Learn how to grow microgreens

I discovered microgreens in 2015, by observing how my chefs prepared their plates. Often, I noticed little decorative touches, aromatic herbs, both beautiful and succulent.

My curiosity piqued, I became interested in understanding where it comes from, then how it is produced. Quite quickly the supplier is identified : it is a big group and the production is far from local. This is the same approach as for the other products of our farm :

Will I be able to offer them a product of better quality, more fresh, more local, and more responsible?

 

microgreens in your plate

I first made some research…

After a little research on the web, I started my first tests in 2015 and although it grew, the quality was average. I did not dare to bring it to the chefs. Deep down, I knew I had to wait until I had found the perfect technique and be certain that they found me immediately better than their current supplier. Only one chance, I had !

With patience I scrupulously noted all that I could test : all the substrates, all the seeds, all the lamps, all the systems of cultures.

Then the chaos of R & D took place (Nico’s favorite part). With tests in all directions, stacks of seeds, notes, calculations, failed tests, others that are good, etc. … we bought a lot of material and seeds that today have become useless. But these expenses are inevitable when carrying out testing. Fortunately, we have a big house to store everything!

Youtube caused me to waste a lot of time because some methods shown do not work at all. This is one of the problems of the internet, there is everything and anything and sometimes it is like a colander and you have to guess what is not explained ! Finding suppliers is not easy, you change often. Several months passed and we finally found a formula that satisfied us at the production, predictability and ecology levels and I started selling. It was an immediate success and very quickly the chefs wanted more  volume. Oops ! I wasn’t equipped ! So quickly we had to expand the furniture culture.

Two years to succeed !

It’s only in 2017 that our technique was really perfected for me : it works, it does not cost us much to produce, we can expand even more if necessary, all suppliers are identified, I finally have my statistics by varieties etc.

In the end it took me 2 years to find a really stable techno-economic model. And it’s really worth it because in the production of microgreens we have a very good return on investment, good profitability and it does not represent many hours of work. In my opinin it’s ideal as a complementary activity to our market gardening activity.

microgreens in close caption