little guy greens is growing up!

little guy greens is growing up!

a year ago, my teeny urban farm moved out of the spare room of my apartment and into its first commercial space. it felt like a big legitimization of the project - a real farm, a real company! it's been a long and tumultuous story through the lockdown era, but i've never stopped growing sunnies to share with the world. i've been doing this all on my own for a couple years now, and i'm learning to embrace the support that you all have showered me with all this time.

today, i'm getting ready to move once again to expand my dorky little space farm. i've signed the three year lease, and i'm relocating to another unit on the same property in georgetown that is better suited for the farm's long term needs.

it's a little bigger, it's on the ground floor (instead of hauling everything up stairs after the market!), it has a dividing wall to separate grow space from harvest space. it has a store front facing the street, with big windows! it's everything the farm needs to thrive and grow to the size i dream of it being - not much bigger, but a little bigger.

that expansion comes with some costs, of course. so i'm reaching out to the community i've been sharing vegetables with all these years to help fund the expansion. five bucks here, five bucks there - anything helps with a small operation like mine!

grow infrastructure ~$1k

i've slowly built out racks 3 and 4 to double my production capacity, but the racks are currently 'dumb' and hand watered without the automation that's been running on racks 1 and 2 for years. i need pumps, flood tables, and a reservoir - infrastructure investments that don't come cheap. and i need more grow trays, stat!

tenant improvements ~$1k

the new unit currently has carpet... we're ripping it out to expose the concrete, and seal it for my wet operations. oh, to be able to freely mop! paying the labor and materials for this one is the biggest expense, at least 1k but perhaps more with labor added for all the waterproofing operations.

big restocks ~$1k

oh, to have storage space! i can finally order a pallet of these compostable food service containers and save big on cost - it ain't cheap to insist on the compostable plastic. i can finally buy a pallet of hydroponic medium instead of getting nickeled and dimed on a bale here and a bale there.

with this expansion comes more greens every week, more varieties, and fewer sellouts for this big busy summer at the market! i'm eyeing some bigger retailers here in the city to see if i can get the sunnies on some store shelves, and every square inch i grow out helps make that seem like less of a crazy idea. anything and everything helps. i love this little community we have in the farmers markets in seattle, and i love sharing the sunnies with you all every sunday.

let's keep growing this dream together!