🌱 Obsessed with Seeds and Growing 🌱
Seeds and Obsession
Crimson Clover with Oriental Mustard
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CONSIDERING OBSESSION
Lori and I (Gil) were born in the 1950's. Few kids were diagnosed with ADD or OCD or any such things in the days we were growing up. Neither were our kids - though born in the 90's - but we all have so called 'disorders'. Mine is obsession. Well - that's the most obvious one anyway. I think. Ask Lori =;-)
I've long believed there's good and bad in everything. Certainly there are exceptions - but discounting murder, cruelty, corruption, and other heinous behavior- this is my belief. For example, my favorite musician is Jerry Garcia. To be  sure he was obsessed with music. He created utter magic, but in the end it killed him as he fought the demons that plagued his obsession. The good was his music, the bad was the cost of fame and responsibility to all of us who adored him.
I've been able to lean into my obsessive 'disorder' via Sproutpeople - thanks to Seeds. I mix most of our mixes - though everyone helps some - it is my thing - because I'm obsessed with Seeds! I sometimes spill some in the process - and I truly hate it when I do. I want every seed to be able to fulfill its potential - to grow. I'll gather fallen seeds and give them to someone who has chickens - or will throw them outside for the birds. I'm obsessed with seeds.
Consider a single Alfalfa seed. It's tiny. We only want it to grow a tiny sprout, but that same seed planted in the Earth can grow an enormous plant with roots that can go down over 20 feet. Alfalfa is grown worldwide - and it's perennial - meaning it regrows every year from the same roots. One Alfalfa seed is a truly amazing thing! It creates food for us and for many of our herbivorous animal planet mates. Me wasting one hurts. So much potential. It just has to be allowed to grow.
I obsessed over the internet in the mid-90's. When we put our site up in 1996 I learned how to write it and serve it, after studying obsessively. Early visitors to sproutpeople.com were viewing our site from an old Mac SE/30 in our Sprout Factory (pictured above). in September of 1999 I embarked on a rebuild. It took me literally 2 years - staying up most nights until 2AM. I was obsessed. On September 20th, 2001 at 3AM - I woke Lori and the kids (then 8 and 4) so they could each press a button and take our new site live.
The joke is that I started the rebuild because Lori and I were so tired of answering the same questions over and over in emails. I spent all that time to make sure the site answered everything (I'm still working on that=;-). We didn't get fewer emails though as the site grew so large that all the search engines (there were dozens back then - led by altavista) moved us to the top of any search for Sprouts. Almost immediately we were overrun with orders from around the planet.
The best laid plans...
I am forever grateful to Lori for coming up with the idea of growing sprouts for our farmers market stand, in 1993. Though I balked - big time - at first - it has given me so much of who I have grown to be that I can't imagine life without it. That segues into another belief of mine - bad things usually result in positive change. But that's another topic for another time. See our San Francisco Mix page - under the tab/drop-down menu labeled About, for an example.
NEW VIDEOS
I'm still working on our new Sunflower Greens video. March is our busiest month - and we do 1/2 of our annual business in the first 4 months of the year - so it's a busy time - and being as there are only 4 of us - it is difficult to free time to work on it - - but it occurred to me recently, that although time is hard to come by - my biggest problem is me. I hate watching myself babble on. I often walk off in frustration with myself. I was actually intending to not talk at all in this video - instead using voiceover - in hopes of bringing the running time down and staying more fully on the subject. Unfortunately I seem unable to control myself. I'm also obsessive about talking and writing.
I have trouble finding time to write this Newsletter too. Today I planned my day to make this the top priority - though I have physical work that has to be done too. We answer emails at all times of day and night, but first thing in the morning we try to answer them all before moving onto other work. Today I spent an ungodly amount of time writing to just a couple customers. They got some great responses, if I do say so myself - but I used up a big chunk of my brain before getting to work on this Newsletter. This is another example; those replies were fantastic and I'm happy to help customers - but I really have to work on prioritizing. I'm just absurd sometimes! Obsessive and Absurd.
I'll keep trying to coral myself. You'll have to keep waiting waiting while I do =:-/
CHECKING OUT OF OUR SHOP and SHIPPING
We apologize for the added difficulty, but we upgraded our credit card processor - so you will get grief if you enter imperfect Billing info. To checkout without headaches you must enter the exact address your credit card bank has on file for you. You can and may enter a different Shipping address, but if your Billing address is even slightly off - our system will decline your order. This is much more difficult in the age of paperless billing. In the olden days we received our CC bills in the mail - where we lived - so we all knew our Billing address. We apologize for any frustration. It's all in the name of security, so please bear with it and do the best you can.
I mention this not infrequently - but here it is again. When you buy 1 pound of seeds - you could buy 2 and pay the same shipping. When you order 3 pounds - you can order 4, 5, 6, or 10 instead - and pay the same price for shipping. This is due to USPS Flat-Rate boxes. We don't care - it's all up to you - we just want to make it more affordable for you. Of course, we'll pay the shipping if you spend $120 ad choose Free Shipping when checking out.Â
IRA, DJANGO, & GUS
Let me share with you some of the pictures we've taken in the past couple weeks...
Ira modeling his new Snood. Lori knitted it in one night. It's like magic. I've never knitted, but I grew up watching my mom do it, and watching Lori stirred very dear memories - and really - I can't believe a person can create so much in so little time. He loves it, but she's making another because she thinks it stretched too much.
Ira playing Scrat in the parking lot at Sproutpeople.
Gus and Django enjoying an afternoon rest with us and Ira. We do this after work and after the 3 boys get their last major outside time for the day - and just before preparing dinner. It's not a lot of time, but it's sheer joy.
Gus starts out by grooming and biting Django.
Django was sleeping on a folded comforter at the foot of our bed when I got to bed. It looked like the whole thing would fall off so I moved him - comforter and all - to a chair. He's just such a pretty boy that I had to include this nourish picture.
Ira on the couch, shining his inner Pit Bull. We love Pitties. Our 2nd dog, Clementine was a Pit Lab mix and she was the all around best dog ever in our family. We often see what we want to see in life and in the case of Ira, we first called him a Micro-Mini Pocket Pit Bull. We've always felt he was part Italian Greyhound (my childhood dog was one and Sam walked and house sat another - Daphne, whose picture we've shared in the past - so we know the breed well) so he was a Micro-Mini Pocket Italian Pit Hound too.Â
Chipit is a name used to describe Pit x Chihuahuas - though I prefer Pitwowa. He's that too, but when we use an iPhone and ask it to tell us what he is (based on photo comparisons in the Photos app) - he almost always gets Italian Greyhound x Mexican Hairless (he does look a lot like those and he is partially hairless on his back and head) - so in the end he's a Hairless Italian Micro-Mini Pocket Pit Bull Chihuahua. One cute little fella is our Ira.
Looking Pitty on the low trail at our neighborhood dog park.
Ira and his protector Johnie, at the park. Especially when Ira was a tiny puppy, but still to this day - Johnie will get between him and any dog that appears to be too much for Ira, and will push and bark the offending dog out of Ira's way. Johnie is a truly great dog. He was raised by my friend Pete, who was a well known retired San Francisco Fireman and a Renaissance Man of sorts. Pete died in 2021. His son, Gene took Johnie in. Gene lost his dad and a week later lost his truly great dog, Mishka (Russian for Bear) - who we also knew well as Pete often had her too - especially when Gene was working (he's a motorcycle cop in the SFPD, so his hours can be gonzo). It was a profoundly difficult transition for Johnie (Gene too of course), and it was a few months before Gene brought him back to our park. He was severely shaken, but worked through it and is again the spectacular dog he was. Ira runs to him whenever he smells tor sees him arrive at the park. Good dog, Johnie!
Essentials for those new to the world of Indoor Farming...
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPROUTS AND MICROGREENS
To us the difference is that with Sprouts we grow with nothing but water and we eat the entire crop (with the possible exception of hulls and roots that grow out the bottom of our Stainless Steel Sprouters) - and they are alive when we eat them. Microgreens are grown on a medium and we harvest them by cutting them just above that medium - at which point they move from alive to not. Raw, great, delicious - just not alive.
While I'm on this subject I need to explain why we have two different names for the same seed - like Broccoli Sprouts and Broccoli Microgreens. This is the same seed. The difference is that each crop has its own page - you go to the Broccoli Sprouts page to learn how to grow the seed into Sprouts and you go to the Broccoli Microgreens page to learn how to grow it into Micros.
This seed will also grow a full sized - which is like 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide - Broccoli plant in a garden - given the proper climate and encouragement.
SEED STORAGE
If you don't yet know how to get the longest life for your seeds - and prevent pests - Â visit our Seed Storage page. The best way to store seeds is in the freezer, but do not use the refrigerator as its humidity fluctuations can harm seeds. There's a bit more to it - so perhaps just visit the page =;-)
Grow to Live - Live to Grow.
Be well and happy.
Gil + Lori
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Sproutpeople.org is an encyclopedic resource of our creation - for indoor farmers of Sprouts, Microgreens, and Grass. It is so enormous that it gives some  the impression that we are a big business. The reality is that we are basically 2 people who eat and breath Sproutpeople - and 2 part-time helpers (one being our son). Our site has been online since 1996. It's the employee that allows us to serve all of you.
Every Seed and Mix we offer has a profoundly detailed page devoted to it. Those pages feature two sets of Growing Instructions (Brief for the experienced and Detailed for the not yet experienced), a Video, Photos of the crop growing day-by-day, Recipes, Crop Specific Notes, Nutrition Info, and quite a bit more. Each of our Supplies also has a detailed page.
Our vast content is organized with Tabs (on computer) and Pull-Down Menus (on mobile devices).  Click/Choose, for example Detailed Instructions on the page you go to when you click any of the pictures surrounding this text - and you will be presented Seriously Detailed Instructions. Click around. Growing Photos. Notes. Recipes. Please let us share what we know.
We survive by selling on the internet, but we live to educate anyone who wants to learn about growing sprouts and microgreens. Learning is what the internet was actually built for, so we're really just doing our part.
Please enjoy sproutpeople.org
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