For the microgreens I wasn’t really paying attention to them for the majority of the week but they seem to be sprouting just fine, the added pressure made sure they all sprout evenly. I will add photo documentation later to this post.
Also I will share some of my accidental/intentional experiences of growing/regrowing kitchen scraps. So in my experience, what grows easiest are the vegetables, as in leaves and stems. this includes the typical herbs that we use like parsley, cilantro, rosemary, thyme, and basil. I find that the basil grows the best given its condition purchased directly from supermarkets. however it requires lots of sun and water, but in a supermarket pot it grows just fine. I would also put chives, green onions and regular onions in this category, where I normally use the greens of the green onions most often (the thin Chinese ones that look like chives), so during pandemic and lockdown in Shanghai, I had this massive pot of green onions that I keep regrowing and harvesting. sometimes the water get all murky and gross and it attracts fruit flies, but if I were to separate them apart more they would be just fine. For onions I noticed one time some of the really old ones I stored in the fridge will sprout, and the sprout literally looks and taste just like regular leek/green onion, so when onion gets too old and gross to use just let them sprout I guess. Also I have seen my lettuce scraps grow some new hearts and small leaves before. some will even grow new roots in water. however this process is relatively slow compared to smaller herbs, taking multiple weeks just to get one more head of lettuce ready to harvest continually. I would probably do it if I had pots and dirt that I could use and also the weeks to spare. and also growing multiple heads definitely prevents over-harvesting the lettuce and it dying. finally about root vegetables, NO you won’t get any carrots or beets from the tops you put in water. this is actually the longest progress and one of which I haven’t tried or even encountered to get the actual vegetable. it usually requires plating in soil after sprouting roots from water.