MICROGREEN BUSINESS GUIDE · IRVING, TX

Start a microgreen business in Irving, TX.

Most Irving residents do not realize how big the local restaurant market actually is once you count the corporate campuses, the Las Colinas hotel kitchens, and the Asian cuisine corridor along Story Road. Every one of those plates that includes microgreens is buying product that arrived days post-harvest. The Irving grower who plants close to the kitchens is the one who locks the accounts.

Quick Answer

You can start a microgreen business in Irving with under $400 in initial equipment and grow it into a $2,000 to $5,500 per month side income within 90 days. Here is the local demand picture, the unit economics at DFW wholesale prices, and the operating system used by working microgreen farms.

If you walked into five chef-driven kitchens between Las Colinas and the Story Road corridor on a Tuesday and asked where their microgreens were cut, how many would actually point to a grower inside Dallas County?

What Irving buys today

Irving sits at the geographic center of the DFW metroplex, with Las Colinas hotel and corporate campus kitchens, the Story Road international food corridor, and the Toyota Music Factory restaurant cluster all in play. Microgreens are baseline on chef-driven plates across all three, and the corporate dining and hotel kitchens represent unusually large single accounts when you have the production to serve them.

The Las Colinas Farmers Market and the broader DFW market network give you a direct-to-consumer channel that pays close to retail. The wellness, juice bar, and prepared-food retail scene across Irving and the neighboring cities adds steady wholesale flow, and the diverse demographic profile is unusually receptive to specialty produce.

For indoor growing, North Texas summers are the obvious constraint, and a basic insulated interior room or garage with a window AC unit handles it. Winters are mild, the climate is dry enough for clean germination, and a 5 by 10 foot footprint in an Irving home can outproduce most side businesses on a weekly basis.

Every week another Las Colinas hotel or Story Road kitchen signs a standing order with a regional distributor pulling product from out of state. What does it cost you when the accounts you wanted to sell to are already on someone else's invoice cycle?

The math, in Irving prices

Irving restaurant wholesale prices for microgreens sit in the mid range nationally, with hotel and chef-driven kitchens paying a meaningful premium for genuinely local trays harvested same morning. Here is what the unit economics look like at conservative DFW numbers.

Startup cost

$400

Trays, soil, seed, lights. Used gear cuts this in half.

Per-tray net

$20-$30

After seed, soil, packaging, delivery.

Trays per week

100

Target for $3K-$5K/mo at Irving pricing.

Break-even week

Week 4

First positive cash week. Most growers hit it.

What that looks like in Irving square footage

A 10 by 10 foot room with two vertical shelving units holds 60 to 80 active trays. That is enough to produce $3,000 to $5,000 per month in Irving at standard wholesale prices. A two-car garage doubles it. A basement triples it.

Picture the version of your week where Sunday is the planting day, Tuesday and Friday are restaurant deliveries across Las Colinas and the Story Road corridor, Saturday is the market, and the system on your phone tells you exactly which trays to cut. What changes about the rest of your week when the income side runs on rails?

Three things every working microgreen farm in Irving runs on

  1. A seed density and watering plan you trust. The number one cause of failed trays for new growers is over- or under-seeding. The cheat sheet inside Grown Like A Pro gives you grams per 10x20, soak hours, blackout days, harvest day, and watering for sixty-one varieties.
  2. A rotation tracker. Once you are running thirty-plus trays per week, you cannot remember what is in blackout, what is in light growth, what harvests Tuesday. A spreadsheet works for the first month. After that you need a system that pings you the day before each harvest and reorders seed before you run out.
  3. A customer + invoice layer. Restaurants in Irving want predictable weekly invoices and net-15 terms. Farmers market customers want clamshell tracking. Both want consistency. The app handles both.

The IKEA test

If you can follow an IKEA instruction sheet without screaming at the family, you can grow microgreens at a commercial level in Irving. The steps are about that difficulty: open the box, lay out the parts, follow the picture, repeat. Trays are the bookcase. Seed is the dowels.

If you ever did struggle with the IKEA bookshelf, that is exactly why Glappy lives inside the app. Glappy is the in-app coach that breaks every step down barney style, in your own language, from "how do I plant my first tray" to "why is this tray going leggy at day five and what do I do about it tonight." Type the question, get a step-by-step answer. There is no question too basic. The whole point is that a Irving grower starting today is not on their own.

What you are not buying

You are not buying a course. You are not buying a hype product. You are not buying seed from us, and you are not buying trays from us. We do not sell either. Grown Like A Pro is the operating system you run your Irving farm on. The growing happens in your basement.

Try Grown Like A Pro free for 30 days →

Irving microgreen FAQ

How much can I make growing microgreens in Irving?
A working microgreen farm in Irving produces $3,000 to $8,000 per month within 90 days of starting. The math: 100 trays per week, $20 to $30 net revenue per tray, harvested in a basement, garage, or spare room. The ceiling is set by how many restaurants and farmers market customers you can serve, not by the growing setup.
Is it legal to sell microgreens in TX?
Yes. In most of Texas, microgreens fall under the state's cottage food law for direct-to-consumer retail at farmers markets and to private customers. Restaurant wholesale typically requires a basic food handler permit. Verify with the Texas Department of Agriculture before you sign a wholesale contract.
What microgreens sell best in Irving?
Sunflower, pea shoots, and radish are the three highest-volume sellers in nearly every U.S. city, including Irving. Broccoli is the highest-margin variety because of its sulforaphane reputation with health-focused buyers. Specialty varieties like amaranth and shiso command premium pricing from chef-driven restaurants.
How much space do I need to grow microgreens in Irving?
A 10 by 10 foot room with two shelving units holds 60 to 80 active trays, which is enough to produce $3,000 to $5,000 per month. A basement, garage corner, spare bedroom, or sunroom all work in Irving's climate. Vertical shelving is the fastest path to higher revenue per square foot.
What is the best app for tracking microgreen production in Irving?
Grown Like A Pro is the operating system used by working microgreen farms in Irving. It handles seed density math, watering schedules, harvest timing, inventory, customer orders, and the financial side. Free 30-day trial with no credit card.
How long does it take to learn to grow microgreens commercially?
Most growers in Irving are selling their first trays within 30 days of starting. Commercial proficiency, meaning you can run 50-plus trays per week without losing crops to mold or under-seeding, takes 60 to 90 days. The seed density and watering math is the single biggest predictor of how fast you get there.
Do I need a license to sell microgreens in Irving?
For farmers market and direct-to-consumer sales in Irving, most growers operate under Texas's cottage food law with no special license. For wholesale to restaurants and grocery stores, you typically need a basic food handler permit, a sales tax permit, and depending on volume, an inspection from your county health department.
How do I price microgreens to restaurants in Irving?
Restaurant wholesale in Irving runs $1.50 to $2.50 per ounce for standard varieties, $3 to $5 per ounce for specialty varieties like shiso, micro basil, or amaranth. Sell by the pound for repeat accounts. Local fresh commands a premium over the shipped-in product that most Irving restaurants currently buy.

Related guides

Once you have the Irving math in your head, the next read is the density chart that drives every tray you plant.

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