Soil Sprouting Part 2

sprouts into soil trays - Day 1
LtoR: sunflower, pea shoots, wheatgrass

Soil sprouting trays arrived yesterday, yae!  I probably should have "planted" the soaked and rinsed wheatgrass, pea, and sunflower seeds last night... but, just too tired.  So, I planted them today!  Waiting too long might mean that the roots are a little longer than desired and might get tangled.  Hopefully that won't be too much of an issue.  We shall see!
Steps as follows:
1. Put a slotted tray on top of a solid tray so that excess water can drain through; 3 sets. 
2. Put soil into the top slotted tray. 
3. Tamp down the soil with an empty tray to even it out.  I forgot this step... oh well, next time! 
4. Spread the sprouting seeds into each tray set for wheatgrass, pea shoots, and sunflower.

soil sprouts with covers

5. Water...  I still haven't found a good method for watering these.  So far I'm having best luck not making a mess by simply heavy misting...  Misting takes a lot longer than watering so, I'm going to keep trying different watering methods.  Unfortunately I don't have a nice adjustable hose nozzle at the kitchen sink, or anywhere except outside for that matter.  The watering cans I got just end up "flooding" the trays. Oh well, living and learning...
6. Put weighted cover (tray filled with soil) over sunflower sprouts.  Weighted cover helps sunflower sprouts to grow up and not get tangled.
7. Put un-weighted covers over pea shoots and wheatgrass.  I guess the pea shoots and wheatgrass already know which way is up... we shall see!  I can't tell from my notes if these are to be weighted or not...  I think not but, I'm not sure.  I may send email to HHI to check.
8. Water once a day and heavy mist twice a day.  Not sure how that works out for a busy working person...  HHI recommendations are to water sprouts 1 cup of water for every 10"x10" size of tray.  So my 10"x20" trays need 2 cups of water each for watering.  This is different than the heavy misting.  I'm guessing heavy misting is about 1/2 cup of water or maybe even 1 cup of water for the entire 10"x20" tray...  We'll see how it goes...
9. Determine how many days a tray will last once ready to harvest so you know when to start the next trays...

I bought a metal wire stand for soil sprouting indoors.  I found this stand to be less expensive at Home Depot, compared to Office Depot.  A separate wheel kit comes with this stand if you want to be able to wheel it around to your kitchen if you do happen to have a nice hose spray nozzle at your kitchen sink.  I wonder what it would take to get one of those installed...  For watering the soil sprouts, I'm probably going to have to give up the ghost of trying to water with bottled distilled water.  That might get a little crazy.  I'll still be useing distilled water for soaking and rinsing sprouts in the Easy Sprouters and for soaking the wheatgrass, pea shoots, sunflower, and mung bean seeds.