City boy leaves Las Vegas to become microgreen farmer in Kane County

ELBURN – The greenhouse was long, its growing pans divided by a narrow passage. Its air was suffused with the rich smell of damp dirt mixed with thousands of tiny leaves.

“So we have kale here. We have broccoli, cauliflower,” Carlos Palomares said, gently touching the greenery.

At a year old this month, the greenhouse of Mighty Greens Farm on Hughes Road near Elburn is anything but ordinary. It grows microgreens and petite greens all year that owner Palomares, 30, of Batavia, supplies to local restaurants, the tiny leaves destined for salads and garnishes. He sells the rest at the Geneva Green Market on Thursdays and the St. Charles Farmer's Market on Fridays.

“We sell out of our greens at the St. Charles Farmer’s Market every week,” Palomares said. “They love the petite mix; they love the micro mix. … I bring as much as I can, and we sell out almost every time. People buy the microgreens for their salads, but mostly just to eat them by themselves. And they don’t even have a preference. If there’s greens on the table, they will take those greens.”

A microgreen is when the plant sends up its first two leaves, called cotyledons. A petite green is when the second set of leaves form.

A petite green is a little bigger – such as tiny lettuces that are harvested by cutting them off at the soil line with scissors. Palomares said the growing tray is dumped to compost for the farm’s outside garden, and a new soil mix is used for the next set of microgreens or petite greens to begin.

He buys certified organic soil from a company in Wisconsin, mixes it with vermiculite and waters everything from a hose on-site.

“That’s it,” Palomares said.

Microgreens and petite greens are different from sprouts – which are germinated seeds – that most people are more familiar with, Palomares said.

Chefs seek the micro basil, red streaked mizuna, shungiku, dill, celery, fennel, chervil, lemon basil, Persian cress, red-veined sorrel, bok choy, hon tsai tai, kohlrabi, beets, cilantro and arugula for garnishes, various dishes, salads and appetizers, he said.

Roberto Abila, owner of Altiro Latin Fusion in Geneva, said he buys petite arugula, cilantro, romaine and radishes from Mighty Greens.

“It’s very important to buy from local people; it’s important that it be fresh, organic produce,” Abila said. “I’ve been to his farm twice. He’s got really, really good stuff.”

Palomares uses a small roller to create furrows in which to plant the seeds and marks what it is with a plastic fork. But the real magic, he said, happens in his homemade germination chamber, where warmth and humidity speed up the germination process from a week or more down to one to three days.

“So this germination chamber speeds everything up by 65 percent,” Palomares said. “We made this ourselves. We have a heating element in there in water that produces steam, which brings this to 75 degrees, all-year-round temperature. No matter what it is outside, it’s 75 degrees [in here] and humid.”

His process causes nearly 100 percent germination of seeds, Palomares said.

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Palomares came by his farming knowledge from working at Heritage Prairie Farm under the tutelage of the late Ted Richter and other farm managers there, not bad for a city kid raised in Las Vegas. He was born in Mexico and came to the United States with his parents when he was 6.

“Growing up in Las Vegas, my parents had to work to support us,” Palomares said.

The second of seven children, he said he used to run around, joined a gang at age 11 and dropped out of school in eighth grade, eventually moving back to Mexico for four years.

He worked as a commercial fisherman during that time, Palomares said, moving back to Las Vegas when he was 18 years old.

“We got into a situation where we were at a party and my friend ... got shot at and was killed,” Palomares. “My other friend got shot, and he survived.”

He said to himself, “What am I doing here?”

At age 22, he decided to move away from Las Vegas.

“I had to find an opportunity to do something better with my life,” Palomares said. “And when I found Illinois, I knew that my godfather lived here. And it was the farthest place from Las Vegas that I wanted to be.”

Palomares arrived in Illinois on Mother’s Day 2008 to live with his godfather, Victor Ahumada in Elgin. His godfather knew the owners of Heritage Prairie near Elburn, who had asked if he knew someone who could work at the farm, Palomares said.

Three days later, Palomares got his chance at making a better life for himself.

“When I got there, my friend, Ted Richter picked me up – he was the first person I met in Illinois. And he told me to weed around trees. … And I was thinking to myself, ‘What am I doing here?’ Around 10 o’clock, I’m going to get up, walk away, make my way back to the airport and go back to Las Vegas.”

Then Richter and another farm manager came to Palomares at 10 a.m. and said, “Come on, we’re going to go weed the fields.”

“I saw all these vegetables planted there, and I had this ‘Ahhhh’ moment. I said, ‘OK, I’ll give this a shot,’ ” Palomares said. “Being on my knees, weeding, was a therapeutic thing. It separated me from Las Vegas right away and the life that I had lived. I started seeing something new.”

The next year, he became a full-time employee living at the farm.

“By the time I was ready to leave Heritage Prairie, I had this idea for a microgreen business,” Palomares said. “That is something I wanted to do on my own. … To grow microgreens all year round, that means there is a steady income all year round.”

Palomares got a job managing a microgreens operation in Kansas City, Missouri, where he learned even more.

Another benefit to working at Heritage Prairie was meeting the woman who would become wife, Katie. They will be married two years in November, and they have a 3-year-old son, Henry, and 3-month-old son, George.

Katie Palomares said she is going back to school part time to become a dietitian.

“It took him a little time to get the confidence to go out and do this on his own,” Katie Palomares, 29, said of her husband. “He had it in him all along. I know he did.”

Katie Palomares said she was born and raised in Batavia, graduated from Batavia High School with the Class of 2004, went to the University of Illinois and spent one year studying in Scotland.

“We come from very different places, so I can’t pretend to know everything he’s gone through,” Katie Palomares said. “I grew up in Batavia and was very privileged and always had everything I could want. He did not grow up with that life or childhood. And to come so far and to be so passionate about what he doing is a very neat thing to see. I am very proud of him.”