Late brother inspires green business
You’ve heard of the milkman, but now greater Christchurch residents can get a visit from the microgreen man.
Don Murchie and Jess Murchie-Brown – and their two children Harlem, 7, and Koa, 2 – have been growing and selling four varieties of microgreens on their four-hectare lifestyle block in Tai Tapu for about two months.
Twice a week they harvest tiny pea, broccoli, radish and sunflower shoots, which are then delivered to local restaurants and home buyers, many of whom have a weekly subscription.
Their farm is called Brown Acres, in honour of Murchie-Brown’s late brother Andrew Brown, who died in 2019 from diabetes. ‘‘We wanted a healthier lifestyle, and to slow down a bit,’’ Murchie said.
‘‘Losing Andrew, that’s why we started looking into microgreens, and their health benefits. The farm is actually named after him.’’
The family returned home from sorting out Brown’s superannuation in Australia just in time to get stuck in lockdown with MurchieBrown’s mum.
In that time, Murchie badly broke his ankle in a cycling crash, and found out he would not return to work as a builder.
‘‘When we found this place, I was freaking out because I didn’t want to do farming,’’ Murchie-Brown said.
‘‘I don’t like working in the cold. I like animals, but I didn’t want to work with them, and I didn’t want to miss out on time with the kids. A friend was able to build our whole grow-shed out of refrigerator panels, so it’s the perfect temperature and humidity . . . and it’s still technically farming.’’
Murchie-Brown said they did extensive research before starting their operation.
‘‘We wanted to get it perfect before we got it on the market . . . we’ve got it down to a fine art.’’
Each of the four varieties grows at different rates with the radish taking just nine days, and the broccoli up to 14, but they need to be ready at the same time to be picked for delivery.
‘‘For us, the health benefits are number one,’’ Murchie-Brown said.
Microgreens have between four and 40 times more nutrients than their fully grown counterparts, and Brown Acres is getting a full nutritional panel done on its produce to figure out exactly how much of each vitamin is in them. Growing them is sustainable too.
The family’s vertical farming method uses 95 per cent less water, and six times less land to grow the same amount of produce. They also use compostable packaging, made from corn.