I started growing my own microgreens at the beginning of this year and it’s been one of the healthiest addition to my diet in ages! I love harvesting them each morning and sprinkling them on top of my avocado toast for an extra boost of vitamins as well as flavor. Since I have two kits, one from Zestigreens and another from Hamama Greens, I thought I would do a little review comparing the two since they’re slightly different.
I got the Zestigreens kit as a Christmas present and that’s what really kicked off my microgreens phase. The kit comes with one plastic tray, one decorative bamboo tray, two packets of seeds and two hemp mats (that’s the growing medium for the seeds). To grow the microgreens, just soak the seeds in half a cup of water while you pour two cups of water on the hemp mat, then spread the seeds over the mat, and cover with the included black out felt cover. After a couple of days remove the cover and lets the seedlings grow. Depending on the seed, the greens will be ready to harvest in 8-10 days. Once you run out of seeds and the hemp mat (which is a one time use thing), you can order both from either Amazon or directly from Zestigreens. I ordered more from Zestigreens since it was slightly cheaper per seed packet and mat then Amazon, but it required a subscription that I’ll need to remember to cancel if I want to stop growing. I got 18 seed packets+mats for $55.
Zestigreens on top and Hamama Greens on the bottom
I got the Hamama greens from my work (Planet Renu) and with my employee discount and the shops’s sale price, I was able to get it for a bit less than Amazon’s price. You can see a reel I made for my work growing with the Hamama kit here. The Hamama kit I got comes with the plastic growing tray and two seed quilts, but no bamboo tray. You can actually get the Hamama kit with the bamboo tray cheaper on Amazon than the ones sans tray. Though the bamboo tray is just decorative it does add a nice touch. The biggest difference between the Zestigreens and Hamama kits is that for the Hamama kit, the seeds come in what they call a seed quilt, which is just the seeds pre-packaged on top of a coir growing medium. So all you have to do is fill water up to the fill line, open a seed quilt and put it in. It also makes harvesting easier since the seeds are spaced out in such a way that cutting one bunch is easy (unlike the Zestigreens kit where you scatter the seeds yourself—I tried clumping it like Hamama’s but it doesn’t work that well). Anyway the Hamama kits are fool-proof and takes fewer steps than the Zestigreens kit. However, for that convenience the Hamama seed quilts are a tad more expensive (for example on Amazon, you can get 4 Zestigreens seed packets+mats for the price of 3 Hamama seed quilts). However I’ve been getting my seed quilts at a discount from Planet Renu so Hamama costs a bit cheaper for me than the Zestigreens.
In these pictures the Zestigreens kit may look fuller, but it really just depends on the type of seeds. I think I’m growing the salad mix in the Zestigreens kit (salad mixes will always be very full for both kits), while I’m growing broccoli in the Hamama kit. The radish seeds for both quilts will be sparse, but it’s more so for the Zestigreens kit and I don’t recommend getting that one. My favorite greens so far have been the broccoli (offered by both), kale (offered by both), cabbage (Hamama), daikon radish (Hamama), and wasabi (Hamama).
Both quilts are compostable after you’ve done harvesting all the greens. But the hemp mats from Zestigreens are slightly easier to compost than the coir mats from Hamama. I usually throw the Hamama mats in my green bin (industrial composting), while I throw the hemp mats from Zestigreens into my own backyard tumbling compost.
I don’t think you could go wrong with any system, though if you’re looking for the ultimate convenience then you’ll probably want the Hamama kit. As for me I have both kits going and have a near constant supply of greens for breakfast!
P.S. I should also note that to wash the seed trays really well (to get off all the slimy plant gunk that usually sticks around) I’ll pop them into the dishwasher (top rack). You can’t really see the slime on the black Hamama trays but you can definitely see them on the white Zestigreens tray).