building a business
Growing Microgreens at Scale: How Pinky’s Micros Learned to Breathe With Quest
Jacob Pinkston’s business, Pinky’s Micros, started on a single shelf in an apartment kitchen. During the supply-chain chaos of 2021 he began growing microgreens for his family, noticed a gap in Nashville’s restaurant scene, and decided to turn a hobby into a company.
The nickname “Pinky” dates to middle school; the “micros” arrived when chefs began asking for a reliable local source for microgreens after the pandemic disrupted national distributors. Now, Jacob and his team serve the greater Nashville area’s bustling restaurant scene with high-quality greens and edible flowers.
So, how did he go from the kitchen shelf to a scalable enterprise?
The answer lies, in part, in dehumidification.
The Garage Era: Condensation and Crop Loss
Jacob’s first expansion was a 500-sq.-ft. garage. The room leaked summer air through every crack, and two bargain dehumidifiers ran nonstop without keeping up.
“When it was humid, it would be really humid inside because the dehumidifiers that we had at that time weren’t really working well,” he recalls. Trays damped off, LEDs dripped, and energy bills climbed while harvest weight fell.
It was a start, but it was not an efficient business just yet.
Stacking Racks and Capacity in Step
Today the loft holds thirty racks—about 400 to 500 soil trays of radish, pea, sunflower, and edible-flower starts under full-spectrum LEDs. Even with constant transpiration, RH floats between 55 and 60%.
The learning curve, Jacob says, was straightforward but non-negotiable: “One Quest wasn’t enough. Then we needed two, and then we needed three.” The trio now runs 24 hours a day within the manufacturer’s recommended envelope; a thunderstorm-induced door opening only nudges RH a couple of points before the system recovers.
Numbers that make the case
Low-grain-refrigerant coils allow each Quest unit to deliver more than six pints of water per kilowatt-hour—about 40% less energy than comparable models and vastly more efficient than the online imports Jacob retired.
The coil-temperature stability also lets production run year-round.
“We control with our HVAC plus the dehumidifiers 365 days a year,” he says. Crop losses tied to damp-off have disappeared, and edible flowers such as violas and dianthus, once plagued by lingering moisture, now bloom without mildew.
Lessons for Aspiring Indoor Growers
Jacob’s experience boils down to three rules.
- Seal the room first; an open envelope will overwhelm any equipment.
- Size dehumidification to watering rate and plant transpiration, not square footage, and be ready to scale in stages.
- Finally, plug-and-play units simplify both installation and future moves—vital for a growing operation that might double again next season.
From a damp garage filled with “really humid” air to a climate-stable loft where plants and people alike “can breathe,” Pinky’s Micros shows how professional-grade dehumidification transforms a side project into a thriving year-round business, proof that small leaves can carry big ambitions when the air is right.
Published on Aug 07 2025
Last Updated on Aug 08 2025
Categories: Agriculture, Efficiency, Growing Cannabis, High Plant Yield, Humidity