La Center farm takes eco-friendly approach to growing, selling microgreens

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After years of traveling and spending three decades as a teacher, artist and chef, Therese Livella of La Center is “returning to her roots to grow microgreens” and is dedicated to reducing landfill waste during the process. 

“Microgreens are very nutritious and thinking in terms with climate change they’re a quick, easy to grow crop that is very nutritious,” she said last week. “So they can be grown completely indoors or outdoors if the weather is permitting.”  

Livella’s decision to transition her hobby farm into a business was twofold: she began to grow weary after years on the road while, meanwhile, her farm was reaching a point of needing full-time management. 

“I used to travel for a living and I got very tired of being on the road and away from home,” she said. “We live in La Center so as our farm was growing and we kept adding more chickens and animals, it became harder and harder to travel for work, so I had to find something that would keep me here, some way to make money at the farm.” 

To meet that end, Last summer Livella launched Harvest of Peace Microgreens.

Harvest of Peace grows small batch microgreens, the young shoots of edible plants, using 100% reusable packaging and operates as a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) business. With this model, they offer a monthly subscription that brings a weekly delivery of microgreens to your door as well as an optional newsletter with recipes and farm culture. 



“Everything is grown to order so I have very little food waste,” Livella said. “A big focus of my business to keep things as simple and practical as possible (while being) nutritious.”

Harvest of Peace uses canning jars and organic cotton lids to package their greens. Livella hopes that using canning jars instead of regular glass jars will encourage her customers to bring their jars back after finishing a crop. 

“It’s so it (the jar) doesn’t wind up in the recycle bin because canning jars are kind of like gold,” she explained. “Either you use them or you give them to a friend who will use them or you give them back to me.” 

All of Livella’s 10 different microgreens are grown indoors and take anywhere from seven to 14 days to grow depending on the crop. 

Sunflower shoots are among Livella’s favorites, given their heartiness. 

“Sunflower shoots have six grams of protein in just a quarter cup of greens,” Livella said, adding that she often uses sunflowers in place of spinach.