While sunflowers are known for their dazzling yellow blooms, they’re also a source of food, from sunflower oil and even seeds that can be added to breads or salads. You can also grow your own microgreens from sunflower seeds, which make for a nutritious addition to a number of dishes.
In the video, Simon explains that “microgreens are simply the young shoots and leaves of plants that are often edible” and recommends adding them to sandwiches, smoothies and salads.
Simon reveals that you can easily grow your own sunflower microgreens in 10 days by using the wooden cheese boxes that supermarkets often sell the likes of Camembert in for as little as £3.
Cheese boxes make for an ideal container to grow smaller greens as they’re “porous and so require no drainage holes”, making them a low maintenance choice that can easily be added to your kitchen or a free windowsill.
Simon uses Sainsbury’s sunflower seeds which cost £1.20 and adds soil to the box before placing a dense layer of the seeds to this. It’s a good idea to grow a few boxes of seeds, with Simon encouraging viewers to stack these on top of each other to “encourage germination”.
After three days, you can unstack the boxes and leave them out for a week as the sunflower greens begin to sprout and place them on a windowsill to let them grow.
After 10 days, your sunflower sprouts will be ready to eat, with Simon instructing viewers to “simply harvest whenever you want to add flavour to your food”.