Growing Microgreens

Growing microgreens can be a great way to make some extra money and can even become a very profitable full-time business if you know the growing process for these plants and know where to sell them. In this section we will go over exactly that and the potential money to be made based on the scale you are growing on.

The first step to growing micro greens is to set up a grow room in your house or shed. Some great places to set up a grow room are in your basement or garage. It is good to surround your grow room with Visqueen which is essentially a sheet that separates your grow room from the rest of your house if it does not have its own clean area. You should also have a fan that will provide airflow for your plants. Plants love airflow even when they are outside, and this will promote healthy strong growth.  You will also want some shelves to hold your micro greens. You can get these from hardware stores or even at Wal-Mart. You should also have a dehumidifier so that you don’t have any issues from mold or mildew from the plant’s moisture.

Now that you have your grow room set up. We will talk about growing your small crops. The first thing you will need are your trays. These will be the foundation for your plants that will sit on your shelves. You can search up nursery flats and buy as many as you need to grow on your scale. You can get one flat with holes that you can place on top of a normal flat so that it will store water and allow roots to absorb moisture and grow stronger. Net is your growing material, the best thing to use to grow microgreens in is coconut coir which you can order online. This stuff expands with water and then you will place it in your tray. Once you have your tray set up with your coconut coir, you will want to moisten it to prepare to plant your seeds.

Some good microgreen seeds that you should acquire to please your future customers and grow quickly are Bok Choi, Kohl, Radish, Turnip, Mustard, Amaranth, and Basil. You can also plant what is called a spicy salad mix which is a mix of 6 different greens. The most important thing you want to focus on when growing your microgreens is making the most use of your space as possible. Try to grow the seeds as close together as you can so that you are getting more product for your area and grow time. Your greens should look kind of like a bed of nice thick grass when they grow in. You should shake out your seeds like seasoning and it should have a good layer of seeds covering your coconut coir. Don’t worry about it looking too full, they will find a way to grow. Once your seeds are sown give it another misting and then cover it with another tray to mimic soil being on top of the seeds. Then place around 5 pounds evenly distributed on top of the trays. This will act as the weight of the imaginary soil” Plants like to grow indoors just like they do outside of course.

After about 2-3 day you will already see germination happening once you see the greens pushing up that weight on the tray that is when you know it is ready to take off. They will be pale once you remove the tray because they have never had light. Now you will put them under some normal LED shop lights that you can get from Home Depot. This will be enough to grow the plants at this stage. You can hang your lights on chains over your shelves so that you can aways adjust their height. You want your lights as close as possible to help your plants grow best.

Once they have turned green and grown in you will be ready to harvest them and sell or eat them. Use a simple pair of scissors and try to cut your greens as close to your coconut coir as possible. You don’t want to waste a large portion of greens because you didn’t cut close enough. You can buy 8-ounce plastic containers on Amazon that you use to hold your greens for sale and buy any other sizes you want to offer as well. Typically these 8 ounce containers can sell for $5 at a farmers market. Micro greens will stay fresh for a week and a half- 2 weeks once harvested so keep this in mind for our next step.

Now that you have harvested your Micro Greens you will want to find customers to sell them to. You can always sell them at events or farmers markets, but you can also find shops and other businesses that sell them that will buy bulk orders. If you are trying to make a good living with micro greens, you will want to find some businesses that you can sell to on a large scale. This should be your main focus aside from growing your greens.

You can go on Google and search for small restaurants in your area and make a list that you can sell to. You can then go in and introduce yourself and some greens that you grow. You can leave them with free samples for the chef to use and try to get a phone number for the owner if you can. Either way make a good impression and ask them what they are paying now for their greens. You can give them competitive pricing and assure them that since you live close by, they will be getting the freshest greens they have ever had. You can do this consistently and also start asking for referrals to other restaurant owners your customers may know. You can even offer a free order if they bring you business.

You can also contact food distributors in your area and tell them about the greens you are growing and ask what they pay for them to see if you can gain a new customer that way. You can even go to small local groceries to offer your greens there. It may be more difficult to get in touch with the people in charge but that is always the goal. Be confident when talking to management and asking for the contact info of the people in charge. You can tell them you wanted to offer a free sample of your greens and want to talk to the owner about doing future business with a closer fresher source.

Each tray you plant will usually yield 8-12 ounces depending on your seed density and micro green type. On average you will sell these microgreens for around $2 per ounce so you can use these numbers as an estimate, but you should also ask what customers are paying and growers are charging in your area. Keep in mind that electricity will be your biggest expense when growing your greens on a large scale. Try to find ways to keep your electric costs low. You can find 3^rd party energy suppliers that can sell you energy cheaper, but you must make sure they are reputable and won’t raise rates out of nowhere like many of them do. If your state has good solar incentives, you may be able to lower your electric rates by more than 50% by switching to solar. The key to business is to keep your expenses low and your revenue high so if you can take advantage of these options look into them.