In the back of CraftGrown Farms storefront on Castle Street, you hear the whir of a fan and bubbling water. Lights beam down on dozens of black seedling trays. It’s fairly quiet for a farm in perpetual harvest mode.
From afar, the trays’ contents look nearly the same with varying colors. But when you get close, the differences jump out: Sunflower sprouts are thick; the cracked black shell still sticks to the top. Bronze fennel has wispy fronds. The heavy heads of peas bend over their stems in prayer. Radishes make fuchsia sprouts topped with bright green leaves. The urge to run your hands over their smooth tops is irresistible.
In other trays, the surface is bumpy. Randy Rhyne, the farmer, has planted mixes to get more complex flavors; he calls them recipes. Eleven different plants make up the Kitchen Sink, which Rhyne says is good on tacos. Afternoon Delight is only available in the summer. It tastes like melon. “Muddle it with gin,” he says. He’s not giving out the recipe.
In the fall he mixes lemon balm and bronze fennel. “It goes fantastically with vanilla flavors.” He adds, “You can muddle with something that has cinnamon, like a hot toddy.”
The Morning Mix, good for smoothies, has broccoli, kale and kohlrabi. Then there’s the Spicy Pickle, with dill, cucumber and a secret mustard sprout. His most potent mix, the Painkiller, has arugula and mustard and would probably be good in a Bloody Mary. “No bite is the same,” he says. “Some are crunchy and some are velvety smooth with sweetness. A mix of sweet and savory, that’s what I shoot for.”
Across from the trays, vivid green lettuce grows in shallow tanks above the moving water.
Rhyne’s “crops” are planted in stages and are ready to harvest, depending on the vegetable, after around 12 days, when he says they are at peak flavor. Kale is slow; it takes about two weeks. Broccoli looks beautiful between seven and 10 days. Cilantro is high maintenance. Arugula is a spicy favorite but tends to get moldy. Radishes grow fast; carrots grow slow.
For all, Rhyne charges the same price: $25 for a flat or $5 per ounce; no matter how much the seeds cost, it evens out. The flats and the lettuce are sold to restaurants; at the Riverfront Farmers Market, he can sell 14 trays in a day, ounce by ounce, cut to order. Once you cut a plant, he says, it starts to degrade.
Castle Street is a long way from Richmond, where in 2015 Rhyne and his neighbor started growing their own food. Six months in, Rhyne—a reservist in the Army—was told he was going overseas. Deployed to Syria, he saw some things that changed the trajectory of his life. One was a garden, the other was a little girl.
When he got back, he and his buddy started Two Veterans Farm. “It kinda mushroomed,” says Rhyne. They started a CSA, but soon they were unable to meet the demand or make the deliveries.
The two went their separate ways, and Rhyne decided to move. “I drove from Richmond to Boise, Idaho, looking for a place to go, but I couldn’t find anything really nice,” he says. “So I decided to look at beach towns; I was on my way to Charleston.”
On his way he drove through Wilmington. It was during COVID shutdowns and the first day restaurants were allowed to serve on the sidewalks.
“I thought, ‛This is good. People are polite; it’s a nice small town,’” he says. He’d found a place to start his next farm. “In Syria I saw lots of produce growing in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the summer, in the middle of a civil war. I thought I could do that, too.”
Before all that, he was a high school science teacher for 17 years, where he thinks the bug for growing things started. He remembers his grandfather had a victory garden during World War II, but that was it. For one lesson for his Earth Science class, Rhyne asked the students to come up with a closed ecosystem.
“One kid wanted to grow lettuce with fish,” he says. “He grew a head of lettuce in 32 days. It takes 55 days to grow one in dirt.”
The little girl he saw in Syria is the reason he doesn’t teach anymore. The memory is hard for him to talk about; the change of careers is good. “The farm, it’s quiet and peaceful. That’s good for me,” he says. “And it’s good for the plants.”
Castle Street used to be a corridor for antiques. Now, it has vibrant blocks with a coffee shop, the restaurant and wine store, a record store, a violin repair shop, thrift shop, yoga studio, hair salon and a music venue. Apartments are going up across from CraftGrown Farms. Rhyne hopes this will increase foot traffic in the daytime. He’s in the middle of setting up the front of his space as a market, where locals can buy staples and food for dinner—like salsa and prepared meals—and, he hopes, hang out. Of course, shoppers can pick up microgreens and baby lettuces. He carries local products at what he believes are fair prices and on the healthier side. You can also find fudge and candies.
For now, “I’m going to keep growing microgreens and the best lettuce in Wilmington,” he says, “and, hopefully, one day expand.”
This Story Originally Appeared in the Fall 2023 issue.
