Written by Jenna Rice
Last Thursday, our team experienced our first all-staff group outing. While it did not (yet) entail getting matching CHFP tattoos, we welcomed the opportunity to tour Mi(crogreens) Oh My(celium) Farms, a worker-owned cooperative and educational organization who’s vision of a more equitable, sustainable and just food system aligns with our own. On this spring day peppered in sunlight, we gathered outside of an apartment building in the Bronx, none of us anticipating what a singularly magical place we were about to enter.
You read that right, and perhaps rolled your eyes at my flowery words. But for us at CHFP, it was as if we went through C.S. Lewis’s famed wardrobe into Narnia. The farm is located down an unassuming hallway, and through an apartment door as…it is operating within an apartment space. Inside you are greeted by tall shelves of vertical trays displaying lush, vibrant, tiny plants of varying color and texture, lit from above by grow lights. It is a space entirely unexpected, and we were awestruck. Additionally, if you go around the corner to a back room, you discover the space where the team grows Oyster mushrooms, using substrate made from sawdust and donated coffee grounds.
The organization started summer of 2020 by Joél Mejia, who was successfully growing and selling microgreens at Bronx farmers markets. He utilized the space to train passionate now worker-owners on how to grow microgreens through a method called hydroponic farming. Incredibly space efficient (ideal for a city apartment) – the plants are placed vertically on growing trays where they germinate, their tiny leaves stretching up and out into the world. This system requires significantly less water, as it gets cycled through and reused. It is sustainable, inexpensive and practical – you just need plants, a vessel to grow them in, a way to anchor the plants, water, nutrients and a light source. Mi Oh My Farms is “dedicated to powering a local economy that can provide alternative means of buying food and earning income”, and part of the educational aspect of the organization is teaching folx how to do this from their own apartments and spaces. Visiting the farm is proof that it is possible.
To clarify – microgreens do differ from sprouts. Both are young plants; the sprouts as per MOMF’s site are the babies, but the microgreens are the teenagers. Sprouts grow for five days, whereas microgreens grow from 7-15 days, each ready to harvest rather quickly. MOMF grows micro versions of plants we know (and love): sunflowers, pea shoots (which are hearty, tasty and protein packed. Our entire team snacked on them after the tour) kale, broccoli, rambo & daikon radishes (so fresh and spicy) arugula, cabbage, and kohlrabi. With a concentrated nutrient content, microgreens can contain as much as 4 to 40 times more vitamins and minerals than their fully-grown counterparts. Who knew? Additionally, microgreens can be used in a variety of ways – in tacos, sushi, in smoothies, on pasta – the opportunities appear somewhat endless. Aside from the added health benefits, they are delicious and have varying taste profiles that nod to their fully-grown counterparts. For example, the radish microgreens are zesty and piquant tasting – offering the flavor of a radish but in more delicate (but still crunchy) form. And they are lovely to look at. My eyes kept returning to the rambo microgreens, whose stems are a shade of neon white- purple-pink. The tiny leaves called cotyledons, who, through photosynthesis are responsible for providing the plant the energy it needs to grow, were a rich, dark purple. If shrunken down and given the opportunity to explore a tiny, verdant jungle, I think I’d pick that of rambo microgreens (and since this is all fantastical, there would ideally be friendly sloths there, too).
Recently, I was speaking with Louise – our chef/coordinator extraordinaire who leads the farmshare at Riverside, about the importance of grounding ourselves by reconnecting with nature. She said you can do this by taking off your shoes, removing the rubber soles that separate us from the earth, and walking barefoot in grass. Being at the farm, with greens growing abundantly and happily, surrounded by staff passionate to teach and share (thank you Marc, Carla and Sydney!), I could feel that connection to nature. It was finding that quiet corner of it in such an unexpected place–and learning we can have it, too, in our own spaces. And that even what seems like the tiniest of things can have a mighty impact. MOMF is such a cool place, and we are excited to partner with them further by selling their greens at our Riverside site.
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