Christina
Mehlhorn
June 3
Growing & Business
Last week during a delivery, one of the restaurant managers receiving a batch of cilantro greens made a comment about possibly wanting more to be added to their order either the upcoming week or in the near future. I was curious to see what was going to happen this week with that comment. Would more be added? Would they be planning to increase their yield of cilantro to accommodate this request? I found it ironic that I went into this Friday's harvest with that mindset because the opposite ended up happening with the trays of cilantro that were to be harvested for delivery. We encountered a batch of cilantro greens whose yields were well below what they needed to be in order to fulfill the number of small and large containers needed for deliveries. The decision was made to use only small containers and fill as any as we could to the right number of ounces. Founder Oliver Homberg, in the thick of the harvest,
also agreed with that decision. He elaborated on his position, detailing that their company prides itself on the quality of its product, therefore quantity would always be sacrificed for the sake of quality. Regardless of if a company makes public their choice to go the way of quality, I think Homberg and his team set a standard that I believe businesses in our day should all follow.
During some point in the week when I was not making a visit to the farm, the air conditioner in their space broke for a few days. As a result of this, the humidity in the farm became a difficult factor to control. It does not take a trained professional to know that humidity and leafy greens are not the perfect combination. I had noticed that a couple trays of basil had chunks of them without any greens growing and soil that looked much fresher. Curious to find out more, I asked someone about it. They had explained the air conditioner situation and how it had quickly caused mold to begin growing on some of the trays. In order to stop the spread and protect that plants, the Head of Cultivation cut out the section effected by the mold, replacing the old plants and soil with a new fresh patch of soil. In my mind I equated this strategy with a forest fire technique wherein first responders burn an outline of the forest so that the
larger fire stops when it reaches the created outline. I had never thought of using that type of strategy for growing greens. I had always been taught that a certain crop was pretty much doomed and to stop that spread from going to other trays, the whole thing should be sacrificed. It was nice to know that there are less grandiose measures that can be taken to protect a crop, especially these trays of microgreens that have basically already been sold even before they have been seeded.