Alfalfa Sprouting Seeds

Yay – a new product straight from our farm!  Alfalfa has a long history on our farm.  It’s the primary legume plant that allows us to give our fields a rest from the extractive activity of grain farming, allowing soil structures to regain their health, and the alfalfa mines nitrogen from the air and carbon energy from the sun to replenish our fields.  We usually grow oats for 2 years in a row, and in the 2nd year, we scatter a tiny skiff of alfalfa seeds onto the soil after we plant the oats.  Those teeny tiny alfalfa plants grow oh-so-slowly, and when we harvest chest-high oats, the alfalfa is sitting ankle high underneath the canopy.  After our oats are harvested, the alfalfa finally gets is time in the spotlight, and they take off and start growing.  Alfalfa is a long-lived perennial, so it continues growing the next year, when we cut it for hay (this also enables us to cut down any weeds that have started to take a foothold in our fields), and feed the hay to our sheep and neighboring livestock.  We allow the alfalfa to grow for 4 or 5 years before starting the cycle over again.  But this year, we have started experimenting with something new.  Instead of cutting the alfalfa grass and baling it up, we allowed it to keep growing, allowed it to set seed, and kept our fingers crossed that there would be enough natural pollinators around for the plants to set seed (we had our hopes on getting some bee hives, but that might have to wait for next summer…).  And it worked!  The yields were entirely tiny, and the weeds that we had to clean out were pretty atrocious, but proof in concept, and we’re excited to expand our alfalfa and clover seed production for next year!

Alfalfa plants are incredibly slow growing in the fields, but they are one of the simplest and easiest sprouts to grow on your countertop!  All you need is a jar, some water, an elastic band and a square of cheesecloth.  I’ll be posting full instructions here before the CSA (and will have some demonstrations set up at the pick-up day), but i’m excited to be able to offer alfalfa sprouting seeds in this year’s grain bundles!!!

We don’t have a large quantity available, but for those who are sprouting enthusiasts, we will have a very limited quantity of extras to keep your mason jars full of sprouts for the winter ahead 🙂

110 grams (1/4 lb)

I usually use about 12 to 15 grams of alfalfa seed to fill a quart jar of sprouts – so this should be enough for about 8 or 9 batches of sprouts