Introduction

As a microgreen grower, you have hundreds of options for varieties to learn, grow, and sell. With nearly unlimited options, you need to determine the crops and cultivars desired most by your various customer segments. Not only do you need to determine what to grow, but also in what order. When you’re beginning, you have limited bandwidth. Picking a payment processor, creating a bank account, building a website, and finding customers all compete for your time as a grower. So, the most comprehensive question you should ask yourself is the following. “What crops should I grow and in what order should I learn to grow them to maximize my chances of attracting and retaining customers to make my farm profitable as soon as possible?”

This article is NOT meant to be a grow guide. Although we’ve written a few grow guides, plenty of other educators have created great videos and blogs about how to grow most crops. This article attacks the question from a financial perspective using my six years of experience at Piedmont Microgreens. Below is a table outlining what crops to grow and the sequence to learn them, as well as their difficulty to perfect and their general market demand. Note that the table doesn’t simply move from easiest to hardest or least to most profitable. The estimated gross profit margin assumes you’re selling to restaurants, not wholesalers or home consumers. The market demand is an average across all customer segments. I’ve lumped multiple crops into distinct “phases.” Many crops have the same or similar seeds, sowing densities, and grow parameters. You might as well learn them together to build your menu faster.

The Sequence

Phase	Crops	Difficulty to Perfect	Gross Profit Margin	Market Demand
1	Radish	Easy (1/10)	84%	Moderate (6/10)
1	Pea, Basic	Easy (3/10)	76%	Low (3/10)
1	Broccoli	Easy (1/10)	78%	Moderate (5/10)
2	Arugula	Easy (3/10)	72%	Moderate (6/10)
2	Sunflower	Moderate (5/10)	75%	Moderate (5/10)
2	Pea, Tendril	Easy (3/10)	80%	High (8/10)
3	Cilantro	Hard (7/10)	87%	High (10/10)
4	Other Brassicas	Easy (4/10)	>75%	Moderate (5/10)
5	Blends	Moderate (4/10)	>75%	High (10/10)
6	Basil, Genovese	Hard (9/10)	87%	High (9/10)
7	Nasturtium	Easy (3/10)	84%	Moderate (5/10)
7	Beet	Hard (10/10)	86%	Moderate (6/10)
7	Chards	Moderate (6/10)	>85%	Low (4/10)
8	Onion	Moderate (4/10)	85%	Low (4/10)
8	Parsley	Hard (7/10)	85%	Low (4/10)
8	Celery	Moderate (6/10)	85%	Low (4/10)
8	Shiso	Moderate (5/10)	87%	Low (3/10)
8	Dill	Moderate (5/10)	91%	Low (2/10)
8	Fennel	Moderate (5/10)	89%	Low (1/10)
9	Chervil	Easy (3/10)	88%	Low (2/10)
9	Amaranth	Hard (7/10)	75%	Low (4/10)
9	Fava	Easy (3/10)	78%	Low (3/10)
9	Lettuce	Easy (3/10)	89%	Low (1/10)
9	Cantaloupe	Easy (3/10)	>80%	Low (2/10)
10	All Others	Varied	Varied	Low (2/10)

A few additional comments on my table.

Phase 1

Radish, broccoli, and a basic pea variety, like green pea or field pea, are three great cultivars to learn first. These three cover a lot of ground. Radish covers a spicy profile, broccoli covers a mild profile, and pea covers a sweet profile. Peas introduce you to the idea of soaking seeds, but peas are much easier than sunflower. Broccoli is also highly sought after by home consumers for its nutritional benefits. All three varieties are also very forgiving in the growing process. They all have a short learning curve, which is great when you’re also trying to put together the rest of the business.

Phase 2

In phase two, you can quickly learn arugula, sunflower, and tendril peas because they share many similarities with crops from phase one. Tendril or afila peas, depending on the supplier, grow exactly the same as basic peas, but with a different sowing density. Tendril peas rank much higher than basic peas overall. They’re in much higher demand by restaurants and wholesalers, and you can charge significantly more. Basic peas taught you the technique and importance of seed soaking, which is necessary for sunflower and tendril peas. Sunflower is a bit trickier, though, because of the persistent seed hulls. Sunflower will likely be your first annoying crop that takes more time to learn and perfect. Arugula is an easy crop to learn, and it’s popular with most customers.

Phase 3

Phase three is just cilantro. Cilantro is a pivotal crop because it’s difficult, but also highly profitable and highly desired by everyone.

Phase 4

Phase four is where your menu will grow rapidly. "Brassica" is the technical term for the crop family containing many of the most common crops, like radish, arugula, mustard, kale, broccoli, cabbage, and many more. The great thing about the Brassica family is that most of these crops are easy to learn, moderately popular, and they all grow under very similar conditions. For example, we grow broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, and kale all between 16-20g per tray, and all with a three day germination period and seven days under lights. You should be able to add three to six new crops to your menu very quickly as a result.

Phase 5

By the time you reach phase five, you should know how to grow 10-15 crops, which is more than enough to start creating blends or mixes. Blends appeal to all customer segments, but some blends are more popular than others. I suggest everyone start with two easy and approachable options, a mild blend and a spicy blend. You can steal my homework. Make the mild blend of broccoli, cabbage, and kohlrabi or kale. Make the spicy blend of arugula, radish, and mustard.

Phase 6

Phase six is like phase three. Basil is a tough crop to perfect, but it’s also in high demand. It’s not as popular or as profitable as cilantro, which is why it’s not higher in the sequence.

Phase 7

Phase seven is what adds more color to your menu. The more you sell to chefs, the more you’ll hear, “Do you have anything with more color?” As if most of the plant kingdom isn’t green. Nasturtium is in its own class of crops. It’s easy to grow, and it offers a super unique look. Many chefs will want only the leaves, not the whole shoot. You can charge a premium for these, but it means you’ll need to pluck and pack the lily pad-looking leaves individually. Chard and beet are in the same plant family, meaning they grow in similar ways. What's weird, though, is that chard varieties are much easier than beet. Try offering multiple chard varieties, like yellow, pink, and red. Together with beet, the chards add new colors to your menu. Most people can stop adding new varieties after phase seven and work on perfecting their existing crops. Spend the remaining time improving marketing, expanding sales, and otherwise focusing on the business at large.

Phase 8

Phase eight is where demand starts to drop. These varieties are fun novelties to the home consumer, rarely ordered by wholesalers, and hit or miss with chefs. You’ll want to offer most of the crops from phases eight and nine if a majority of your customers are restaurants. These varieties don't get ordered often, but they’re important for keeping chefs entertained.

Phase 9

Phase nine is similar to phase eight except, in my experience, demand for them is even lower. Thankfully, most are easy to grow, especially considering you should be an advanced grower at this point.

Phase 10

Phase ten covers everything else, including edible flowers. This group includes anise, lemon balm, mint, fenugreek, sorrel, sage, thyme, and others. Chefs will ask for these from time to time, but they’re hard to grow and not very profitable. In my experience, chefs want these for a special event or one-off menu item. They’ll order them for a few weeks, then just as quickly ditch them, leaving you with a worthless stock of seeds. I’ll make a special exception for edible flowers, which can be quite popular and profitable. Leave edible flowers for the end, though, after you’ve mastered microgreens.

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