Behind Closed Office Doors
Strangely enough the grass is greener not on the other side, but rather within the confinements of Poughkeepsie’s unused office buildings. Originally cubicles, these unoccupied offices were transformed into the Indoor Organic Gardens of Poughkeepsie (IOGOPK).
Brud Hodgkins, Karole Mundell, and Earl Crum developed the project after seeing the one million square feet of commercial space that was not being utilized in the city. Taking a stand, they decided to take that unused space and fill it with plants.
The Indoor Organic Gardens of Poughkeepsie started merely a year and a half ago and is located in the heart of the city at 316 Main Street. This startup company was looking to replenish Poughkeepsie, by doing so, Hodgkins partnered up with Mundell and Crum to create IOGOPK. As owner of the building, Hodgkins decided to recycle some of the unused insurance offices and tear everything down to make room for planting.
In an effort to provide local restaurants, stores, and schools with organic vegetables and healthy nutrients that were locally grown, they were also developing a workforce that would stimulate the community. Hiring residents of the area to work at IOGOPK became part of the plan, as it would generate employment of veterans and youth who were skilled, ready to learn, and looking for work — all while making use of unoccupied building space.
A distinct quality of this indoor garden is not only the fact that they grow all types of vegetables and nutrients like cilantro, beets, broccoli, arugula, kale, mustard, wasabi, peas, sunflowers, and more. But they also aim to produce microgreens of these products. Microgreens are the stage in the growth cycle of a vegetable when the first leaves have developed. After a seed is planted, the vegetable becomes a sprout, turns into a baby plant, and later matures. However, a microgreen is in between the stage of a sprout and a baby plant.
This tiny vegetable that has not fully developed, carries a variety of benefits that compelled the creators of IOGOPK to manufacture microgreens. By stopping the growth of vegetables at the microgreen stage, the plants have more flavor, nutrients, and garnish. These tiny vibrant leaves not only enhance food presentation but carry a more intense flavor that fully grown vegetables do not offer. The USDA has studied “in general, microgreens contained considerably higher levels of vitamins and carotenoids — about five times greater — than their mature plant counterparts.” While the nutrients consumed are greater, the flavor is also much more noticeable and fresh. For these reasons, many restaurants, stores, and even schools have begun to favor microgreens a lot more.
As many of us learned in school, the photosynthesis process is an extensive cycle that grows plants to maturity with the help of sunlight and water. So what happens when these microgreens are planted in a flat plastic box inside 4 walls? Led on a plant tour through the office by Farm Supervisor, Rahman Moore, he explained in great detail the effort behind this developing project.
Aside from buying certified organic seeds, IOGOPK does everything else in house. The process starts with filling each plastic tray with an ounce of seeds and layering it with recycled compost. “We seed them, water them, and put a wet paper towel on top before covering the tray” explained Moore. In simpler terms, this procedure helps in speeding up the germination process of the plants — the point when a seed becomes a sprout. Normally, it takes about seven days for germination, however when these plants are grown at IOGOPK, the process can take as short as 72 hours depending on what you grow.
After the three day germination period, the process of growing the plant into a microgreen varies. The flats are placed under high intensity lights and carefully monitored until they reach the perfect stage.
Using minimal amounts of water, Moore explained how the trays are filled with about 2 cups — always making they are not fully dry since these trays are constantly under heated lamps. The microgreens are placed under 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness every day. By switching the cycle of one hour on and one hour off, the plants grow at the same pace — as if they were placed outside in sunlight.
Once the microgreens reach a certain growth stage in which leaves have begun to sprout, they are brought into the office’s old conference room — now turned harvest room, to create the final product. They are cut from the trays, weighed, and packaged individually and manually by workers to then distribute to its rightful owners.
IOGOPK’s distributors have managed to expand their consumer market by selling its products to 70 or more restaurants and stores across Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New York. While local restaurants sometimes enjoy buying an entire flat at around $30 — $35, so they can cut the microgreens themselves and cook with fresh herbs, Mundell explained that most single packages retail at about $6.99 per half ounce.
The final step in IOGOPK’s microgreen process is the break down after harvesting. Once the flats have been cleared of the microgreens and the product was packaged, the compost is dumped into huge tanks in the basement of the building where they are left at a certain temperature to break down. As Moore stated, “We used to bring in compost everyday it just took too much time so Earl built these bins down here to make it easier to store.” The compost is pretty much sustainable, left to sit there and turn to black soil until it’s later used again to refill the trays and start the process once more.
Seeing as this startup is still developing, the owners hope to keep expanding in the future. Currently they are in the works of creating a new type of table and set up so as to take better advantage of the current office space they have. Starting out with long wooden tables, the idea was to fill the space with all the long flat trays of produce. With the current design, 23 flats fit within one table. However, IOGOPK wants to use as much space as possible, so a new cart design system will be able to fit 48 trays in the place of where one long table once stood. This work in progress also contains LED lights which use ⅓ less energy and does not heat up as much. By making these small changes not only is IOGOPK utilizing its space efficiently but also saving energy and cutting down on heat.
The Indoor Gardens of Poughkeepsie is also in the process of creating a program in the Poughkeepsie City School District with the help of the Healthy City Challenge. With their funding, IOGOPK plans on developing a program at Poughkeepsie’s Krieger Elementary School in which the 5th grade classroom will be fed one ounce of microgreens per day for three days over a two year period. By supplying the greens, the district will then monitor the intake and health of the kids within the two year time span to see how beneficial organic microgreens could be to the Poughkeepsie City School District — hopefully helping in IOGOPK’s expansion as a business. As IOGOPK staff explained, the nutrient content in microgreens is higher than in a full grown vegetable. “Were trying to have a healthier population, that’s why we’re trying to get into the schools now, so kids are going to be eating healthy organic food instead” explained Moore.
The use of unused office space has strangely enough benefited the residents of Poughkeepsie. As IOGOPK continues to grow, they intend on covering all one million square acres of unoccupied commercial space with microgreen gardens and make this city more organic. Despite their opening just a year and a half ago, they have managed to affect the community in a positive way, and one can only hope to see what they have in store for the future — a grass which is truly greener inside.
