About Hannah Brooks

Practical microgreens advice for beginners, from someone still learning every batch

Hi, I'm Hannah Brooks, I grow microgreens out of a small indoor setup and I write MG Basic to help other beginners skip the expensive, moldy, leggy seedling mistakes I made when I started.

I don't have decades of growing experience. I have many full growing cycles, way more failed trays than I'd like to admit and detailed notes on every single one of them that's what this site is built on.

How I Got Here

I didn't come from a farming or gardening background. Before this, I worked in my fathers microgreen farm which taught me nothing about seed density, blackout periods or why an entire tray of sunflower shoots can rot overnight if you get the airflow wrong.

I started with a single 10x20 tray on a kitchen counter and a cheap grow light and spent my first year making nearly every beginner mistake in the book: overwatering, moldy hulls, leggy stems from too little light, seeds sourced from the wrong supplier and a harvest that tasted more like the paper towel it grew on than anything worth eating.

Instead of quietly giving up I started writing everything down like grow times, seed to soak ratios, what went wrong, what fixed it. Those notes eventually became MG Basic.

Why I Started MG Basic

Most of the microgreens advice I found when I started out came from commercial microgreens farms selling wholesale or growers with years of experience who'd long since skipped past the beginner problems.

All of it was useful. None of it was written for someone growing on a countertop or a single shelving unit with a modest budget and no idea why their radish shoots kept rotting.

I started MG Basic to be the resource I couldn't find much practical guidance for people in the exact spot I was in.

What I Write About

I stick to what I actually know:

Starting your first microgreens tray
Choosing seeds and suppliers
Growing mediums: soil vs. coco coir vs. hydroponic mats
Lighting setups on a budget
Preventing mold, damping off and leggy growth
Harvesting, washing and storing microgreens
Budget friendly grow rack and equipment builds
Troubleshooting common growing problems
Selling microgreens locally as a beginner
Lessons learned from failed trays

I don't write authoritative guides on large scale commercial microgreens production, wholesale distribution or industrial hydroponic systems.

That's not my experience and I'd rather point you toward someone who actually knows that world than guess.

How I Write

Every guide on MG Basic is built the same way: I grow the tray myself, track the real cost and timeline and write down what actually happened including what went wrong. You'll often find sections titled:

What I Did Wrong
What I'd Do Differently
What It Actually Cost Me

I'd rather show you a real cost and a real photo from my own grow rack than a rough estimate and a stock image.

My Mission

"I don't have decades of growing experience but I remember exactly what it feels like to kill your first tray of microgreens. My goal is to make your first few grows easier than mine."

Get In Touch

Have a question, a topic you'd like covered or your own beginner microgreens story to share? Contact me I'm always looking to make MG Basic more useful for people starting where I started.