RINCON — Kate Talbott is sneaky. Fortunately, she uses her craftiness strictly for wholesome purposes.
Talbott occasionally slips microgreens into her children’s food. She gets them from the business she operates in her Long Acre Road garage, Ebenezer Greens.
“It’s an added bonus if you are super health conscious or you want those extra nutrients,” Talbott said. “I put them in meat loaf for my kids and they don’t really taste it. They will still eat them.
“They won’t eat a salad. They won’t necessarily eat their vegetables super well but I can sneak them in like that and they will eat them.”
Microgreens are young vegetables that are approximately 1-3 inches tall.
“Basically, they are a micro version of a bigger plant,” Talbott said. “Like usually, arugula is normally a big leaf. The microgreens version grows from seven to 15 days.
“Really, you grow all of them for seven to 15 days and then you harvest them when they are super dense with those nutrients.”
Talbott heavily insulated garage is filled with trays loaded with green, pink and purple plants. The offerings, which benefit from bright lights, include sunflower, radish, mustard, amaranth, pea, cilantro, basil, chervil, cabbage, arugula, broccoli, kale, leeks, wheatgrass, bok choy, kohlrabi and more.
“There is a wide variety,” said Talbott, who recently planted some carrots for herself.
Talbott packages the microgreens in sealed plastic containers that she sells for $5 each at farmers markets in the Savannah/Hilton Head Island, S.C., area. Most of the containers feature a microgreens mixture.
“The people can put them on a salad, put them on wraps, put them on eggs or whatever,” she said. “Microgreens are super versatile. They add lots of flavor and texture to your meals.”
Talbott and her husband, Jon, got into microgreens business almost by accident.
“We have 200 blueberry bushes in the back so we had kind of dabbled with the whole farming business and growing our own stuff,” she said. “We have some garden boxes out back so we are growing some tomatoes and that kind of thing, too, just for fun. It’s kind of neat to be able to go out into the garden and say, ‘Hey, what am I having for dinner tonight?’”
Their business was born out of the realization that they couldn’t consume all the fruits and vegetables their property produced.
“We looked for ways to just market and make money out of farming,” Talbott said.
Talbott has been a stay-at-home mom for the six years but her youngest child is about to reach school age.
“So I have been wondering, ‘What am I going to do once they are both in school full time?’” she said. “I was playing around with the idea of selling microgreens on my own but starting up a business really scared me and I think God knew that.”
Taboltt’s future became clearer after visiting meeting former Ebenezer Greens owner Angie Mee at a farmers market about three weeks ago.
She explained, “I walked right up to her and said, ‘Where exactly are you located?’ She said, ‘In Rincon, Georgia.’ As it turns out, she lives about a mile down the road close to Ebenezer Elementary (School).
“It was kind of crazy.”
Mee informed Talbott that she will be moving in July and wanted to sell her business. Talbott pounced at the opportunity to purchase it, completing the deal June 4.
“God basically laid it out on a silver platter for me,” she said. “The whole start-up of a business was resolved for me. (Mee) had the whole nest egg right there for me.”
Talbott said she is still learning about growing microgreens. Her husband expanded his knowledge by watching YouTube videos, she added.
“I’m kind of at capacity right now,” she said. “I’m at the point where I need to get some more lights if I want to grow at all, which I do, but at the same time I want to get my bearings first.”
Taboltt, who is considering making her products available to restaurants, can be reached at 919-353-5341, ebenezergreens@gmail.com, m.facebook.com/ebenezergreens or @ebenezergreens on Instagram.
