SST - photos coming soon
This week in the Flog:
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Make Sprouted Seed Tea (SST)
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Supercharge and store your SST through Fermentation!
This is a great recipe I think you guys are really going to like. Have you heard of SST (Sprouted Seed Tea)? If not you can read about it here.
SST or Sprouted Seed Tea is where you take a bunch of seeds, generally of a fast growing plant like alfalfa, and you soak them in water overnight or so, then drain and keep them moist. In a few days they will sprout.
So now you have a whole bunch of seeds that are just starting to sprout. Once you see the roots start popping out, the seeds are really sprouting and sending out their earliest roots. At this time, they are packed with growth hormones as they struggle to get started growing. You are going to harvest those growth hormones and use them to give your plants a big boost. The growth hormones will trigger your plants to put energy into root development and plant growth which helps growth rate – add fertilizer at the same time to maximize growth rate in your plants. This is good stuff.
To make a traditional SST, you would get the seeds right as they have sprouted roots, about 1/4-1/2 in long. Collect all the seeds at this point and put them in a blender. Blend them up very well. Then just add this concoction to your water supply and water your plants.
Now say you want to store this mixture and use it a bit at a time on your plants. At the same time, you can enhance its effectiveness, so a little bit goes a long way. We’re going to ferment it!
Take your freshly sprouted seeds, but before throwing them in the blender, estimate their weight (or weigh them). Take 1/3-1/2 that weight in sugar (or volume molasses where 1ml=1gm). Add the sugar source to your sprouted seeds in the blender. Now blend them all up. Once that’s done, just add a little lacto and then seal the whole mixture up in an airtight container. Now ferment the whole thing for 3-6 weeks.
Now you have a great plant growth stimulant, saved for whenever you need it. Add it to the water when watering growing plants. You can add it at
1-2tbsp per gallon of feed water.
Here is the recipe in short form with pictures:
1. Gather a bunch of seeds, preferably of a fast growing plant like alfalfa. I’m just using bird seed cause it’s cheap but if I had access I would use alfalfa seeds.
Seeds ready to be sprouted
2. Soak seeds overnight in clean unchlorinated water.
3. The next day, drain seeds of water, but keep them moist. You can use a moist paper towel for this, cover the seeds with it and keep it moist
After soaking the seeds we keep them moist
4. After a few days, you should see white shoots start popping out of the seeds
5. When the young roots are around 1/4in long, they are ready for harvest. I’m quite late here but that’s ok.
You can see the shoots coming out a lot now
From the top you can also see some molds taking over too. That’s actually OK too, they look like a nice white non-pathogenic variety and will have just started the breakdown of the seeds into their baser nutrients.
After a few days the seeds sprout
6. Weigh out or estimate the weight of the bunch of sprouts
7. Get 1/3-1/2 that weight in sugar and add it to the sprouted seeds
Get 1/3-1/2 part sugar to blend with the seeds
8. Add this whole thing to a blender and blend it well. You can add a bit of water to facilitate blending. The water also helps dissolve the sugar. You can dissolve the sugar in the water before you start blending.
Now we add the seeds to blender with water and sugar
9. Add a bit of lacto, like 1-2tbsp per liter of mixture
10. Seal up this whole thing in an airtight container. Use an airlock or something as gas will be created during fermentation that needs to be let out, without letting air in.
11. Leave in a dark place for 3-6 weeks to let fermentation run its course. After fermenting it looks quite a bit more broken down.
Now we have our Fermented Sprouted Seed Tea (FSST)
Using the Growth Promoter
Add this growth promoter to your plant’s feed water at 1-2tbsp per gallon. Play around with more or less and report back your findings!