AdAgrA 2021: Hidden Treasure

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Specialty Crops

Michelle Sullivan

Robert Sullivan

How to Make a Living Growing Microgreens

Hello everybody, we just want to welcome you back to the second session for growing microgreens.

In this section we're just going to cover all things admin, so invoicing, websites, labeling, logos and many more.

So for us when we initially started I think we first, we did mention that the Lord orchestrated things in such a way that we were able earlier on to secure an order from a wholesaler now for Michael to supply them with microgreens.

Now just to give you a little backdrop when we actually went to that meeting with the wholesaler we weren't looking to provide the wholesaler with any microgreens.

Actually the point of the meeting was we were just looking at what's the viability, what's the possibility of...

And also how many microgreens, you know, potentially do we think we may be able to grow?

All these questions we didn't have any answers to and so we thought well the best person to talk to is probably a wholesaler he might know because if he has microgreens and this particular wholesaler did have microgreens so we ended up calling him and then meeting him and at this particular fruit and veg wholesaler which was in Glasgow which is about 3 hours drive away from us, yeah, they start their working day at 12 midnight so we had to go there early hours of the morning and meet with this gentleman.

Yeah we just called actually because we prayed, It's a testimony, but we prayed and through a series of events, we got to the point where we called the director of this particular company just to ask the question, if we were to supply you with microgreens, what would we have to do?

We didn't know if there'd be any regulations or anything, things that we'd have to fulfill, certificates to show, I don't know, something.

And the end of that conversation was, oh, why didn't you come down and see us?

We had to be there for like 6am or something like that because they start, as Robert said, they start at 12 and they go through to about, everybody's gone by 9 a.m.

So he said to come at 6, so we got there at 6 and we were just hoping to walk away with just a little bit more information.

Yeah, yeah, and that would have been good.

But while we were there, We could see the spirit moving and very quickly, very quickly because the meeting that we had only about 15-20 minutes.

Yeah 15 minutes maximum I think and literally we sort of went in there with a couple of questions but then he started asking us questions and at the end of it he said well okay he showed us this list of microgreens that he supplied.

What they order from their current supply.

And then said well if you can supply any of these on here we will take them off you.

So yeah at the end of that meeting brief meeting god had it orchestrated it that we ended up coming out of there with a order for 2000 pounds worth of microgreens every month so that really did that sorry to interrupt but that was not even the full capacity of what they actually order from the supplier.

It probably wasn't even quarter of what they get on a monthly basis from their current supplier.

So he said well we'll just start with this and see how you go.

And he allowed us to pick the microgreens that we felt comfortable growing for him.

So we picked pea shoots and just easy stuff.

Yeah, because bearing in mind, at this time, we didn't have any infrastructure at all.

But we didn't have the T8s, shop lights is what you call them, we had nothing like that, we had no racks or shelves.

Yeah, yeah, but as I said we walked out of there with that deal and very quickly we had to get on our knees, A, to thank the Lord and then B, to petition him to provide the infrastructure.

Which he did, amazingly, and that's another testimony.

So yeah, so wholesalers is a quick way, if you're interested, I mean obviously, you know, some of you listening to this might just be interested in growing microgreens for yourselves and for your family and that's fine you know just to add to your salads and things like that but if you're interested in probably growing it commercially you know then going to a wholesaler is a good way because you don't have to be a jack of all trades.

You can just maybe major on 1, 2, or 3 different microgreens, and you're going to get paid.

You're not going to get paid, this is from our experience, you're not going to get paid the full whack because obviously you're just at the other end of the scale and the wholesaler.

Yeah, so you can but you can shift a lot of but you can shift a lot of micro greens and plus it gets you into the flow of growing the cycles you know and and it gives you an opportunity to get all of your different processes down because believe you me there was so much to learn in such a short space of time.

Yeah we were at the end of our tether, our nights became day and our days became night.

We were like Lord, Lord this is not it, this can't be it, please Lord.

However, very quickly we managed to get a system in place and we had to have a system, we had to have a seeding day, we had to have a harvest day.

In fact, we were harvesting the morning of delivery.

So that wasn't so difficult, but making sure that we had everything seeded up in time so that we could supply.

He did say to us, well, as soon as you're ready, just let us know.

And I think we started supplying about 4 weeks later, somewhere around there, 2 to 4 weeks later, just to give ourselves some time to, you know...

And we had to get, in fact, we had 1 shelf, we had a little windfall, a small windfall, which bought us 1 shelf, which had how many rungs maybe 2 or 3 something like that and we had lights for that but that was it and we needed to you we had the first lot the first week seeded but you know we had to have it on a cycle, so we needed to get the next lot seeded, but we didn't have any more space or lights or trays or anything for that.

So we had to pray and we decided that we what we would do isn't it we would work out what exactly that we needed to be able to supply this particular customer and we needed 6000 pounds what would that be about 8000 dollars or something worth of infrastructure something like that anyway and so we didn't have that And we just seeded into our last tray.

So we got on our knees and just prayed and said, you know, Lord, you need to help us because this guy's expecting this stuff and, you know, we've committed and we need to, you know, and we feel, we believe that you've brought this to us, so you have to now supply the way.

We prayed and we felt led to contact somebody that would maybe be able to help us and they did.

Within 24 hours of that telephone call we had the £6, 000 in our bank account.

So you know as we were saying so the wholesalers could be a good way of just getting in the door and for you to hone your skills with growing the microgreens you know on a regular basis.

A couple things just to think about when you're doing wholesale delivery or getting your product to the wholesaler, you know you may have to for us just again different context if you're just around the corner from the wholesaler that's fine you can just do that yourself or maybe the wholesaler can come to you For us that wasn't the case because the wholesaler was 3 hours away.

And the times that they needed to receive because they needed it on a Thursday.

And they needed it as close to midnight as possible and you know help message and everything.

It's just it's impossible for us to be doing that.

So we had to hire the services of a haulage company.

We would drop it off like late in the afternoon on a Wednesday and then they would leave something like 10 o'clock or something and then I think they would get there about midnight, 01:00 in the morning or something but everything is chilled and stuff.

They would take fish backwards and forwards from the Shetlands down to Glasgow and then from Glasgow go out to the wider country.

And so our stuff would go, and I think initially we had some issues because they said that the boxes were smelling of fish.

Smelling of fish, that's not good for microgreens.

So we started wrapping the boxes in fish-proof film.

You know, you just fake it till you make it.

So all these different things may or may not, you know, they may come into play.

If they do, these are all learning experiences.

And by that we mean direct trade customers, so those would be your chefs, your restaurants, your cafe owners, those types of things.

Yeah, so, you know, We would see the revenue that we had from the wholesalers was kind of like the bread and butter money.

But we felt that if we could get into the restaurants, that would be really good because then we cut that middle.

In fact, there's 2 middlemen that we cut out because you've got, you know, the, the grower would normally go to the wholesaler and then the wholesaler would sell to the distributor and then the distributor would sell then to the shipper.

I don't know how it is there, but that's how it is here.

And so, we would sell to direct to the restaurant and we cut out the wholesaler and the distributor and you can give that end price price.

So we found that it would be quite good because we would have obviously the wholesale going on.

And then when we got into the restaurants, as we mentioned, as we mentioned earlier, the restaurants, they just swung their doors open and they were really happy with the product.

They said that the taste was better, the texture of the actual microgreens were better because what they had said is that because the competitor was selling high, growing hydroponically, the actual microgreens, they seem to be a little bit limp.

They didn't have, they weren't as robust.

And so I think that was a problem with their shelf life as well.

So because we were growing in soil, I'm wondering whether perhaps the soil, I don't know what it is about the soil, but I'm thinking it may hold more moisture for a longer period of time and make it available to the plant because there's no nutrients per se in the soil that we're using because it's peat, it's just peat but obviously there's something in the peat that the microgreens like and you know that caused them to have that more robust situation going on and so they had the flavour, Did I mention that already?

Growing Microgreens 101

We'd like to welcome you to the microgreen classes, day 1 and then 2, this is gonna be the start.

So just to introduce ourselves, we are Michelle and Robert Sullivan, and we have been growing microgreens commercially for a couple of years now and we're just glad, happy that you guys have chosen to register and to be here today to be part of this seminar?

Yeah we're just really sorry we weren't able to actually be there in person we really wanted to be there in person but you know we were expecting that the US-UK travel ban would have been lifted I think 31st of December but it didn't happen from what we could see so we were unable to attend and then the UK is currently in lockdown with all restaurants closed again and nobody's allowed to go out so we're at home.

So where you usually find us anyway is at home but thanks to technology we're actually able to still be there and to be able to present and It's great because obviously we assume that some people would have registered for this course and so it's great that we're able to still be able to give you the information that you want even though we're not there.

And I do believe that at the end, If the technology doesn't fail us, we've been told that there should be a question and answer session right at the end of the second day, I believe.

So the first question that we just wanted to tackle is what are microgreens, actually 2 questions, what are microgreens and the other question is why grow them?

You know, I mean there's a million things you can be growing, why microgreens?

Well microgreens as you can see, they're quite, I've just pulled these out, I was planning for the whole root to come out, but hey.

Microgreens, these really are pretty much ready to harvest, but you see, we just grow them to the cotyledon stage.

Everything that this plant needed to get its life going was actually found within the seed.

And you'll notice that when we get to the section on soil, we talk about that.

We talk about the fact that, you know, you don't need any nutrients in the soil because everything is contained within the seed to get at least to this stage.

And then we actually come along and we harvest probably about here and that's your microgreens.

And so from what we understand is that I know there's been much research out there about micro greens and some people they use them as superfoods because they are supposed to be 40 times more nutritious than the mature plant So that's a power pack of nutrients that you can add to your plate.

And so it's not caught on as a superfood as much in the UK to be quite honest with you.

It's more a case of the chefs use it a lot as a garnish.

And that's really been our revenue stream has been from the restaurants and the chefs because it's not really seen as a superfood as much over here that it takes some kind of education.

However, when the lockdown happened and all the restaurants had to close, we weren't sure whether what was going to happen with our microgreen cells because we grow microgreens 365 days of the year, whereas we only grow in the field for the season which is really from about May, well we don't have Sun in our field from October when the clocks go back until the clocks go forward because of the way that the land is here and with the forest that's behind us casts a shadow on our field.

And so we weren't sure what we were going to do because it was the winter time and that was our main source of income at the time.

However, God opened the way for our veg boxes.

We started an out of season veg box service and we added the microgreens that we were growing to our product list and our consumer customers or the retail customers started buying microgreens which was quite interesting.

So there are some people out there that do understand it as a super green or a super food as a super green super food whatever and so that they have been ordering these sort of 30 gram packets of microgreens along with their veg boxes.

And so I assume they're putting it with their salads and putting on their sandwiches and things like that, which has been a blessing, but what it's meant is that because of COVID and the lockdown we've had to scale down our growing so we don't grow as much microgreens anymore.

This is a microgreen, 40 times more nutritious and yeah, that's it really.

They're an easy way into the market, a quick way into the whole ag growing, ag lifestyle, you know, that we read about and that we aspire to, that we find in the writings of Ellen White, talking about this sort of agricultural lifestyle.

You can be out there 24 hours if you want to.

But if you haven't got a farm, maybe, but you just have small space inside your house you can start growing.

And it's a start, it's a means to an end.

So it's not the main thing, the main thing is getting out there in the soil, but it's a means to an end, it's just part of the pathway.

And it's a good way of drumming up some revenue you don't have to put too much in and you don't have to start with too much investment you can really start knowing we started and we'll show you a picture we started growing in literally which was like a little side cupboard room I'll see if I can put a picture into this video.

It wasn't even a room it was like a porch area.

No and that's where we started because that's all we had.

We didn't even have any lights or anything like that we just had like a lamp.

It was a lamp that was 1 bulb, a clip sort of lamp with 1 bulb but that 1 bulb was 6, 500 kelvins wasn't it?

So it's a quick way into the market and it's a good way just to get the idea of growing and things like that.

And also potentially it's a good way to drum up customers, which later on, once you get more and more established, those customers you can then turn to more of the growing that you're going to be doing out in the field, because you've already got a customer base from the microgreens.

If you've already got customer base from your field, then it's just another product line.

Whereas for us it kind of happened sort of the other way around because we weren't fully established in the farm outside as yet.

And we had just come out of season and we needed to continue to create revenue.

And the Lord made it, it's really a testimony that we'd have to share probably another time, but it was amazing how God opened the way and pointed us in the direction of growing microgreens.

And literally from the moment that he did that, I can share ever so slightly and long story short, the Lord had pointed us to a wholesale guy, customer, and we ended up walking away with a £2000 per month microgreen contract so to speak but we didn't even have the space to grow that much microgreens and that again is just another testimony for another time how God then supplied the funds for us to be able to scale up from hardly anything to a massive room filled with everything.

And so it was all his doing, we couldn't have done it by ourselves.

So in this section we're just going to be talking about microgreen seeds, as in what varieties we grow, and also the seeding densities, the amount of grams per tray and also how long it would take to germinate once you've put it on the side here.

So we actually grow quite a lot of microgreens so I'm just going to go from top to bottom and like I said before this has been sort of trial and error depending on as I said the warmth of your room, size of the room, ventilation da da da da all these things humidity all these things do make a difference but anyway rocket and yes I did say rocket 8 grams per tray and that will take about 2-3 days to germinate.

Anyway, yeah 8 grams and it'll take about 2-3 days germination.

There's a difference between broccoli and broccoli rabe but anyway broccoli rabe is about 10 grams Some months you may want to pull back to 9 grams, but about 10 grams and that's 2 to 3 days germination basil is 5 grams.

You hardly put any Seeds on the tray at all 5 grams and really you're looking the best part of a week it does take quite a long time to germinate.

Coriander there's no such thing as cilantro but anyway it's actually in the UK and the rest of the world.

It's called coriander C-O Rianda 30 grams.

So again, that's quite a lot and coriander again takes a good week sometimes 10 days it's quite slow sunflower seeds 75 grams per tray again quite a lot spread all over spread evenly 75 grams and again will germinate probably in about a week 5 to 7 days.

Pea shoots 150 grams it's quite a lot again that's a hundred and 50 grams and then you would need to soak the peas.

As a matter of fact, yeah, I'll tell you the different little variants as well, because with the peas you do soak, pre-soak them.

Some people don't, there's a whole big discussion, should you or should you not?

Anyway, we found in our trials that when we soak them, you get bigger yields, So we soak them.

So 150 grams of dried seed, soak them, then put them overnight soaked, then put them over the tray.

Again that will take a good 3 or 4 days to germinate.

Red cabbage 10 grams per tray, 2 to 3 days germination.

Rambo radish and China rose radish, which is we did the China Rose there.

Again, both of them about 30 to 35 grams.

I think I put about 33 grams, but about 30 to 35 grams, and again, 2 to 3 days for germination.

Curly Cress, 10 grams, takes about 2 days.

Red Mustard frills 6 grams not a lot but again takes about 3 to 5 days to germinate.

Okay the next 1 is nasturtium that takes 50 grams of seed and that's dry seed which you then soak just like the peas and actually I forgot to say sunflower seed as well we said 75 grams of sunflower seed you soak it before you seed it.

So nasturtium 50 grams of dried seed soak it overnight I just soak it for a couple of hours drain it and then apply that.

Purple shiso is 5 grams again hardly any seed but Purple Shiso the thing with that is that you actually put your first layer of soil on your tray then you put your seeds and then you put another layer of thin soil on top just a very very thin layer on top that's for purple shiso actually it's not for purple shiso I just got confused because I've got 2 the same round.

It's not purple cheese soap, it's actually lemon balm.

Okay, lemon balm takes 5 grams of seed, so that's not a lot of seed.

Put that on the soil and then you take a small amount of soil and sprinkle that over the top.

And for germination you don't stack lemon balm, you actually put it straight under the lights.

So they go straight out under the lights.

Christina Ford

Taking Cut Flower Farming to the Next Level

All right, so today we're going to talk about harvest quality control, solving the price puzzle, and then we're going to talk about some of the methods that you can use for extending your season.

So this is an example of how not to harvest.

A great example of what to do is what not to do, right?

If there's a crop that needs to have an efficient harvest time, it's going to be flowers.

Because ideally you don't want to be out picking flowers when it's 80 degrees.

Otherwise you're cutting into the base life of your flowers and as locally grown flower farmers we we kind of take pride in the fact that our flowers are going to last the customer 5 to 7 days which is far superior to what they're going to get at the grocery store.

But if we're out harvesting in the middle of the day, we're cutting into those days of time that the flowers will last.

And so, then we can't really guarantee that people are going to get 7 days out of their flowers.

So, the harvest time, ideal harvest time is between 5am and 11am.

And then you can harvest again at dusk, but then again you're working against it getting dark and all those good things.

So, 1 thing that does help is if you have a walk-in cooler, it does extend your harvest window some, but the struggle is real.

And so I learned, very slowly actually, that you really just have to have a very concrete plan for how you're going to get out there and how you're going to get this thing done before you even walk into the field in the morning.

Because if you go out into the field like I used to do, and you look around and you say, oh, this needs to be harvested, and oh, this needs to be harvested, oh, and this is ready to harvest too, and you just get the buckets and you start picking as fast as you can.

What happens is at the end of your harvest time, 11 o'clock rolls around, it's too hot to harvest anymore, and you have a whole bunch of buckets of, say, black-eyed susans, and not enough buckets of snapdragons, and then you're assembling bouquets, and you don't have enough snapdragons, So you're constantly running back out to the field to get more snapdragons.

They're in the heat now, so their base life is going down as you're doing that.

And then you get to the end of it, and you have 3 extra buckets of black-eyed seasons that you never, ever use.

So that is just kind of an example of how not having a plan and just going by whatever is ready to harvest can be a very inefficient way of doing things.

So I'm going to just share some tips with you about how to increase your efficiency of harvest.

So the number 1 thing for me is to dress appropriately.

Now this may seem strange to you but when I go out into the field in the morning, if I'm wearing sandals and shorts, my toes and fingers are going to be frozen within a little bit, and I'm going to be going looking for warmer clothes, which eats up time.

Also you've got to account for the fact that by 11 a.m.

It's hot out so you're gonna need to go it back in and change again if you're not dressed in layers.

So I dress in layers and I actually have it down to a science now where I know according to which layer I'm taking off, what time it is.

So the second thing is have a place for your tools so they're ready.

There's nothing like spending the morning looking for a pair of clippers that you misplaced to eat up your precious time.

Now, you can wash buckets in the morning.

But you have all the time in the afternoon when it's hot to be able to take your buckets.

The reason that this is such an important thing is the rule of thumb is if you can't drink out of the bucket, your flowers shouldn't be either because it's the bacteria in there that clogs the pathways in the stems of the flowers and they can't drop the water.

Alright, choose a rhythm and stick to it.

So, a lot of times If you see somebody new come out into the field, they're going to be like bending down.

And then they're like, OK, where's the next flower?

And so very inefficient when you're trying to do an efficient harvest in mass production.

So you need to get a metronome rhythm going in your head.

Pick, pick, pick, strip, strip, strip, pick, pick, pick, strip, strip, strip, and always your eye is going to the next flower that you're looking for, so you're never hesitating between flowers for what you're gonna go for next.

Personally, for me, I prefer to do pick, strip, pick, strip, pick, strip, and just never straighten up in between.

And later, I'll talk about when we go to the forest, there's a certain number of stems that you have in a bunch.

So instead of pick, strip, pick, strip, what's going through my head is 1, strip, 2, strip, 3, strip.

Otherwise, I'm going back and recounting how many stems are in my hand.

So The other thing is to harvest only ingredients for the day sales, and that's what I just covered when I was showing you how not to harvest.

This is what my weekly schedule looks like.

And I also make my florist list for the week.

So when you're selling to florists, I mentioned yesterday that selling to florists can be kind of hard, and you have to become a bug.

And so I have a three-day sequence for contacting my florist.

The first day I make a list of what I have.

If you have your handouts, I have an example email in there of what I would send to the florist.

It has the exact quantities of everything, the prices of everything.

So I make that on Sunday, and then I do farm stand sales.

Monday, I'm going to call the florist and harvest all the florist orders.

And then Tuesday, I will do more harvest of the florist orders or just deliver to the florist.

Tuesday is my day for deliveries of individual bouquets, so I get a lot of orders through the week of people who don't necessarily want a subscription, but just want an individual bouquet for a birthday or for someone in the hospital or whatever.

Wednesday is grocery store again, and then my hotel orders happen on Wednesdays.

And then Thursdays we do subscription deliveries and farmer's market in the afternoon, and then Fridays are my weddings.

So, the reason this is important is because it will affect what you're harvesting per day.

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Series

Specialty Crops

Taking Cut Flower Farming to the Next Level

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

How to Make a Living Growing Microgreens

54m

Growing Microgreens 101

1h 15m

Taking Cut Flower Farming to the Next Level

1h 8m

Healthy Profits: Growing Ginger and Turmeric

1h 2m

Asparagus

1h 1m

Sound Doctrine