Let us eat lettuce. Easier said than done these days. My friend Nina mentioned a great local alternative for fresh and clean leafy greens, Grow Space right here in Kenosha. And of course as we retirees like to do we made an adventure of it.
We took a quick drive to the central City on Roosevelt Road (remember the old Scandinavian Design Furniture store?) and your there with easy parking and accessibility. Walk right in and your hit with science meets service, high tech meets humankind. The cozy lobby has a cooler where you can purchase the daily harvest and check out what’s new on the bulletin boards. Giant glass windows let you peek into the hydroponic leafy “field.”
Owner and co-founder (along with his dad) Robert Carlson was there to greet us and graciously talked us through our first visit. Robert took a hydroponics course in high school and recognized its potential locally. He studied the industry noticing some hydro-farms failed quickly. He came up with a business model that focused on the plants that had the greatest success when grown in water and the size of the Hydroponic field that made sense for the physical space along with the local market demand.
Grow Space is an amazing “green,” sustainable and environmentally friendly operation. The water used recirculates in a closed loop system. It runs on LED lights only at night. Its carbon footprint is half of what a traditional farm has. Check out their website for the science and back up data to support this and more. They have done their homework.
And it’s good for you. because the “field” is indoors behind a glass wall with no dirt there are no bugs, no runoff and nothing sprayed on your food. No pesticides. Indoors also means there’s no off season so January lettuce is as fresh as June lettuce. You purchase bunches of leafy greens (a living plant) with the root ball still intact so that the plant continues to absorb water from the air and keeps its nutrients and stays fresher longer.
There is a changing selection of leafy greens and micro greens available each day. There are more types of leafy lettuce than I’ve ever heard of: romaine, red oak leaf, buttercrunch, summer crisp, arugula, kale. Microgreens (the little baby plants that have the most nutritional value and look so fancy) include broccoli, arugula, peas, radishes mustard and turnips. Basil plants are available as well. Check daily availability (yes, on their website) as plants are grown on a rotating basis and picked daily as they mature. What you buy was picked the same day. That’s fresh. And you can order online for pick up!
But how does it taste? (This is where our adventure gets really good.) We treated ourselves to lunch at home to enjoy a DIY salad bar. Try it, you’ll love it. Crisp texture. Bright colors. Fresh and clean flavors. We purchased Romain and Red Oak Leaf lettuces and added salad toppings we had on hand. What a treat! The quality of this product is evidenced by the fact that the several local restaurants only purchase their greens from Grow Space. See which ones on their website. Follow up: I also purchased kale which I brought home and used 10 days later! It was a fresh and tasty addition to homemade pasta sauce.
Grow Space is a local, family business producing an excellent product in a sustainable manner and worthy of your support. It’s good and good for you. More importantly, go there and get educated on why this is so important! I’m glad I did.
Kenosha is a great place to live, work, play and retire.
Learn more about Grow Space by checking out our archived interview blog call "Revolutionizing Agriculture: The Story of Grow Space Vertical Farms"
