Shades of Green Urban Farm

Today I'm talking with Kimberlee at Shades of Green Urban Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Kimberlee at Shades of Green Urban Farm. Good afternoon, Kimberlee. How are you? I'm good, Mary. Thanks. How are you? I'm doing. I'm still alive. I'm telling you, I'm really glad to be through this sickness.

00:27
My podcasts for the last three or four have just sounded like crap. I'm so sad about it. So you're in Phoenix? Yeah, I'm in Phoenix. Sunny, sunny Phoenix. Is it warm? It is warm. It's kind of well, I see that but it's been a little cool, cool for us. We've got down to like 30 degrees within the last few few days. But of course the

00:56
at night. But of course, the days get a little bit warmer, you know, pushing 60s and upwards to 70s. But for us, that's kind of cool. Sure. Sure. Well, I guess just a little bit of background about me. Like I said, we're here in sunny Phoenix and kind of just the way we got started, just kind of always having a passion for plants.

01:24
I love, love, love anything plants, mostly houseplants kind of a thing. Sustainability. Love the idea of building meaningful connections with the community and bringing the community together. And what kind of really started is this really kind of a small dream of mine of, you know, building this plant idea, the microgreens piece of things really kind of flourished into this.

01:50
of multifaceted business idea of mine, which really focuses on the microgreens piece of things, the business side, houseplants, and then our homemade home goods that we do. My daughter is an amazing artist. She does fantastic pottery. She throws amazing pieces of pottery and she makes

02:19
homemade rug, she's got this loom and she makes amazing rugs and she's just freaking incredible. With that, we just have this side business thing that we do with the home goods piece of that and the house plants that we do along with the microgreens, which is the side business type of thing. It's a broader aspect of things, but microgreens in and of itself I think is what you wanted me to talk about.

02:46
Well, sure, but everything you just said falls under the headings of my podcast topic. Yeah. So we can talk about it all if you want, but you're multifaceted is what you're saying. Multifaceted, yeah. But really for the microgreens piece of things, kind of what we do with that is in a nutshell, we really specialize in growing and delivering the freshest microgreens to

03:12
to people's homes, to restaurants, to local markets. We visit, as a matter of fact, I'm growing a crop right now for a farmer's market that I'm doing on Saturdays. We do a lot of farmer's markets. So our mission really is pretty simple. It's just to bring a touch of green into the lives of those that we're supporting. The community, we really wanna bring that touch of green into the community that we're here with.

03:41
We deliver within 24 hours after harvest. So we ensure that our customers are getting the highest quality and the freshest flavor that they can. So it's pretty simple. It's a pretty simple business model. Harvest within 24 hours or deliver within 24 hours of harvest. So it's pretty simple. Most of our greens we can grow within 10 days, just depending on which green it is or which

04:09
micro that they choose. We have a variety of different microgreens that we do grow. Our standard really can kind of grow within 10 days. So it's a pretty simple business model. Our customers love them. Sunflower is our biggest one. Pea is a big one. Broccoli, of course, is huge. Radish is huge. We have a really awesome variety

04:38
Oh my gosh, it's a super food variety. And then we also have a spicy salad that is one of our customer favorites.

04:51
Okay. So, so did you start out really small? Yeah, we did. Yeah. Started out pretty small. We're still pretty small, to be honest. The grow room that I have right now is probably, I mean, right now, I would say 600 square foot, maybe. Okay. Yeah. It's in our house. And so we've dedicated a spare room of the house. We kind of, you know, carved that out into this sterile little room that we

05:21
We keep with just for the grow room. So it's pretty small. We've got four grow racks in here, all with lights and everything. We'll keep everything pretty much in this room. Nice. Is it warm in that room? It's warm in here, yeah. We keep it at about 72 degrees. Yeah. Yeah, I would love to have a room like that in our house in Minnesota because that would be wonderful on days when it's minus 20 degrees outside.

05:48
Well, the beauty of this is you can grow microgreens year round. So when you're doing it in your house, you know, especially like, you know, with, with harsh climates, like Phoenix, like Arizona, we can grow year round. So in a harsh summer, we can still have fresh microgreens. And so we're delivering, you know, to customers, you know, year round, and we can do these, these, uh, farmers markets year round as well, because we're continuously growing them and within this 10 day span.

06:17
you know, we are always able to have fresh microgreens and you in Minnesota can do it as well. So if you can have a space in your house, you don't have to have a very big space. You can have, you know, one, two grow racks and still be able to do it. You can grow them in your kitchen and have amazing microgreens. Oh, they're super simple. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. And we have, we, we have a huge kitchen. Like we have the biggest kitchen ever known to man. I don't know why they did the house this way, but I'm so glad they did. And

06:46
They have a little eat-in area for a table and has three windows. And so up until last spring, we would start our seed starts, you know, our seedlings for the garden on that table. And you invariably have microgreens if you're starting seedlings. So we would have trays of seedlings, of lettuces and things, and I'd steal little leaves off of my husband's. Like they're never going to get big if you keep eating them. You keep snacking off them.

07:16
And I was like, I only take one little leaf a day. And he's like, that one little leaf could be a big leaf in a month. I'm like, yeah, I know. I know. Yeah. And I mean, we started, we started them in February, the first year we were here four years ago, and he was like, we're not going to have any plant if you keep eating it. I was like, it's green food, honey. It's good stuff in February. It's good stuff. Yeah. They're so healthy too. Yup.

07:45
And I just, I don't know, I really love the little baby lettuces and baby spinach leaves. They're delicious. So good. And the beads. I couldn't help myself. Couldn't stop. So good. I hear you. And so, I love it when we start seeds in the house because it's just so nice to have this tray of green on the table. Now the reason I said up until last spring is because we just built a hard-sided greenhouse this past May.

08:14
And hopefully we'll be able to be getting our seed starting things happening in the greenhouse this year. That's awesome. We're very excited about this. This has been in the works for, I think we, I think I applied for the grant in the summer of 2023 that allowed us to build it. So it's been, it's been literally a year and a half, almost two, that this has been a hope and a dream.

08:43
So the dream is going to come true in February. Oh, that's exciting. Oh, very nice. That's exciting, Mary. We're so tickled. My husband is losing his mind. He's like, we've got to get seeds ordered. We'll figure out what you want to grow. We'll order seeds, babe. It'll get done. Better get them now. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, so he's just so excited. He's just bouncing. He's dying to get to that time frame. How cute.

09:09
Yes, and he's 55 years old a bouncing 55 year old man Who is acting like a five-year-old in a candy store is very entertaining to watch Yes, it's very fun so Here's what I want to know what you said what do sunflower microgreens taste like Well, they kind of taste they're they're like a nutty flavor kind of earthy nutty

09:38
What I really love to do with them, and it's kind of funny because people think, wow, that's kind of an interesting concept. But one of the best things that you can do with them, or one of my favorite things is put them in a guacamole. The sunflower guacamole, it's incredible. Take two avocados, add some lime juice, salt, pepper, roughly chop up these

10:06
put in some red onion, some jalapeno, and you've got an amazing sunflower guacamole dip. It's incredible. Nice, nice. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's some crunch. Yeah, how big do the microgreens have to be before you can harvest them, how tall? Oh, they get about, it just depends on the microgreen. Sunflower gets about two inches, maybe an inch and a half, two inches.

10:36
Um, broccoli is not as tall. Some, you know, the, the superfoods gets a little bit taller. It just depends on what the green is. They don't, they don't get real big. They're tiny little guys. Okay. And then when you harvest them, how do you do that? Do you sell them with the roots still on them? How do you know? Nope. Um, I cut them and weigh them. I usually sell them by the ounce. So I package them in about like, uh,

11:05
three ounces, four ounces, depending on again, the green. It's about six, three ounces for $6, four ounces for $6 typically, and then just package them in a clam shell with my label on it and then deliver them that way. Okay, so how do you keep them from wilting? Again, they're delivered within 24 hours. So I've got a little fridge in here, just pop them in the fridge and then they go out the next day.

11:34
So stick them in the fridge and they're good for about 10 days, sometimes even a little bit longer. So they stay in your fridge and they stay in there for a good 10 days or longer. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. Huh. I thought maybe you would put like a damp paper towel in the clamshell or something, but it doesn't sound like you're doing that. You don't really have to. Huh. Well, goodness sake, so we're going to have to do some microgreens in Minnesota this summer. There you go.

12:04
Now that I know they won't wilt in a day and a half.

12:09
Because we sell at the farmers market. No, they're tiny, but they're pretty hearty actually. Yeah, I'm sure there's probably a market for them here at our little town in LaSore at the farmers market. So I'm going to have to talk to my bouncy husband and be like, how do you feel about microgreens, honey? Try it out. Mm-hmm. I'm sure he'll be thrilled. He'll be like, oh, a new thing to research. And I said that very flat, but he'll be excited. He'll be excited about it.

12:36
Yeah, anything that he can grow that is a plant he's tickled with. So my kind of guy. Yeah, mine too. We've been together for over 20 years. I think he's a keeper. I think I'm pretty sure. Yeah, we have our moments because we're very different people, but for the most part, we're pretty aligned on the core values. So might as well. Yeah. Love that man a lot. Love the kid that we produced. I love the kids that came before the kid we produced and.

13:05
Basically the four kids we have, we consider to be ours even though they all have different sets of parents. So yeah, it's a pretty good family. We did pretty good. They're all adults now, but they're still our babies. Absolutely. They always will be. Oh yeah, forever and ever. Amen. Yeah. And sometimes they still act like it too. It's amazing. So, okay. So,

13:34
I don't want to be nosy, but I have a rather pointed question. Does the business support itself? It does because I have a variety of things that I do. And I say that because with the microgreens piece, what I really need to start doing and be able to do for that to sustain itself is to be able to scale.

14:02
So what I'm really trying to do is really focus on really marketing towards the restaurant side of things. Because delivering to homes and to customers that way is fantastic. It's great. I love doing it. I love air quoting going to farmers markets. It's fine. It's good. It's great to be able to be with the community and talk about it and educate and all that kind of stuff.

14:31
I think you can probably tell I'm kind of an extrovert and I kind of like doing that kind of stuff. I like networking. However, there's a lot of waste of product when I do that. I don't always know who's going to show up, who's going to be there. And so I've kind of got to play it by ear and like, okay, what we had, you know, this many people last week, you know, and it takes a minute because I've got a plan. I'm planning today for what's going to happen for next weekend. So it's a bit of a game. So

15:00
what I need to start doing is really, really focusing on restaurants. Because if I can really get more restaurants under my belt and in my portfolio, I can start to scale better and be able to really just focus on those customers and be able to start scaling up better, if that makes sense. Yes, you'll have more of a quote unquote guarantee of what's going to be to be bought from you. Yes. Yeah.

15:29
And that's the problem with this particular business model for anyone who grows produce. You end up with waste because you're not sure what's going to be bought. It's a gamble. And I've said this before on the podcast, but my husband wanted to do a CSA and he wanted to do the farmer's market. And he was like, so I'm going to plant this many of this and that many of that.

15:58
hopefully will make this much money. And I was like, you do understand how much I despise gambling, right? And he laughed and he said, it's not gambling. And I'm like, no, it is, it is gambling. I said, it's not gambling like going to a casino and dropping coins into a machine, but it is a gamble. I said, I hate this. He's like, it's not a gamble, it's a dream. There are different things. And I'm like, okay, I have to think about it as a dream because I can't think of it as gambling. Yeah.

16:28
And so it's really fun, but it's also really scary sometimes. It is. You have to get through that fear and be excited enough to fight through the fear, I think. Well, that's it. And you've got to think of it as, yes, it is a gamble, but it's a gamble in a way that you're continuing to put your name out there. You're continuing to

16:57
reach more people. You're putting your card out there, you're getting your name out there to more people. It's another way to market. The really awesome thing about the farmers market that I go to, and I'm going to plug them, it's the Prickly Bazaar. They're out here in the west side of Phoenix. They're amazing. They offer free space to anybody that does produce.

17:22
So it doesn't cost me anything to go there, so to speak. So I don't pay for any space, which is fantastic. So all it costs me is of course the greens that I take. Um, so it's fantastic in that. Yeah, they're amazing that way. So it's, it's just another opportunity for me to just network with people and, you know, take the product that I do. So what I'm doing, you know, again, for next weekend is like, okay, I'm looking through my seeds, looking through my product that I have the inventory of like,

17:52
All right, well, I have a lot of this. Let's throw some of that in a tray. We'll see what that does. I've got a lot of that left over. I'm okay, I've got a lot of this done, Pete. Let's soak some of this and maybe let's get some of this. Get rid of some of this so we can make room for some new stuff or whatever it is. Keep the rotation going through. Yeah. So tell me what microgreens are good used in. I know you can use them in smoothies.

18:21
Oh my gosh, you can use them just about in everything. Well, obviously they're great on a garnish. The restaurants really do is put them on a garnish, like fancy plated dishes have really awesome things in their garnish. In salads, I told you about the sunflower guacamole that I love to do. The spring salad, I have that spicy salad mix that I do, which is fantastic just in itself. You can have that just all by itself.

18:51
Let's think of what else you can do with them. You can make, oh my gosh, it's amazing. Could you do like a pesto like you would do with basil? You can do, absolutely. You can do pesto. Yeah. Okay. Yep. There's this grilled cheese. I've heard about this restaurant that does this grilled cheese, like this ham and cheese with brie. And they have.

19:19
these microgreens on it like this apple and Dijon mustard type of thing, it's supposed to be amazing. I haven't had it yet. They just throw a handful of microgreens on that and use it that way. My brother is an amazing cook. He doesn't do it for a living or anything. He just cooks here at the house. And he uses a lot of the greens that we don't sell. He uses a ton of the greens here, and he throws them in just about everything. And they turn out amazing.

19:48
If somebody were to buy, I don't know, 12 ounces of microgreens from you and they can't use them right away, could they do the same thing that you can do with herbs and could they put them in olive oil and freeze them for future use? That's a great question.

20:06
That's a great question. I don't know. I would assume so. Okay. I would assume so. I would assume like with broccoli, like just cutting just the, the tip of them off, just the, the floret off. I would assume so, but that's a great question. I'm going to research that. Yeah. Cause we, we make pesto and we freeze it because we make so much at a time. We're never going to eat all of it. And so we've learned to put it in ice cube trays and freeze it and then put it in the ziplock bags in the freezer.

20:36
And once it thaws out, the basil is notorious for going black if it's frozen and the oil keeps it from blackening as it were. And so the pesto is just as good when you thaw it out and warm it up as if it was made fresh if you put it in olive oil and stick it in the freezer. That's really interesting. I'm going to research that.

21:03
Honestly, we don't eat pesto often enough to have it be a problem because we don't love it enough to have it like every month. But man, when the basil is coming in from the garden in the summer, I want to use every bit of that basil we can keep. Yeah. Basil is not easy to grow. It grows great here. Does it? Yes. It does super well. And it only does super well for like two and a half months. So when it's coming in, I want to get it in.

21:32
pesto. I want to freeze that. I want to dry it and put it in jars and stick it in my pantry. I want to use every last living piece of that basil coming in from the garden because I know it won't come back until the following June. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you can have a... I have basil micro green seeds, so I'm going to try those. I haven't tried them yet. So I'm going to give those a shot within the next...

22:02
few go arounds here too to see how those work out for me. They'll probably taste exactly like regular old basil because I've kifed the leaves off of baby basils too to try them. So it'll just be little tiny basil. Little baby basils. Yeah. Little baby basils. You were talking about the clamshell containers that you put your microgreens in.

22:30
What a lot of people who don't grow and sell produce, they don't know about this is that it's not the growing the stuff that kills you on price. It's the packaging and the labeling that kill you. It is. And it kills me when I have to throw those out. Kills me. Yeah. Because the outlay to start something like what you're doing is pricey.

22:57
But I'm assuming that you can reuse your seed trays. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's an investment. It is. But the packaging and the labeling, it's an investment. But it's not a reasonable. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, one and done. And it kills me to see those go. Uh-huh. It's...

23:20
It's so funny because people are like, oh, that must be great. You must be raking in the money. And it's like, no, because there are unseen expenses in every business. That's right. Doing it. No one's going to know that it costs you a dollar and a half per clam shell to, to sell the things in. It sure does. Yep. So, you know, you've got a, anybody who starts a business.

23:47
that your accountant will tell you that your expenses are all of the things and that that cuts into your profit. Sure does. I think it takes a special kind of person and I don't mean that in derogatory way at all. It takes a really special person to start a business and have it succeed because it's so much to keep track of and understand.

24:14
what is actually profit and what is actually cost of doing business.

24:20
Right.

24:24
So, and that's why I like talking to people like you, because you help me lead people down that road of making them understand what goes into it. Well, it's a commitment for sure. And it's a lot of research and it's a lot of, you know, talking to people and to families and businesses that are doing it. And like I said, just the research in it, like is this a viable business for me to get into?

24:51
And after really looking at it and looking into the market here and the sustainability of it here, yes, I love it. I absolutely love what I do. But just because you love it.

25:06
Can you make money doing it? Is the other thing of it too. And you have to be able to support yourself. Yeah, you love it. Yeah, I love doing what I'm doing, but I also have to support myself. So there's that balance of it as well. And so being able to have that conversation with yourself, okay, Kim, the clamshells do cost that. They're six cents a piece and the labels that you're doing and the ink that goes into making those labels.

25:35
You know, and like I was saying earlier, you know, preparing for the farmers markets and the cost that goes into that and, you know, what waste that I might be doing and forgoing with within those farmers markets is like, does it make sense to do that? And so, you know, back to the restaurant side of things, you know, is it better to just not do those farmers markets?

26:03
and just stay within, you know, just continue marketing the restaurants and, you know, keeping your head to the grindstone and just, you know, keep hammering it and keep going in there and taking those samples to the restaurants and just, you know, just hammering it away and making sure that, you know, you're doing everything you can to win that business, which you can do both. Don't get me wrong. But, you know, you've got to be able to make that.

26:30
that decision of what is better for you as a business, what makes more sense to you as a business that's going to be for you for the long haul, what's going to make more sense for you. Yes, absolutely. You cannot do it any other way. It will fail. It will. You've got to be true to what you're trying to accomplish and what you're capable of doing. You mentioned labels. I...

26:57
I am so impressed when people have these beautiful labels that they have made for them. My husband and I were talking and he was like, I really would like to have some cute labels. I was like, cute labels cost money. He said, how much money? I said, more than you're going to want to pay. He said, like three or four dollars a label? I said, it could be. I said, what are you thinking? He sort of drew up this design for our...

27:27
our place for our labels. And I said, do you want it in black and white or color? And he said, well, color. And I said, color costs more. You work with printers, you know this. And he said, well, I work with the actual machines that print things. And I said, yeah. I said, doesn't the company that you work for charge more for colored documents than black and white documents? And he said, yeah. I said, so do label companies. And he was like, oh. And so.

27:55
What we realized very quickly is that black and white is the way to go. And simple design is the way to go. If you're not flush with cash. Right. And it's really sad. I saw the most beautiful Christmas labels because we sold them candles and soaps and things last year. Yeah. And they were so cute and I wanted them so bad and it would have cost us our house to get as many labels as we wanted to get. I was like, I am not trading my house for labels.

28:24
because they're cute. This is not happening. But you can get really, really creative with black and white, can get really simplistic and modern looking black and white. I kind of like black and white better sometimes. Yeah, ours is just a little farmhouse that I sort of, I sort of kife the drawing of the farmhouse and then added things to make it ours to embellish it. And it's got little potted plants and a couple chickens on it.

28:52
and it's black and white and that's our logo and that's what we use for everything and people like it's so cute and I'm like yeah we made a cute label this is awesome but yeah it's it's all the little accessories and pieces and parts around what you're actually producing that make it so difficult sometimes but it's also the thing that people remember. That's just it and you've got to be consistent with it and so with that logo that you have

29:20
Obviously that's why you have a logo so it's recognizable. You know so you've got to be consistent with it too and that's the challenge of it as well. Yep, I use it on everything. It's the logo for the podcast because everything that we do is under the tiny Homestead LLC umbrella. So everything. If we make a new product, it's under our umbrella.

29:47
And so that logo covers everything. And I'm so glad I sat down and made it when I did before, before we even moved in here. I had the idea for the logo for our business and my husband was like, we don't even have a business yet and you're already doing the logo. I said, well, yes, I am. He said, you're crazy. I said, no, I'm smart. I said, there's a difference between crazy and smart. They may go hand in hand sometimes, but I'm smart. We need to have.

30:14
We need to have the idea before we jump into the middle of this. And he was like, I'm so glad I married you. I was like, yeah, I know. Thanks honey. So yeah, so there's a lot that goes into doing any kind of business, but especially your business, because it is such a quick turnaround and you do only have a certain amount of time to get the product moved. Right. So I commend you. It's a lot to take on.

30:44
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I love it. I really, really do. It is fun. I love being able to just, I love being able to talk to people about it because not everybody, you know, you know about them, you know about microgreens, you know about the health benefits of them. Not everybody does. And so when I'm able to talk to people about it,

31:11
That's what I love doing. I absolutely love growing them. Don't get me wrong. I love preparing the trays. It makes me happy. I love getting my hands dirty and being in the dirt and doing that kind of stuff. It just makes me happy. Being in my grow room makes me happy. I love doing it. And so it makes sense for me. This business makes sense to me. So it's just like I said, it's just the...

31:39
the way that I'm going to scale it is my challenge now.

31:45
So yeah, um, my ideas, I've got ideas. Yes, absolutely. My cook greens are really good for you. But why is it that they're so good for you? Well, they're so good for you because they pack so much in the little bit of package that they are, because they're like 40 times more nutritious, they pack 40 times more nutrients than their more mature counterpart.

32:15
because they're so dense, they're so nutritiously dense now as they grow. They have so much more, like I said, than their adult counterpart, if you will. They have everything that their adult counterpart has as well.

32:43
I just talked to a lady this morning. She has many horses. And I feel like I've spent the whole day thinking about many things because, you know, microgreens are many plants and many horses are micro horses.

33:00
It's been that kind of day, ma'am. All right, Kimberly, I try to... Huh?

33:09
No, I didn't say anything. Okay. I try to keep these to half an hour and we're at 36 minutes. So I'm going to cut you loose. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you for, for having me. I appreciate you. For sure. Absolutely. You have a great day, Kim. Thank you. I will. You too, Mary.