Boston Couple Leaves Teaching Jobs To Become Urban Farmers
BOSTON (CBS) - A couple left their Boston teaching jobs to become urban farmers, growing microgreens. Microgreens are tiny vegetable plants that are as nutritious as they are tasty. And they're riding a wave of popularity onto kitchen tables and into restaurants and farmers markets.
It happens on the fertile ground of Roslindale, which in this case, is the sun room in Lisa Evans and Tim Smith's home, wall to wall with microgreens. "Microgreens are the edible seedlings of vegetables and herbs," Smith explains.
They grow pea microgreens, arugula microgreens, buckwheat microgreens and many more baby plants that are harvested a week to 10 days after planting. Tim and Lisa used to teach in Boston, now they're small business people. The enterprise is simply called We Grow Microgreens.
"Every microgreen has the taste of the vegetable that it is the baby of. So the broccoli microgreen tastes like broccoli," Lisa says.
"Some of them are spicy, such as the radish. The sunflower is a mild microgreen that has a nutty flavor. People will use them for salads, certainly adding them into soups and for sandwiches," Tim adds.
They sell at farmers markets and to restaurants and a small number of stores. Besides the intense flavor, microgreens are packed with nutrients because with young plants the nutrients are concentrated.
"Every microgreen has different vitamins, different antioxidents, so when they eat a large variety of microgreens they're getting a lot of different nutrients," according to Lisa.
The business is just a year old, and a big change, but for Tim and Lisa, the risk is worth it. "We wanted to take our passion for growing plants into something we could do on a daily basis," Lisa says.
"It's a big roll of the dice, but sometimes you've got to find something you really enjoy. And I really enjoy working with plants," says Tim.
The next business challenge for We Grow Microgreens is to find space to expand. They're outgrowing the sun room and a greenhouse in their backyard.
To find out where the products are sold visit: www.wegrowmicrogreens.com
