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biscgolf · April 7, 2013

growing produce is the source of all my income- microgreens make up roughly 70% of it, 100% in the winter time.

i have a 2000 square ft greenhouse with 2-3 levels of micros growing throughout. i also have a second greenhouse of roughly the same size awaiting erection any time now which will also house micros primarily.

i sell at 3 farmer's markets, direct to restaurants in my area and through a distributor to restaurants in DC. many of the top restaurants in DC use my product.

i get most of my seed from BFG Supply- a garden wholesaler. from them i am generally ordering 10-25 pounds at a time of a given type. the most economical retail source i know of for seed is a website called buywholesalecheap dot com. i quite often use Johnny's catalog/website for reference but seek the seed elsewhere as they are too high on bulk purchases.

i grow roughly 25 varieties of micros in the course of a year with about 10 of them being year round and the rest switching on and off seasonally. most favored individual micros are arugula, red russian kale, pea shoots, sunflower shoots and various basils. i also do 4 different mixes which sell well at the markets- kitchen sink mix (basically everything i have at a given time), mellow mix (mostly mild brassicas), mediterranean mix (arugula and basils) and far east mix (daikon radish, china rose radish, shungiku, mizuna, tatsoi, chinese cabbage).

i have grown micros for 10 years at this point- when we started we were just borrowing the idea from the chefs garden . Sales at that point were exclusively to restaurants. the retail micro biz has blown up quite a bit recently due to increased attention to the health benefits of micros. The University of Maryland produced a study last year which has been a great help in that regard. maryland study

portland seems like it would be a near ideal market for a microgreen enterprise (i used to live in eugene so am reasonably familiar with oregon)- my only question would be regarding the number of purveyors already there.

April 7, 2013	#21
biscgolf Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Virginia Posts: 353	growing produce is the source of all my income- microgreens make up roughly 70% of it, 100% in the winter time. i have a 2000 square ft greenhouse with 2-3 levels of micros growing throughout. i also have a second greenhouse of roughly the same size awaiting erection any time now which will also house micros primarily. i sell at 3 farmer's markets, direct to restaurants in my area and through a distributor to restaurants in DC. many of the top restaurants in DC use my product. i get most of my seed from BFG Supply- a garden wholesaler. from them i am generally ordering 10-25 pounds at a time of a given type. the most economical retail source i know of for seed is a website called buywholesalecheap dot com. i quite often use Johnny's catalog/website for reference but seek the seed elsewhere as they are too high on bulk purchases. i grow roughly 25 varieties of micros in the course of a year with about 10 of them being year round and the rest switching on and off seasonally. most favored individual micros are arugula, red russian kale, pea shoots, sunflower shoots and various basils. i also do 4 different mixes which sell well at the markets- kitchen sink mix (basically everything i have at a given time), mellow mix (mostly mild brassicas), mediterranean mix (arugula and basils) and far east mix (daikon radish, china rose radish, shungiku, mizuna, tatsoi, chinese cabbage). i have grown micros for 10 years at this point- when we started we were just borrowing the idea from the chefs garden . Sales at that point were exclusively to restaurants. the retail micro biz has blown up quite a bit recently due to increased attention to the health benefits of micros. The University of Maryland produced a study last year which has been a great help in that regard. maryland study portland seems like it would be a near ideal market for a microgreen enterprise (i used to live in eugene so am reasonably familiar with oregon)- my only question would be regarding the number of purveyors already there.