Growing Seed

Why grow green seeds, what are the benefits.

It was thought that fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals were all the nutrients necessary for growth and health. We now know there is another group of nutrients needed for optimal health — phytonutrients, also known as phytochemicals. These are the nutrients often concentrated in the skins of many fruits and vegetables, and are responsible for their color, hue, scent, and flavour. It’s best to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, the more varied the colors the better. This is because each class of phytonutrients has different effects.

Drying and cooking affects the phytonutrients and, with few exceptions raw vegetables and seed usually have more nutrients its therefore most likely beneficial to provide both green and dried seed. Green seed will contain more phytonutrients such as carotenoids, flavonoids, polyphenols, indoles, lignans and isoflavones.

Some green seeds (pseudograin) such as Amaranth / quinoa contain anti-nutrients, saponins and tannins, which can interfere with nutrient absorption and cause other issues without adequate preparation. Saponins are bitter and generally your bird will not eat these green pseudograins .

The easiest thing to do is to plant your uneaten bird seed. This can be done inside or out it involves almost no skill just a lot of luck. The disadvantage of just throwing hand fulls of seeds around is that your not growing the best plants for your climate or the time of year. Please be aware that sorghum sprouts and micro greens are toxic.

There are guides available for planting the more common crops. Millet, Sorghum, Barley, Sunflower, Canola, Salflower, Wheat, Oats, Flax, Linola, Lentil

In addition to growing the seed varieties found in your seed mix or growing selected crops you can forage for grasses and weeds or grow a small vegetable patch to share with your bird.

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