How To Grow Kohlrabi Microgreens in 5 Easy Steps
Uniquely flavored kohlrabi microgreens can be a star in your culinary game, especially if they're purple in color. Expert Rachel Garcia shares the steps you'll need to grow them successfully.
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I love growing microgreens, but sometimes miss the bright colors that full-grown plants bring. Luckily, there are some microgreens that aren’t your run-of-the-mill grass green.
For a splash of color in our microgreen garden, we’re adding kohlrabi microgreens, a vision in purple or white!
Maybe you’ve heard of kohlrabi, passed it in the grocery store, or even eaten it. If so, then you know it’s a funky-looking plant, which is why many gardeners shy away from it. The microgreen version of kohlrabi is much more toned down in appearance and surprisingly easy to grow. Its sprouts have beautiful, lilac or pale-white colored stems that produce two vivid green, lobed cotyledons.
Kohlrabi microgreens aren’t all looks. Each sprout contains lots of Vitamin C as well as calcium potassium, Vitamin B6, fiber, iron, and many other nutritional vitamins, nutrients, and antioxidants. With their sweet turnip or broccoli flavor, kohlrabi microgreens are a tasty addition to most dishes.
What You’ll Need
Here are the basic necessities for growing kohlrabi microgreens. You’ll be able to reuse most of these for other microgreen projects.
Seeds
You won’t get far without some kohlrabi seeds! The seed suggestions below are high-quality and have great germination. Here are a few of my personal favorites:
- Purple Kohlrabi Sprouts Seeds: With crunch and a purple color, these are packed with health-promoting phytochemicals, B-complex, vitamin C, and more.
- Purple Vienna Kohlrabi Seeds: Crisp, sweet and nutty flavor with loads of Vitamin C.
- Mellow Blend Microgreens Seeds: A combination of mellow vegetables for a fine and subtle flavor burst that is packed with nutrients. This mix includes 25% ‘Mizuna’ mustard, 25% broccoli, 20% kohlrabi, 15% ‘Tatsoi’ bok choy, and 15% ‘Red Acre’ cabbage.
Choose your kohlrabi microgreen seeds with care, especially when it comes to color. While most varieties are purple, some are white. You can definitely grow white kohlrabi seeds as microgreens, but you’ll need a variety like ‘Purple Vienna’ to get that beautiful color.
Containers
Choose something shallow, like a simple seed-starting tray (you need at least two). You’ll need two trays for each crop, one with drainage holes and one without. Since they need to be the same size, we recommend buying holeless trays and punching holes in one of them.
If you don’t have the standard trays, you can buy them online. Try the 6-Cell Seed Starting Trays and Germination Domes & Bottom Trays to protect the seeds as they grow.
Growing Medium
Microgreens, kohlrabi or otherwise, need fine-grained soil. Seed-starting soil mix is perfect for this since it’s formulated just for seeds and microplants. Coconut coir is another great option because it holds water well, contains nutrients, and is ultra-eco-friendly.
Grow Lights
Any microgreen benefits greatly from a grow light. While this is the priciest material, it can be used for crop after crop with excellent results!
Microgreens grow fast, healthy, and uniform when their light source is about a foot directly above them. When the light is displaced, like sunlight through a window, the microgreens will lean to the side and grow unevenly. Having a grow light for each microgreen tray is an investment that’s well worth it in the end.
We recommend the Small Epic Seed Starting Grow Light or the Standard Epic Seed Starting Grow Light.
Extras
You will also need a misting bottle to keep the seeds hydrated and a sharp pair of scissors or pruners to harvest.
How to Grow Kohlrabi Microgreens
Growing kohlrabi microgreens is as basic as it gets, so this process can be applied to many other microgreen plants too.
This intro-to-microgreens video covers the essential principles, or you can follow the steps below.
Use these steps to get the best out of the little seeds. Purple kohlrabi seeds are small, hard, and round. Because of their size and how easily they germinate, they don’t need to be soaked beforehand.
Step 1: Plant
Let’s start growing our kohlrabi microgreens by filling up the trays. Fill the holed tray three-quarters full of growing medium. Level the surface and then moisten it with the spray bottle.
Then, using your fingers or a shaker bottle, sprinkle the kohlrabi seeds all across the surface. They’re known to bounce off the soil and out of the tray, so sprinkle them close to the surface.
The kohlrabi microgreen seeds should densely cover the soil without overlapping (you’ll need about 20 seeds per square inch).
Step 2: Cover
Instead of covering the seeds with topsoil, place the second, holeless tray directly on top of them. The tray should literally be sitting on the soil surface. Ensure that the seeds are completely in the dark and add a small weight (up to five pounds) on top of the cover tray.
Keep the kohlrabi microgreen seeds in the dark for the next two to three days while they germinate. During that time, the purple kohlrabi seedlings will grow baby stems that collectively push up the cover tray and its weight. When you see this happening, you can remove the tray and move on to the next growth phase.
Step 3: Grow
Now that the cover tray is off, you may notice that the kohlrabi microgreens are pale and leaning over. Place the growing tray directly under the grow light and start giving them around 12 hours of artificial sunlight each day. They’ll quickly straighten up and turn a lovely purple with green leaves.
Like most plants, water the kohlrabi microgreens when the soil starts to dry out. But unlike most plants, microgreens have to be watered from the bottom instead of overhead. Even though they’re easy to grow, microplants are susceptible to bacteria growth and disease – especially when the plants and soil surface are moist.
To bottom water your microgreens, grab the tray you used as a cover and add a couple of inches of water. Set the microgreen tray inside it and let the soil take its fill for about ten minutes. The end result will be moist soil and perfectly dry microgreens.
Step 4: Harvest
After a week, your kohlrabi microgreens should be a couple of inches tall and sporting some handsome, green cotyledons. Once those tender green leaves have completely opened, you can start to harvest them.
Kohlrabi microgreens can be harvested over about a week, which is until their first true leaf grows in. Once they do, the flavor profile will become bitter and the nutritional value may change.
After cleaning them well, use your kitchen shears to snip off the kohlrabi microgreens in bunches. Cut the stems just above the soil level. The purple kohlrabi microgreens will not grow back after the harvest, so you can add the soil to the compost bin and reuse the container for a different plant.
Step 5: Store
Any gardener will tell you that produce tastes best fresh. Eat your microgreen harvest immediately for the best flavor and health benefits. Tender kohlrabi microgreens taste fantastic when added raw to salads, sandwiches, eggs, and anything else you cook up.
Store any unused microgreens in the fridge. They’ll last well if you remove as much moisture as possible, so don’t wash or soak the greens until you’re about to eat them. Keep them in a sealed container and wrapped in a paper towel.
With this storage system, your microgreens harvest should keep their fresh taste for up to a week.
