A Note from Sara

I've been drinking more tea lately. Not for any particular health reason — though the health reasons exist and we'll get to those — but because the ritual of it slows me down. June on the farm is relentless. The heat is here to stay, the humidity turns every task into a workout, and there's a constant low-grade urgency to everything: check the water levels, adjust the nutrients, harvest before the afternoon thunderstorm rolls in. Making a cup of tea forces me to stand still for three minutes, and some days that's the only stillness I get.

This month marks three years since we started Wholly Water Farms. Three years. I've been thinking about that a lot — what I expected, what actually happened, what I'd tell someone standing where I stood in June 2023 with a business plan and a lot of optimism. I wrote some of those reflections down, and I'm sharing them in this newsletter alongside a deep dive into the science of tea (specifically the L-theanine and caffeine interaction, which is genuinely fascinating) and a practical guide to wholesale pricing for microgreens.

Pour yourself something warm. Let's sit with this one.

What We're Reading

L-Theanine and Caffeine: The Science of Tea's Calm Focus

Tea contains two compounds that, taken separately, do very different things to your brain. Caffeine stimulates. L-theanine calms. But consumed together — as they naturally occur in tea — they produce something neither does alone: a state of alert calm. Focused relaxation. That sounds like a contradiction, but the research supports it. EEG studies show that L-theanine increases alpha brain wave activity, which is associated with relaxed attention, while caffeine sharpens focus and reaction time. The combination may explain why tea drinkers often describe feeling "calmly energized" rather than jittery. I went deep into the published research on this, and what I found is more compelling than I expected.

Read about the science of tea →

Wholesale Microgreens Pricing Guide

Pricing is the part of farming that nobody wants to talk about, and it's the part that sinks more small operations than bad weather ever does. I underpriced our microgreens for the first eight months because I was afraid of scaring away customers. What I was actually doing was undervaluing our product and making the math unsustainable. This guide shares what I've learned about wholesale pricing — how to calculate your true cost of production (including the costs you're probably forgetting), how to set prices that reflect the quality of your product, and how to have pricing conversations with chefs and restaurant buyers without feeling like you're negotiating a hostage situation.

Read the pricing guide →

Three Years of Growing: Farm Reflections

Three years ago this month, I harvested our first commercial tray of sunflower microgreens. My hands were shaking. Not from nerves, exactly — more from the weight of realizing that this was real now. We'd gone from "interesting idea" to "actual business that needs to feed actual people." This piece is personal. It's about the crops that failed, the equipment that broke at the worst possible time, the customer relationships that sustained us through slow months, and the slow accumulation of knowledge that eventually becomes competence. It's also about what I still don't know, which is plenty.

Read the three-year reflections →

Seasonal Tip: Summer Growing Adjustments

June through September is the toughest growing season in Florida, even in a controlled environment. Here are three adjustments I make every June: First, I shift our harvest times to early morning — ideally before 8 AM — when plant cells are fully turgid and temperatures are lowest. This extends shelf life noticeably. Second, I increase our watering frequency but decrease the volume per watering to keep roots consistently moist without creating standing water that breeds pathogens in the heat. Third, I switch our grow light schedule to run during cooler nighttime hours whenever possible, reducing heat load in the greenhouse during the day.

Florida Spotlight: Florida Farm Bureau

The Florida Farm Bureau doesn't get the attention it deserves among small-scale growers, partly because people associate it with large commodity agriculture. But they offer resources that apply to operations of any size: advocacy on agricultural policy issues that affect all of us, educational programs, networking events where you meet other growers facing the same challenges, and liability insurance options that can be hard to find elsewhere. I joined two years ago, somewhat skeptically, and it's been more valuable than I anticipated. The connections alone — being in a room with people who understand what it means to build a farm business in Florida — have been worth the membership fee many times over.

Quick FAQ

Q: How do I approach restaurants about buying my microgreens?

A: Bring samples. That's the short answer. The longer answer: research the restaurant first. Look at their menu. Understand what they're already serving. Then bring a small sampler of three or four varieties that would actually work with their cuisine, along with a simple price sheet and your contact information. Go during off-hours — Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon, never during Friday dinner service. Talk to the chef, not the manager. And be prepared to hear "not right now" several times before you hear "yes." Persistence matters, but so does reading the room. If a chef seems genuinely uninterested, thank them for their time and move on. The right restaurant partnerships are built on mutual enthusiasm, not hard selling.

Until Next Month

Three years in, I still wake up most mornings looking forward to walking into the greenhouse. That hasn't changed, and I hope it never does. What has changed is my understanding of how much I don't control — weather, markets, supply chains, the stubborn refusal of certain basil varieties to behave — and my willingness to be at peace with that uncertainty. Growing things teaches you that. You plant the seed, you do your best, and you trust the process.

Thank you for being part of this community. Whether you've been reading since issue one or this is your first newsletter, I'm glad you're here.

Keep growing,
Sara Johnson
President, Wholly Water Farms