Ontario Agri-food Award of Excellence for Greenbelt Microgreens

Greenbelt Microgreens came on the scene about a year ago. The company, having recently won an Ontario Premier’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence, was started by a former landscaper named Ian Adamson. And he’s sure done his homework. Eco-conscious himself, he decided to figure out exactly what modern consumers would like to see in salad greens — and the results certainly push all the right buttons.

Greenbelt’s lettuces (plus pea greens and a variety of microgreens) are grown locally in greenhouses, like so much of what we eat today. Yet they’re not hydroponically raised. Instead, these lettuces develop in their own individual small pots filled with soil — just like out in the garden.

The pots, a Canadian invention, are made from the same kind of cardboard as egg cartons, so they can be composted after use. Then the soil: it’s a certified organic mix, formulated especially for Greenbelt, of 30-per-cent quality compost, plus all kinds of good stuff: sea weed, shrimp casings, coir, manure (from organically fed dairy cows in Quebec) coir, and a bit of perlite and vermiculite. It’s compostable too. And when the pots get watered, they receive a further boost from the fertilizer organic gardeners love: fish emulsion.

“Everything about our production is organic, but the soil has been the key to everything,” Adamson says. “You grow a good product in quality soil, it lasts better, it has a longer shelf life, and it isn’t bothered by bugs.”

In fact, Greenbelt’s greenhouses, in Gormley and Lynden, near Brantford, Ont., don’t see a whiff of any kind of pesticide.

“So far, pests haven’t been a problem,” Adamson adds with a satisfied grin.

Most greenhouses now recycle all their water — as does Greenbelt. They’ve also incorporated other energy-saving features, including a kind of glass that lets UV rays get through.

Read more at the Toronto Star