are "overgrown" sunflower greens still safe to use?

[kaybee]

Ive been growing alot of sunflower greens lately because they grow quickly and fresh organic green veggies are in short supply here. Ive read that you need to use them before they get the second set of leaves--that is, use them when they only have 2 leaves, because the taste changes. ive found this to be true--they are sweet and mellow with 2 leaves but as soon as they get more they get really bitter. problem is that its hard to catch them and cut them all between the time that they are ready and the time they get the second set of leaves because the greenhouse is not at my house. So I keep having whole batches of them "go by." Now, they are pretty bitter after they get the second set, but I was wondering about juicing them. I hate to have them all go to waste (or compost), and veggies here are too expensive to buy to juice. so i was wondering about juicing them. Are they "unsafe" i.e. toxic, after they get the additional leaves and turn bitter, or would they still be beneficial to juice?

Thanks much

kaybee

[Veganforlife]

You may wanna look that up on

www.sproutpeople.com


I'll look too!!!

here's another link:

http://chetday.com/howtosproutsunflowerseeds.htm

and one more:

http://www.living-foods.com/articles/sunflower.html

after a quick glance I didn't see anything about how many leaves...etc...

[spicyfull]

SunFlower Seeds Sprout SO Fast, you can Sprout them yourself in a Jar. Just soak them overnight, pour the water off and keep rinsing them until they sprout. RAW is very easy, We make it difficult. Have a RAW Day.

[NoGMO!]

hmmm, good question. I have some that have been growing for 9 days with only two leaves and they are 7 inches tall. ready to harvest.

I know how easy it is to miss harvest or changing water on time when you are busy. maybe you could harvest all of the greens after a week or so and rinse, dry and store them for several days like lettuce.

another possibility... plant the over-grown plants in your yard or pots to yeild sunflowers!

[kaybee]

yeah, they are SO easy to miss. Im lucky enough to have access to a greenhouse and they grow great in there, but let them go a day too long and they turn bitter... thing is that the greenhouse is about 8 miles away; im in town pretty frequently but sometimes just too tired or rushed to go deal with stuff there.... I meant to bag and rinse em all and stick em in the fridge a couple days ago but just didnt get to it. they werent as bad today as i expected; not as overgrown or bitter as i expected. im just gonna juice em. i have 2 huge 30 x 14 inch fishboxes full of em.

By the way, NO GMO, what do ya grow them in? ive been using a mix of soil and a bit of bagged compost, but the problem is that the bits of chunky stuff (bark, etc) from the compost is hard to rinse out of them unless you wash each sprout separately, which is a pain. i guess the obvious answer would be dirt, but dirt is pretty expensive here.... and i find dirt and sand really stick inside them as well.... any suggestions?

yeah, i tried planting the last overgrown ones outside but they just died. ah well, theyll make good compost... at least sunflower seeds are dirt cheap, i dont feel like i threw alot of money away even if a batch goes by....

thanks

kb

[NoGMO!]

I grow the tall greens (buckwheat lettuce, pea shoots, wheatgrass and sungreens) in a soil-less, freshlife autosprouter.. it grows two 12" round trays about 7-8 inches high. I've also grown them manually in kitchen trays fairly easily.

if you haven't check Ann Wigmore's Sprout Book, the Sproutman's Complete Guide to Sprouting and Mark Braunstein's Sprout Garden.