New: Seed pads without linen wick

Good news: Growing microgreens with the Heimgart Starter Kit has become even easier now that we have removed the linen wick from our seed pads! Some of you may wonder why the seed pads were previously equipped with a wick when the cultivation works just fine without one. In this article we will provide you with all the information you need.

Before Heimgart entered the market in 2017, we put a lot of time into product development. Of course we wanted to be 100% sure that our growing system would work and that everyone would be able to grow their own microgreens without soil and additional watering. The linen wick has given us an additional security that an even watering of the microgreens is guaranteed.

Over the last two years we have received occasional feedback that the microgreens didn’t grow that well in some places. Naturally we wanted to get to the bottom of this and took another look at our seed pads as well as the wick.

Why do the seed pads no longer have a wick?

The wick was attached to the seed pad with a total of 5 adhesive dots using a natural binder. Since the seed pads are not made using machines but by hand in non-profit workshops, the adhesive dots sometimes turned out stronger than they should have and occasionally prevented the microgreens from growing.

Why does the cultivation work without a wick?

Since the seed pads are a few millimeters thinner without the linen wick, the plants are ideally watered when two seed pads are placed in the porcelain bowl and it is filled with water up to the mark at the beginning of cultivation. Within the first few days, the microgreens form fine roots that grow through the seed pad and dip into the water so that they can feed on it throughout the growing period.

This is how easy cultivation works without a wick:

Important information on seed pads with linen wick:

With a wick, the seed pads are a few millimeters thicker so that the roots cannot grow through the seed pad fast enough to supply themselves with water independently. So if you still have seed pads with a wick, please make sure that it is immersed in water. If the wick does not dip into the water, it will automatically fold up in such a way that it forms a too strong barrier between the seed pad and the water and the even watering of the seed is not guaranteed.