Local Saturday - Infiniti Greens

This is not a good day in the Binghamton, New York area to go outside.  Right now, at my house, it is 3 degrees F (-16C) with winds gusting to 40 mph (64 kmh).

So today, I am going to take you inside, to a business incubator in downtown Binghamton, New York.  In October it had an open house. 

This past summer, in the small farmers market downtown, a couple of college students were selling microgreens.   These are not sprouts, but rather actual baby plants, with one or two sets of true leaves.

At the market, the business, Infiniti Greens, snips your plants to order with some scissors and places in a clamshell for transport.  You can't get any fresher than that.

Depending on the day, the plants include sunflower (my personal favorite), radish, mustard greens, red cabbage, pea shoots  (spouse's favorite) and more.  As you can see, the trays are colorful. 

Prices are reasonable.  This business is run by two Binghamton University seniors, Joe Rigoroso and Ray Gochuico.  Joe is a business administration major and Ray a biology major.

This past summer, the business moved into the incubator, and their founders have great hopes for the future of the business.   The greens can be used as a salad, salad toppings, as a garnish, or many other uses.  Note, these are not sprouts.  The seed and root are not eaten.  You can run into bacteria problems with sprouts.  I'm told this method avoids that problem.

Here's a view showing some of the equipment.

I wasn't able to have a long talk with Joe during the open house, as he was preparing plants for the next day's farmers market in another part of Binghamton.   The business also sells microgreens to several downtown Binghamton restaurants and a food co op.

Microgreens can be grown at home, too.  We've just never tried it.

The incubator building itself is less than a year old and looks futuristic inside.

What a wonderful place for a small urban farm.  The unsuspecting pedestrian would never guess what is growing inside this building.

Day 6 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge #blogboost.