Lists of "easiest crops" are usually assembled by eye, which is why they fill up with whatever is fashionable rather than with what forgives mistakes. The 70 crop pages on this site carry a difficulty rating as its own field, and by that rating 31 crops score low. So a list of ten is a selection rather than a ranking, and the only thing that makes it honest is stating the rule the selection used.
Quick glossary: Seeding rate - weight of dry seed per tray; every figure below is for a 19×11.4 cm tray and scales proportionally to other sizes. Blackout - the stage of complete darkness under a cover after sowing. Tray yield - weight of cut microgreens from one tray of that same size.
Why Ten, When Thirty-One Are Easy
The rule that narrowed the list has four conditions. Low difficulty on the crop page. A cycle no longer than 10 days, so a mistake costs one week rather than three. One crop per species, or half the list would be radish in five varieties. And a mix of seed types, to cover both techniques: small seed without soaking and large seed with it.
What was deliberately left out: taste and price. Both depend on the market rather than the crop, and neither has any connection to how hard it is to grow.
The Ten
The first five need no soaking, run a short blackout and tolerate imprecise watering. These are the ones to start a first tray with.
| Crop | Cycle | Blackout | Seed per tray | Yield | Shelf life |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green radish | 7-8 days | 3-4 days | 7 g | 47 g | up to 12-14 days |
| Mustard | 7-10 days | 3-4 days | 5 g | 50 g | 7-10 days |
| Broccoli | 8-10 days | 3-4 days | 3 g | 30-32 g | up to 10-12 days |
| Tatsoi | 8-10 days | 3-4 days | 4 g | 50-65 g | up to 14 days |
| Kohlrabi | 8-10 days | 3-4 days | 3 g | 25 g | up to 14 days |
Green radish carries the lowest difficulty rating in the whole catalog, and a seven-day cycle makes it the best possible first tray: a mistake shows up in a week rather than a month.
The second five need soaking and return several times the yield. The price is the same for all five: large or hulled seed in warm damp darkness is a growth medium for mold, so these need airflow and bottom watering instead of top watering.
| Crop | Cycle | Blackout | Seed per tray | Yield | Shelf life |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunflower | 8-10 days | 3-4 days | 30 g | 136 g | 10-14 days |
| Lentil | 8-12 days | 3-4 days | 20-30 g | 180-250 g | up to 10-14 days |
| Wheatgrass | 8-10 days | 3-4 days | 45 g | 250-300 g | 7-10 days |
| Barley | 8-10 days | 3 days | 40 g | 200-250 g | up to 7 days |
| Pea | 9-12 days | 3-4 days | 50 g | 100 g | up to 5-7 days |
Oat, fava bean and buckwheat sit in the same group with very close figures and substitute for any of these five depending on what seed you can get.
Easiest to Grow and Easiest to Sell Are Different Lists
Put the two tables side by side and something appears that no difficulty ranking shows on its own. Pea returns a hundred grams per tray and holds 5-7 days, the shortest shelf life in the ten. Kohlrabi and tatsoi hold up to 14 days at half the yield. Barley returns 200-250 g and also sits at seven days.
In practice this means something simple. If the microgreens are eaten at home, choose by yield and take pea, wheatgrass or lentil. If they go to a store where the batch sits on a shelf, choose by shelf life and take the brassicas. Putting pea into retail produces returns for a reason visible on the crop page before you even sow.
Where to Actually Start
One tray, one crop, a scale. The rate is taken in grams and weighed dry, before soaking. A "handful" is not reproducible even for someone who sows daily; the arithmetic is in the article on seeding rate.
Blackout from your own crop's page. Three to four days is normal across all ten, but across the catalog the spread runs from two days to ten, and the general rule stops working there.
Light immediately when the cover comes off. Microgreens work at 150-300 µmol/m²/s PPFD. A windowsill in winter looks bright and delivers a fraction of that, and the result shows on day two as stretched seedlings.
Bottom watering in portions. Not a standing level in the tray. For the second five this is a condition rather than advice: permanent water against the hulls gives you a moldy tray within a day.
Cut by condition, not by calendar. Cotyledons fully open, first true leaves only beginning. How much of each crop's cycle runs under light is in the days to harvest chart.
Three Mistakes That Cost the Most
Starting five crops at once. Each has its own rate, its own blackout and its own harvest moment. When three trays out of five go wrong, the cause is invisible because there are more variables than observations. One crop for the first two or three cycles gives a readable result.
Adding basil or sorrel as "just another green". Basil has mucilaginous seed and color that depends on light intensity; sorrel runs a 28-35 day cycle. Both carry a high difficulty rating in the catalog, and neither is a continuation of this ten.
Blaming the seed for a failure. A first batch that stretched or went moldy almost always did so because of light, watering or seeding rate. Seed is worth suspecting once those three have been checked and written down.
How to Know a Crop Is Easy for You
Two consecutive cycles returned the same yield within 10-15%. The carpet is even across the whole tray, with no bald patches and no clumping. Harvest falls on the planned date give or take a day rather than "when it looks ready". Mold appeared zero times across both cycles. Above all, you know your seeding rate in grams for this crop and this seed lot rather than looking it up again each time.
If you want to go deeper: Microgreens: The Basic Cycle from Sowing to Harvest lays out the stages from soaking to cutting, and Microgreen Substrates: Jute, Coco, Peat, and Foam - What to Use and When explains why the same crop behaves differently on jute and on coco.