Sources
This microgreens harvest time chart puts 54 varieties on one 30-day scale. Arugula and radish can open at day 5 while slow herbs run to day 30. Home growers planning a first tray and small sellers scheduling a weekly cut get the most from it.
What It Does and the Problem It Solves
Most growing charts print one number per crop. That hides the real problem which is that the sources disagree with each other. This microgreens growing time chart shows the spread instead.
Each bar runs from the lowest to the highest value across six suppliers and extension programs. A range not a promise.
Stripes on a bar flag a noticeable disagreement as with radish, basil, cilantro and parsley. A dotted line marks the growing time before the window opens.
An arrow marks an open-ended figure. Only fennel carries one because CropKing lists 14 or more days with no upper limit.
Some rows rest on thinner evidence and the chart says so. Johnny's Selected Seeds sorts varieties into three growing time tiers (Johnny's Selected Seeds, 2024): 10 to 15, 16 to 25 and 26 to 30 days.
A variety listed only under Johnny's shows a tier range not a measurement so this microgreens harvest time chart marks it as one source.
How to Use It, Step by Step
Start with the data set switch. Grower guidance is the default and holds all 54 varieties and mixes. Windowsill swaps in 11 ranges from Urban Farmer.
Those assume a container with 1 inch of potting soil and at least 4 hours of sunlight a day. They run longer than the grower guidance so the chart keeps them apart.
Type a name into Search such as basil to cut the list down. The Group menu narrows it to Brassica, Shoots and Grains, Herb and Flower, Root and Leafy or Mix. Sort puts the fastest or slowest first or lists everything A to Z.
Use the Harvestable by slider when you need to know when to harvest microgreens before a deadline. It runs from day 5 to day 30.
Drag it to day 10 and the list keeps only varieties whose earliest day falls on or before day 10. Leave it at the far right and it reads any day. A fast way to shortlist.
Click any name in the microgreens harvest time chart to open its details. You get the combined range, the blackout stage, the sources and a note when they disagree. Tick the box beside a variety to send it to the Date planner.
The Date planner turns microgreens days to harvest into calendar dates. Choose "I know my sow date" to see each harvest window or "I know my harvest date" to see the sow window counting backward.
Pick a date and every ticked variety gets a dated line. Clear selection resets the list.
How to Read Your Results
Each row shows a range in days and its group. A note appears when sources vary or only one covers the variety.
The bar in the microgreens harvest time chart puts that range on a scale of days from sowing. Basil spans days 12 to 25, so its dotted line covers the first 12 days.
The blackout figure is the covered stage the days a tray sits under a cover or weight before it meets light. Arugula lists 1 to 3 days, basil 4 to 7 and cilantro 6 to 14. Where a row says blackout is not listed, no source gave one.
Arugula also shows how the spread happens. Utah State University Extension lists arugula at 6 to 8 days (Utah State University Extension, 2026). Johnny's puts it in a 10 to 15 day tier so the bar runs 5 to 15.
Harvest stage explains part of that gap, since the Utah State guide calls plants ready as soon as true leaves first show or sooner.
In sow mode, each line reads Harvest and adds the low and high day counts to your sow date. In harvest mode, each line reads Sow and subtracts them from your target date.
With two or more varieties ticked a summary line says whether one sow day works for all of them.
Treat the first day of any bar on the microgreens harvest time chart as the day to start checking the tray. Not the day to cut.
Who This Is Built For
Beginners get the most from a short list in the microgreens harvest time chart. Filter to Brassica, drag Harvestable by to day 10 then pick from what is left.
Sellers running a weekly cut can tick five or six crops and see which share a sow day. Cooks after basil or cilantro should plan ahead. Weeks not days.
Windowsill growers have their own data set, based on at least 4 hours of sunlight a day. Once a variety is chosen the microgreen seed density calculator turns your tray size into grams of seed.
The Bigger Picture
Ranges this wide are normal. Penn State Extension puts seeding to harvest at 7 to 21 days (Penn State Extension, 2025) depending on crop and environment.
That is the plain answer to how long do microgreens take to grow and it is why one number per crop misleads.
The groups fall into patterns. Brassicas cluster between days 5 and 15 while sunflower and pea shoots sit near days 8 to 15. Chervil, cutting celery, lemon balm and anise hyssop are listed at 26 to 30 days. That comes from one supplier's tier so run a test tray before you sell them.
Different room, different clock. In the Windowsill set of the microgreens harvest time chart, Minowase daikon radish reads 10 to 15 days.
Dark Opal basil reads 20 to 30, so both sit later than the grower ranges. Light is one reason timing shifts and our guide on how much light microgreens need covers that side.
Real Scenarios
Say you want radish and basil for a Saturday dinner. Tick both, pick "I know my harvest date" and enter Saturday. Radish comes back as a sow window 15 to 5 days earlier and basil 25 to 12 days earlier.
The summary line then says one sowing works for both anywhere from 15 to 12 days before Saturday.
The catch: radish. Sown that early, it lands at the long end of its bar. The microgreens growing schedule shows how a radish tray runs day by day so you can judge a later sowing.
A seller wants sunflower and cilantro from one sowing day. Sunflower is ready between days 8 and 14 and cilantro between days 16 and 28.
The chart reports no shared window and tells you to switch to harvest mode to stagger sowing. Better to learn that on screen than from a wasted tray.
Treat every date from the microgreens harvest time chart as guidance. Almost all figures come from suppliers and extension programs not trials in your kitchen and temperature, light and harvest stage shift the real day.
If pale fuzz shows up early the guide to mold or root hairs helps you judge it before you toss the tray.
Tick your varieties, enter the one date you care about and the microgreens harvest time chart returns a dated sow or harvest window for each. If no shared window exists it says so before you sow anything.
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