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EVEC Microgreens
Microgreens in adult education
Microgreens put a visible result on the table within days and ask nothing of learners before they start. For adult educators, that becomes hands-on learning with a live free self-paced course, 39 plain-language growing guides, a tested cookbook and workshop experience from a real growing space in Athens — all open and free. This portal is the method in depth; partnerships are arranged with EVEC at evec.org.gr.
Who this is for
This page is for facilitators and community educators who need ready session material for adult learners — families, seniors, unemployed adults, newcomers — and for adult-education organisations shaping Erasmus+ Adult Education projects around it. If you are looking for a learning activity with no entry barrier, visible results within ten days and direct value at home, from food literacy to healthy eating on a budget and growing without a garden, microgreens are one of the simplest tools available.
Low-threshold by design
Part of why microgreens work in adult education is how little they demand. A tray shows visible change within days, so motivation never has to survive a long wait for results. There is no literacy barrier: the learning happens in the hands and the eyes, which matters for newcomers still acquiring the language and for adults who had little formal schooling. Everything can be done seated at a table, indoors, in any season, which suits older learners and small community rooms. And the materials cost close to nothing, so every learner can take a tray home without anyone checking their budget first. This is a description of the method, not of a study; the fit with seniors and low-income adults is something your project can put to the test with the groups you know best.
What the method gives your learners
Free courseware, ready today
The flagship for adult groups is Grow Microgreens at Home, a free self-paced course in the EVEC Microgreens Academy: live, complete as a v1 self-paced course and open to anyone, with zero entry barrier. Behind it sit our 39 grow-at-home guides, written in plain language for learners with no prior growing experience — use them as handouts or as a full course.
A ten-day session backbone
The 10-Day Growing Guide takes a group from seed to harvest in ten short sessions, giving an adult course a clear structure and a shared result to finish on. It is published as an open draft with a feedback form: piloting it with your learners and helping us finish it is a legitimate, fundable project activity.
Food literacy in the kitchen
Our cookbook of easy, mostly vegan-friendly recipes, developed and tested by the team and volunteers, turns the harvest into cooking sessions about healthy eating on a small budget.
Workshop experience
In Athens, our international volunteers run workshops on growing microgreens in the city, harvesting at home and cooking them, and we bring that experience to partner projects.
A real growing space
We operate a physical microgreens growing space in Athens: working infrastructure your project activities can build on, not a plan on paper.
Dissemination that lasts
This portal already hosts over 110 free articles and reaches learners, educators and entrepreneurs at once, so project results stay visible long after the funding period ends. Too many end up as a PDF nobody opens; results published here keep working.
From tray to table
Results you can use
Two tiers, clearly labelled. The cookbook and the Science Library are live and in use today; the 10-Day Growing Guide is an open draft your project can help finish — and finishing it is a ready-made work package.
10-Day Growing Guide
A universal step-by-step from seed to harvest, usable as the spine of an adult course. Published as an open draft with a feedback form: piloting and finalising it with adult groups is exactly the kind of activity a partnership can fund. Read the guide →
The microgreens cookbook
Easy, mostly vegan-friendly recipes developed and tested by our team and volunteers, ready for food-literacy and healthy-eating sessions. Open the cookbook →
Science Library
Twenty open-access microgreens studies rewritten in plain language, with full credit and a link to every original paper. We keep the caveats, the sample sizes and the uncertainty — evidence you can cite in a needs analysis, and readable material for evidence-based nutrition sessions with older adults. Browse the Science Library →
See everything we have built →
Learn with us
Start with Grow Microgreens at Home, our free self-paced course: adult-appropriate, zero entry barrier, and live today as a complete v1 self-paced course. All our Academy courses are open educational resources — take them yourself or run them as sessions with your learners. This list updates as new courses are published.
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Grow Microgreens at Home — a Free Beginner Course
A free, self-paced beginner course in six short modules: set up your first tray, follow the 10-day cycle, pick your crop, fix…
All courses live in the EVEC Microgreens Academy.
From the knowledge base
The knowledge base grows every week, and every article is free to use in your sessions.
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Fennel microgreens: everything you need to know to grow them
Fennel microgreens bring a sweet, delicate aniseed flavour to the plate. Learn to soak, sow, grow and harvest this slow, chef-favourite herb…
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Corn shoots (popcorn shoots) microgreens: everything you need to know to grow them
Corn shoots (popcorn shoots) microgreens grow entirely in the dark for sweet, tender yellow shoots. Learn how to soak, sow, keep dark…
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Buckwheat microgreens: everything you need to know to grow them
Buckwheat microgreens grow fast from soaked seed, taste bright and lemony, and are easy for beginners — here is how to sow,…
Start with the full collection of 39 guides in our Grow at Home library.
Want to build a project around this?
This portal is where the method lives; Erasmus+ Adult Education partnerships are arranged with EVEC Athens at evec.org.gr. Take the Grow Microgreens at Home course and read the guides to see whether microgreens fit your concept, sketch where the activity sits in your needs analysis, and decide what you need — open courseware, piloting with real groups, workshop know-how or dissemination through this portal — then bring the idea to EVEC to shape the partnership together.
A note on scale, so your application matches reality: the partner behind this portal is an NGO practice organisation in Athens, not a research institute. The microgreens methodology has been running since 2025 — it was born inside European Solidarity Corps project 2024-1-EL02-ESC51-VTJ-000225260, and this portal has been live since August 2025. The organisation behind the methodology, EVEC Athens (evec.org.gr), has worked in European projects since 2017: accredited for Erasmus+ Youth, holder of the ESC Quality Label, 20+ Erasmus+ and ESC projects delivered. What we bring is working material, a real space and daily practice.
An example of the role EVEC could take
This is an illustrative example, not a fixed offer — every consortium shapes its own division of work. But it shows the kind of role EVEC is ready to hold in an Erasmus+ Adult Education partnership: co-designing an adult food-literacy module from the open materials already on this portal — the Grow Microgreens at Home course, the 39 guides, the cookbook and the 10-Day Growing Guide draft.
- EVEC drafts the module and a facilitator briefing from existing open materials, adapted with partners for their learner groups: seniors, unemployed adults, newcomers.
- Partner adult-education centres pilot the module with their own groups and collect structured feedback from learners and facilitators.
- EVEC integrates the feedback and publishes the final open-licensed version on this portal, where it stays free for every centre in Europe.
Deliverables: the finalised module as an open educational resource (v1.0) and a pilot report partners can reuse in their own dissemination.
Your learners are not named on this page? Healthy ageing, family learning, basic skills, integration courses — every adult-education setting has a microgreens hook. Find yours, then take the idea to EVEC.
The methodology: this portal is the home of the microgreens methodology — one hands-on way of learning that works for any vocation and any age, running since 2025.
The organisation behind it: EVEC Athens (European Voluntary and Educational Center), an accredited Greek NGO working in European projects since 2017 · OID E10172681 · PIC 909448430 · Erasmus+ Youth accreditation 2023-1-EL02-KA150-YOU-000188397 · ESC Quality Label 2023-1-EL02-ESC50-QLA-000195138 — both valid until 2027. Verify in the EU organisation registry (search for OID E10172681), see the track record, or visit the organisation at evec.org.gr.
Ready to partner on a project?
The methodology lives here on the portal; partnerships are arranged with EVEC Athens. Start at evec.org.gr and the team will take it from there.
Co-funded by the European Union.
This portal presents the microgreens methodology; the organisation behind it is EVEC Athens — the European Voluntary and Educational Center (evec.org.gr). Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.