August 16, 2021 crop, headlines comment

Believe it or not, growing miniature vegetables is easy.

This is the first lesson Ty Lilly learned after he was fired from a lucrative software career and started studying the nutrition and flavor of these micropowers. Instead of looking for another job, he decided to create one himself. Together with Martha Channell, a business and life partner who recently lost his job in a soil testing laboratory, after extensive research, they decided to grow micro-vegetables full-time as a seven-acre farm in 2019.

They live in a unique 7-acre woodland in Dublin, northwest of Columbus, Franklin County, and decided to take advantage of their location to grow and provide fresh vegan micro-vegetables within hours of harvest. Although they had never really heard of mini-vegetables before, they found that the demand for these vegetables, which are harvested shortly after the development of the cotyledon leaves, is growing rapidly. High-end chefs like to add micro-vegetables to salads and add them as flavor additives to their creations. More and more consumers are looking for them to add color, flavor and nutrition to their meals at home.

“When we started in June 2019, we were growing several types and found that these things were actually very tasty,” Lily said. "The more varieties we start to grow, the more we can enter the field of micro-vegetables. The world opens up to us. I bought a shelf, some trays, soil and seeds, and then started planting. The deeper I studied, The more I realize that growing is the easy part. It is other factors that make it complicated."

The seven-acre farm now sells approximately 42 different varieties of micro-vegetables and more than 10 customized mixtures, including sunflower, broccoli, basil, broad beans, mustard, coriander, peas, sweet corn, etc. Each variety requires different moisture content in different growth stages, different management methods, different seeding rates, growth time, temperature, growth environment, packaging, labels and other production factors. There are orders for different quantities, mixing and packaging every day, with different delivery dates and different production times. Growing the number of micro-vegetables necessary to be financially sustainable requires a puzzling level of daily complexity to keep the correct variety growing and ready to be harvested and packaged at the right time to complete the order.

With this huge challenge in mind, Lilly quickly used his background in software and IT. Channell joined her, using her knowledge of soil fertility. 

"I want to use technology to solve some of the scaling problems that people encounter in this business as soon as possible. When I first started this, I started to build software and spreadsheets to track everything I did. Before we were overwhelmed by actual work Before, we paid attention to details early on, as we are now," he said. "I keep track of everything. I can tell you the seed batch of a particular package delivered to you."

 Now, as orders arrive, they will be entered into the software, which provides a list of tasks to be performed daily, including planting, management, harvesting, packaging and delivery.

"With the software we built, orders will come in, and the software will tell us what to grow and when to grow. If we have 2 packs of arugula, 14 packs of peas, and 7 packs of basil that need to be delivered on a specific date, the software will Know how long it takes to grow these types of micro-vegetables, and tell us when they need to be grown. Then it tells us what to grow on a specific date and how much to grow to get the harvest we need to order," Lilly said. "As we accept more orders and grow more varieties, we will definitely need this asynchrony and software intelligence to effectively manage our operations. According to the orders we receive, the products we grow are changing every day. Our cultivation The volume is also slightly higher than our needs, so we can handle most of the one-off orders on our website, as well as the samples we provide to restaurants or customers. We are courting."

Using software to guide them, Lilly and Channell work full-time (and then some) to perform the daily tasks of growing and marketing micro-vegetables.

"We started by cleaning the trays. Then we disinfected them and loaded them with our customized soil mix. Then we seeded and watered them according to our schedule, and then put them in our germination chamber. Then, once They sprout, we expose them to light-if they are light-loving varieties-and harvest them in a few days or weeks. Then we pack them and send them out," Lily said. "We do not use any compost or fertilizer. Our nutrition plan is 100% plant-based. Our products are vegetarian-friendly starting from the soil. We mix some nutrients into the soil before planting, and the rest of the fertility is 100% with ours. The water in a multigallon reservoir is mixed. The reservoir contains a mixing and aeration pump. This usually lasts 2 to 3 days. We use 1020 greenhouse trays, so we water from below, but we use a customized solution to ensure Each variety can get the right amount of water when needed. We use beneficial bacteria to solve common problems. We use reverse osmosis water, so our water and soil are a blank sheet from the beginning. We can only get the micro-vegetables we grow We specifically decide what to provide them. Our nutrition plan and customized hardware and software are our secret weapons."

Another real trick for efficient micro-green production is to maximize the planting space, grow various crops at the same time, and then manage them properly.

"I want to make sure that all my lights are always full. If the lights are on and there is nothing underneath, I am wasting electricity. Most growers use a 4 ft x 2.5 ft in a rack that can hold four 1020 greenhouse trays. Big tray. The problem we found is that everything in that "super tray" must be the same type and the same age. A really young pea drinks less water than a mature pea," Lily said. "So if I have a super tray of mature peas and young peas, the mature peas will be submerged, or the young peas will be overwatered. When you start mixing varieties in the same super tray, nothing is correct."

As a result, a large amount of tedious manual watering was performed on the seven-acre farm, but the use of technology further automated the need for a single pallet. Many varieties may also need to be harvested in different ways, although they are usually cut with scissors or knives.

"You grab a hand and cut them open," Channell said. "Some varieties, such as sunflowers, take longer. They are popular and the price is good, but they require a lot of labor to harvest. We have just reached the point of harvesting and can start building more efficient processes for specific crops." 

The seven-acre farm works with various suppliers to purchase seeds, packaging, soil, nutrients and other inputs in bulk months in advance. Finding the best supplier is also an early learning curve for a company. 

In terms of marketing, the initial focus was on restaurants.

"This is a quick way to increase visibility and gain visibility, and the number of restaurant purchases is more, so it is a quick way to generate income. But with COVID, we lost all customers within 3 days, only one customer, and we have planted Everything, ready to harvest. We own all these products and provide them to the communities around us. We had to change from direct-to-restaurant to direct-to-consumer within a few days," Channell said. “We designed our website to serve restaurants and had to re-adjust everything to serve consumers. We have just started marketing to all communities in our community. Obviously, we sell fewer products to individual consumers at a time, but The stability it provides us is the key to the survival of our business, and COVID is still there. We must also research and purchase all new packaging."

One client who did not lose the seven-acre farm at the time was Market Wagon, an online farmers' market designed to connect consumers with local food. The demand for this service has surged in the central Ohio market, which really helps. In addition, Nextdoor.com and other social media platforms helped the small farm connect with the community online and quickly sell products that should be shipped to local restaurants.

"We are very fortunate. We posted on Nextdoor.com in the community and advertised more on Market Wagon. They collected everything we were growing. We were able to transform quickly, and within a few weeks, we were able to do it directly to consumers. Marketing. I won’t say it was unsuccessful, but when you look at our income, it didn’t fall to the ground and then came back. It has been in good condition and continues to climb from there, but we have to enter one we are not ready yet Good access to the rabbit hole, basically started our business twice in the same year," Lily said. "Now that the restaurant is picking up, it's great to add this diversity back to our business. We found that if we can integrate ourselves into the community, it will give us more stability. Now we have more A meta-customer portfolio and the ability to directly serve our community were our primary goals at the beginning. Although it was a headache at first, it was indeed a great experience."

Market Wagon’s goods are delivered to a regional collection center, and the remaining seven-acre farm micro-vegetables are delivered directly to restaurants or customers’ doors-subscriptions are increased by order, with a shelf life of 2 to 3 weeks.

"I like a lot of things in this area, but in the end we want to help people. Neither Martha and I can help people the way we want when working for other people, because there are always limitations and we are in some way Limitations. Helping people on a larger scale is important to us, and we can do this with a seven-acre farm. I love this technology and use my background to automate the things that tie all these things together to build these systems This is an interesting journey, and I think it will become more interesting as we continue to develop the seven-acre farm," Li said. "Controlled environment agriculture is the future. We provide the freshest and best-tasting super local superfoods in Central Ohio. We are very pleased to continue to build and work in multiple locations to make these amazing micro superfoods better To serve more communities."

"Where else can I get made-to-order superfoods within hours of harvest?" Checher said. "Nothing is fresher than this."

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December 14, 2021-Today is sunny, warm and dry. The temperature is easily higher than normal. However, we will have the hottest day tomorrow, and may see record or close to record highs on December 15...More from Chief Meteorologist Ryan Martin

December 14, 2021-Today is sunny, warm and dry. The temperature is easily higher than normal. However, tomorrow will usher in the hottest day, December 15 may hit a record high or close to a record high...