Sprouting jars are about $20 in your local healthfood store.
Instead, pick up either a sheet or a pre-cut plastic needlepoint canvas from your local dollar or craft store and cut them to fit the top your Mason jar and screw on with the canning ring!
Ta-Da!
Now you can sprout your seeds for salads or to start seeds for your garden in it!
This page contains the following solutions.
I made a seed sprouter to sprout my own seeds for my salads, plus I always sprout my seeds before I plant them in my garden. This reduces the need to wait to see if my seeds will start growing, then weeding out others.
I always sprout seeds, especially in the winter. I add them to sandwiches, salads, soups, or even eat as snacks! I normally just use a mason jar with a piece or cheese cloth or a little screen material under the jar ring/cap to allow me to rinse and drain daily until they sprout.
Growing vegetable sprouts is fun, economical, and easy to do yourself. Not only are sprouts delicious, but they are also packed full of nutrients like protein, fiber, and vitamin C.
Make your own sprouts with lentils or raw shelled sunflower seeds in 3 days. Put 1/4 cup of them in a jar and rubber-band a scrap of nylon net onto the top of the jar.
Frugal sprouting bin from free clear plastic food container, file clips, and gauze or netting.Start with a clean clear plastic container and a piece of gauze or netting to fit snuggly over the top of the container.
I searched online for directions on making bean sprouts and found that a gadget is sold that resembled my salad spinner, so I tried using what I had and it works very well.
Fashion an inexpensive grow jar from a clean plastic drink bottle, netting (or plastic canvas) and a rubber band. Take a strip of plastic canvas about an inch wide and place it around the top of the bottle, after the bottle neck is removed.
I do well growing mung beans in a jar and get good bean sprouts, but when I have tried to grow tiny alfalfa and radish seeds in jars and trays I have problems.
A nice video about growing bean sprouts using a sprouting jar.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
How do I grow bean sprouts from mung beans? One that is crisp and juicy like that purchased fresh from grocers. My own efforts, none-too-successful involving rinsing sprouted beans twice a day and keeping them in the dark in decent temperature until maturity inevitably produced stuff that were long, thin and chewy.
Here's a link to a site for sprouts:
www.sproutpeople.com/
You might figure out what you are doing wrong or if it is the beans themselves that are too old. I used to make them years ago, but don't remember much about it.
Susan from ThriftyFun
How do you grow alfalfa sprouts in jars? They could be bean sprouts or any other kind of sprouts, too.
Hardiness Zone: 2a
By Joan from Calgary, Alberta
Soak alfalfa seeds in water for several hours or overnight. (I usually use about 2 tablespoons which makes approximately 2 cups of sprouts for me). Then using a tea strainer with holes smaller than the alfalfa seeds, drain and add fresh water each day for several days, or until the sprouts are the size you want. Put the sprouts in a large bowl of water and swirl them around with your hands in order to get some of the seeds to fall off before draining water off.
You can easily add fresh veggies to your diet by growing various sprouts in a small space on your kitchen counter. This is a page about growing sprouts next to your kitchen sink.
Everyone can do this. You only need a container with a cover. You may use many kinds of beans. I used lentils this time.
ThriftyFun is one of the longest running frugal living communities on the Internet. These are archives of older discussions.
Sprouting also has a lot of appeal to me. You don't really need all the commercial items available to sprout successfully!
How do I grow alfalfa sprouts without buying the growing kit? I bought organic seeds, but I am not sure how to grow them at home.
