Hi guy's, cool to find a microgreen thread without joining regular gardening sites. Forgot I was a RIU member too so figured I would hop onboard.
I've really been looking into growing microgreens lately. Of course i'm starting out small as of now and hoping to improve my families diet, but can't help thinking about scaling up and setting up a decent sized operation, and a legit business to grow into. I do understand its a grind and you have to stay busy to be successful, and not exactly like all the YT videos make it out.. or is it?
I live on the dark side of the hill (no direct sunlight on my greenhouses after september and all winter) so figure container gardening would be the way to go. I'm thinking 45-53 ft semi dry van trailers insulated with foam (reefer trailers seem nasty like an old burned out fridge and cost double), and partitioned into different rooms. Already possibly have one here I can start working on now, and they are cheap to come by around here anyway so I could keep adding more as I go, hopefully never dealing with a lot of people or farmest markets, and just filling large orders like the supermarkets, etc.
It seems like buying all the plastic and especially steel racks alone would cost more than the used dry van so I would probably make simple PVC pipe racks to save cost. Food grade no but I would plan on automating the entire system with makeshift NFT trays to sit on them anyway because who wants to water flats all day by hand?
As for lighting on a large scale like i'm talkin about, I was thinking about just using the lowest wattage housdehold 60w or less equivalent screw in LED bulbs possible with the globes removed if needed, and cheap chinese ebay $4 10 packs of base sockets all wired up in rows.
Those shop lights do look nice and have a slim profile. 77.34/200= $0.3867 per watt right? That's not too bad. Pretty sure I could beat it though and save thousands if lighting a whole trailers full of racks with screw in bulbs from walmart instead?.
Also, might even be able to install a hoop house on top the trailers, for spring and summer times. I got so many idea's coming..
Oh yeah and another one, suppose I could take any old junk travel trailer I got around the property, gut it out and spray foam the walls, and hook up a cool bot device to an AC , and also an onboard generator strapped down, and have a ghetto reefer trailer to haul large orders basically anywhere with my little trucks for cheap..
That's all for now, I'll chime in again soon
-drop