This heirloom variety of peas is tender and sweet.
- Days to Sprout: Sprout 2-3. Shoots 8 – 10
- Soak Time: 6-8 hours
- Yield: 1/2 cup of dry seed yields 2-3 cups pea shoots
- Storage: Our seeds should sprout well for a year after you purchase them, if stored in a cool dry place. If you’d like to extend the germination life of your seeds, store them in the fridge. If you store your seeds in the freezer, they’ll last even longer!
Sprouting Directions
Soak: Put approximately 1/4 cup seed in a wide mouth jar with a sprouting lid. Add water, swirl, and drain. Refill jar with water and soak 6-12 hours. Drain well and invert jar at an angle on a sprouting rack, or in a bowl or drain rack.
Rinse: Twice a day, refill jar with cold water, swirl, and drain.
Enjoy! Ready to eat in (2-3) days. Refrigerate to store.
Grow Microgreens!
Soilless Method
Soak. Using a tray with drainage holes, rinse enough seed to cover the bottom of the tray. Soak the seed for 4-12 hours. Use a jar with a sprouting lid for soaking if the tray holes are too large. Drain, rinse and drain holding at an angle to remove excess water. Spread the seed evenly on the bottom of the tray and cover with a lid top and bottom or put in plastic bag.
Rinse. Rinse with cold water twice a day, using either a gentle flow from a tap, dipping in a sink, or spraying. Drain thoroughly.
TIP: Sunflowers grow really well if the roots are in about ¼” water and changed daily. You can do this by placing your growing tray inside another tray filled with ¼” water. Mist and cover the sunflowers with a clear dome or loose plastic to help remove the hulls.
Grow. The roots will form a mat from which the microgreens will emerge. At that point, put in indirect sunlight, florescent/LED lights or grow lights. The watering is then easy: fill the container 1 cm deep with water and allow to sit for a few seconds in the water and then tilt on an angle to decant the water until only some moisture is remaining in the root area. Continue to rinse twice a day as described above.
Harvest!
Typically, microgreens grown without soil are harvested at 7-10 days. Harvest before the next expected rinse so the shoots are dry. Harvest microgreens using scissors or knife.
Instead of harvesting all at once, you can start to harvest microgreens as soon as the first two leaves are spread out. Take only what you need for your meal and allow the rest to keep growing or put the tray in the fridge loosely covered and a plastic bag or dome to harvest.
The pink flowers from the mature plant are considered a delicacy.
Grow Microgreens!
Soil Method
• 10” x 20” gardening trays (1-inch-tall preferred), 1 with
holes + 1 without. Smaller microgreen trays also work well.
• Good quality organic starting soil mix
• Parchment paper or unbleached paper towel,
• Dome lids (clear or black) or plastic sheet
• Organic seed
• Mister bottle, cup measures, garden spray nozzle (optional)
• Scissors or sharp knife
1. Soak the Seed
Larger seed such as sunflower, buckwheat, microgreen salad mix, wheat and peas should be washed then soaked in water for 6 – 12 hours prior to seeding. Drain, rinse and drain the seed after soaking.
2. Prepare Soil
Add water to top of the bag (or each tray) 12 hours ahead of use until almost fully hydrated. Rehydrate the bag as necessary. If you were to put the soil in your hand and squeeze it, you should not be able to get much more than a drop of water out of it for the perfect moisture content. If you want to mist the seed after putting it on the soil, reduce the water hydration of the bagged soil a bit.
TIP: To check for overwatering, tip the tray to one end. Water should not pool enough to drip out of the tray.
3. Fill Trays with Soil
Use a tray with holes. Fill with 3/4-1.5” of soil. The closer to the top of the tray the better aid to air circulation. Use a block or your hand to smooth and flatten the soil without compacting it. The back of a tablespoon or spatula smooths out the valleys. You can wait to put the tray without holes under until after unstacking/uncovering or add it to the bottom now.
TIP: Place a layer or two of paper towel on the bottom of the tray before adding soil for easier cleanup.
4. Sow the Seed
Spread the soaked seed evenly over the soil in the tray. The seeding density depends on the stage at which you’re planning to harvest. You should have one layer of seeds, side by side and mostly not overlapping. Spread out any clumps with a spoon or your hands. Sow slightly less seed for 2-3 week microgreens.
5. Cover the Seed
Doing away with soil as a seed cover decreases the work and time it takes to grow the greens. If stacking the trays on top of each other, use a cover directly on the seed like parchment paper, a plastic sheet or wet unbleached paper towel layer. When not stacking trays, the seed will need protection from drying out by using a dome/lid. Use a clear dome or an inverted 10 x 20” tray without holes. For smaller trays, use several layers of unbleached paper towels folded onto itself with or without a plastic sheet covering the top.
TIP: Most microgreens will grow taller when you keep the light out at the beginning, but this may make the stem weaker. Most seeds germinate in the light no problem.
6. Stack Trays
Stacking helps to quickly force the roots into the soil, provides darkness, promotes even germination/growth. Stack 2-5 filled trays on top of each other with an empty tray on the top of the stack with a weight in it. Check at least once a day to see if the trays need water. Stack for 3-5 days. Sunflowers stay stacked the longest -5 days. Put no holes trays under the soil filled holed trays.
7. Expose to Indirect Sunlight, Florescent/LED or Grow Lights.
After 2-5 days, the microgreens should be ready for light. If the microgreens begin to get quite tall and leggy, this is an indication that they may need a bit more light.
8. Water the Growing Microgreens
Check the seed once or twice daily and water as needed. The soil should be moist, not wet. Once trays are unstacked, add water from below into the no holes tray as necessary.
9. Harvest!
Sunflowers, buckwheat, and wheat grass is usually harvested around 9 to 10 days with scissors or a sharp knife. Make sure microgreens are not damp before storing. If needed, you may use a small fan or salad spinner to dry the microgreens before storing in a sealed container in the fridge.
Instead of harvesting all at once, you can start to harvest microgreens as soon as the first two leaves are spread out. Take only what you need for your meal and allow the rest to keep growing or put the tray in the fridge loosely covered and a plastic bag or dome to harvest another day. Water as necessary.
10. Enjoy!
Microgreens make everything better, so have fun with them and add them to your favourite dishes!
Helpful tips:
• To moisten your bag of soil, add water ahead until almost fully hydrated.
• The roots grow under the soil so it works well to water from below if the tray has holes in it, or open the side of the tray and pour water beside the soil when using flexible plastic trays. Otherwise misting or watering from the top works well too.
• To get the hulls to drop from sunflower, beet, chard and buckwheat leaves cover the tray loosely with clear plastic during the last days of growth. Mist the hulls. This will trap enough moisture to soften the hulls to be easily brushed off by hand.
• Good cleaning practices each growing cycle: Remove debris from trays. Apply soap to a brush and clean all surfaces with suds and firm pressure. Rinse. Sanitize your trays, equipment, tools and surfaces
Rebecca Ryane –
Large seeds, sprouted quickly, grew quickly. I wonder if I maybe left them to grow a little bit too long. Next batch I’ll harvest a day or two earlier. Mild nutty flavour with great crunch for salads.
Samira –
Ordered these during the pandemic shutdown. The backlog of orders meant I had to wait a long time but when I got them I was pleased. We have had a tray of these peas started and eaten every week since. They are easy to grow as a microgreen and have a lovely pea taste. We let them grow a bit bigger for use in stir fries. Delicious.
dotty –
We ordered these pea seeds for the 1st time and love them for sprouting, and also planted them in soil for growing as microgreens. High quality, all germinated, and are growing very rapidly.
Vancouver –
I came to know Mumm’s from a YouTuber who was talking about microgreen. I became interested and ordered the dwarf grey sugar peas plus 2 other seed products. The pea shoots are very easy to grow and the taste is great. We use them as salad and stir fried regularly. Am very pleased with my purchase.
Steve –
Good germination rate and grew to harvest in 10 days after a 6 hour soak.
SPROUTS LOVER –
These peas are great. They germinate well, grow well, are really easy to manage.We have tried them for a couple of times now, They also keep on growing after you cut them.
Beat Hegnauer –
I love the full green colour of the Pea Shoots! Nice fresh flavour, great taste.
My only observation is that it has an uneven growth. Most Shoots are nice and even. but there are some that grow taller. Not a big issue.
Nat –
We have tried them for a couple of times now, and they are so reliable. They also keep on growing after you cut them.
Good Food Lover –
I waited a long time for these as they were out of stock. I purchased them as soon as they were available and I’m VERY glad I did. The spouts grown from these peas are the best! They are more substantial than most, juicy and tender and they keep re-sprouting even after several clippings.
cathkam54 –
Seeds sprouted in 2 days. They were ready to eat in 5-6 days. Perfect product!
Fiefie –
I’ve grown these only once (as micro-greens) and they turned out great. I kept the soaked seeds in the dark and weighted down until they sprouted, then removed the weights and placed the trays near my east-facing window (November in Edmonton). The drwarf peas took about seven or eight days to sprout and another four days in the sun to get the second set of leaves – ready to eat. I’m growing pea sprouts because they are a natural source of diamine oxidase (DAO) – helpful for histamine intolerance. This one is a winner. I also tried the speckled peas, but they were not as good for my purposes.
canadian farmer –
Fast growth and great taste. We let them regrow after harvest and feed to our free range chickes in the winter. We grow them as micro green shoots rather than sprouts
mj –
This is a pea I grow in the garden (and save my own seed, as it is so easy). I choose to order a kg as this is a much easier route to go and very inexpensive. For your info, I started by buying a 25g package of the seed for $2.99 from a local organic seed provider. I can buy a kg from Mumms for $7.97. If you multiply this out, it equals $120.00 for the $7.97 purchase from Mumms. And then of course, there is the use of the seed for sprouting and microgreens….at mumms price (not possible to do at the other price). Plus my cat just loves the microgreens and the peas. At the price and quality (and organic) of Mumms seeds, there is no need for me to save my own, except in an emergency.
HHF RossBC –
These peas are great. They germinate well, grow well, are really easy to manage. Decent harvests too!
microgreen farms –
We found the grey dwarf pea shoot to be a great and easy shoot to grow. tastes like it was right from the garden!
RMD50 –
I grow these without soil for around 13 days with a very weak hydroponic solution made from sea minerals, kelp fertilizer, organic and standard hydroponic concentrate. Less time and they’re slightly more tender but have a smaller yield. More than 13 days and the get a bit too fibrous for my liking although the yield is better. They produce more and better shoots than the speckled peas. I don’t regrow any of my pea shoots as they take too long and have a low yield with fibrous shoots. I’m growing them in my garden for the sugar pea pods and so far they’re growing well.
FuriousT –
I love these dwarf peas, they have a slightly sweet taste that the others don’t which makes for a much nicer flavour profile. Great by themselves, in a salad or a blended soup. Very easy to sprout and will come back a second time (but if you are going to do this I recommend growing in soil to ensure they are still nutritious). There does seem to be a slight quality control issue as there are definitely some other peas mixed in there but its minimal so not an issue.
Abes –
Great purchase. Fast shipment and free! Very happy with product and price. Purchased for growing microgreens-great germination rate. Flavour is awesome.
Nocturnal Flower –
These are great! Fast growers, and nice taste. Compared to speckled peas, these dark grey sweet peas are shorter and take a few days longer to grow, BUT they are denser and more leafy. The speckled peas are taller, but skinnier with more stem and less dense leaves. The taste and yield (by weight) is similar. Neither have big tendrils (which is nice for my needs). Both are amazing! Highly recommend!
NewbieGardener –
Lovely fresh tall shoots that give me 4 or 5 crops. My husband likes to photograph them as they are so appealing.
Microgreens Guy –
Dwarf Grey sprouts well, grows well, delivers the taste people are looking for. A true consistent performer. What’s not to love about them? I’m a commercial grower, and I depend on these to satisfy my clients.
Microgreens Guy –
Dwarf Grey sprouts well, grows well, delivers the taste people are looking for. A true consistent performer. What’s not to love about them? I’m a commercial grower, and I depend on these to satisfy my clients.
Micro Grower –
Excellent for growing micro green pea shoots that are not fibrous if they are harvested at 8 days. Very easy to grow and they are wonderfully tender with a very sweet pea flavour!
Carmie –
Wonderful product. Quick to germinate and grow in second set of leaves. Very tasty raw on sandwiches.
Liz –
I love how fresh and spring-like the pea shoots taste. Dwarf Grey Sugar is an heirloom variety and is often planted for its tender pea pods, so we plant some as well. There are just so many ways to enjoy this, as sprouts, as shoots, as flowers, as pea pods, and as peas!
Bruce Johnston –
I grew Dwarf Grey Sugar and Speckled Peas as microgreens side-by-side. It may have been the batch (or something unrealized) but the Speckled were a day ahead and more uniform in height. I have not tried either as sprouts.
Xuru Ding –
I bought 10 lbs of these peas, and have been disappointed. They sprouted unevenly, grew to different heights, making it hard to harvest them at the same time. Some were much tougher when others were tender. Not good for sprouting.
I also bought the speckled peas, which gave good results.
MJ –
I love Mumms seeds these taste very good too but the 5kg of Sugar peas I ordered has a very uneven growth. 50% of the microgreens in the tray is 50% taller. Its really hard to harvest and sell. I will go back to the other peas.
Lillane Gerardy –
Fast delivery , good website with lots of good information!
Very good results providing lots of luscious microgreens and very tasty . My grandson loves them!