Welcome to Week 13!
We know how much you all love microgreens, and we're as sad as you are that we haven't had them for a few weeks. Here's what's going on.
There are so many factors that influence microgreens, that when we have a problem with them, it takes a lot of different trials to isolate the variable or variables that are causing trouble. For the last few weeks, our trays simply haven't been germinating. We normally harvest 65-70 pounds of microgreens/shoots each week, and we've been down to about 20 pounds total! After ruling out days to maturity, germination chamber temperature, sunlight intensity and growing temperature, we've finally settled on the soil being the issue. We recently got a new batch of soil ingredients, and one of the components, the compost, we think is too "hot" which means it wasn't properly finished when it came to us. Consequently, it is "burning" our seedlings and inhibiting their germination.
The good news is that we think we know the problem, so we can fix it! We're using a rapidly dwindling pile of old compost that doesn't burn seedlings until a new batch of soil arrives. From this week on, microgreens, arugula microgreens, pea shoots and sunflower shoots should be in full supply (barring any other unforeseen circumstances - there aren't many guarantees in farming!).
Have a great week and enjoy the return of the microgreens!
Katherine and Spencer
