Growing in Mississippi: Salad Days

• Salad Days now supplies its lettuce in the region, both directly to consumers and to restaurants that use their products.

When Jamie Redmond and Leigh Bailey got married in 2011, they had a combined 60 years of experience working in real estate. Both wanted to start something new, something that would include their love of the outdoors. Leigh happened to read a magazine article on hydroponic gardening.

“I think it was put out by the Mississippi Department of Agriculture,” she says. Jamie and Leigh began doing research. “The article mentioned a guy who was growing hydroponic tomatoes in Pontotoc. We went to visit him and that got the ball rolling.”

They attended courses and workshops, and visited other growers around the South. 

“I also attended several classes at the University of Arizona, which has a wonderful controlled agriculture school. We spent two years studying before we ever started growing.” 

When it was time to start their business, they chose Flora. They were excited about providing healthy vegetables for their community as well as the greater Jackson area.

“We laugh and say if we had known all we didn’t know, we never would have started. But we figured it out as we went,” laughs Leigh. 

Now they provide Salad Days lettuce to a much larger regional area, both directly to consumers and to restaurants that use their products.

What is hydroponic gardening?

Instead of growing plants in soil, hydroponic gardening is a method of growing plants in sterile water rich in nutrients and free of pathogens and soil-borne diseases, cutting the risk of food-borne illnesses such as E coli and Salmonella, plus it eliminates soil erosion. It provides the gardener/farmer complete control over the plants’ nutrition for optimal quality and flavor.

Hydroponic gardening methods are sustainable, which in turn saves water and land, and eliminates agricultural runoff and the use of chemicals. The result is a high yield of local, year-round food production. 

The name hydroponics indicates water, yet with this method of farming, far less water is used than in traditional field-grown agriculture. The water is recycled and used multiple times, which can reduce water usage as much as 80% over outdoor-grown crops. 

Grown in a closely controlled environment, the lettuces produced at Salad Days can be grown year-round. Everything is harvested at the peak of ripeness, and it is delivered immediately instead of taking a multi-day ride in a truck. Often, Salad Days products end up on a plate in a home or restaurant mere hours after being harvested. 

Consumers know that when they eat Salad Days produce, they are enjoying chemical-free, pesticide-free lettuces and tomatoes, and the flavor is superior. They supply Bibb and spring mix Hydro Living Lettuce, perfect for salads, burgers and sandwiches, and lettuce wraps. 

Growing from the inside out

At its peak, the original facility adjacent to downtown Flora produced 250,000 heads of lettuce a year. A new 65,000 square foot facility opened near the Flora Industrial Park at the beginning of the year, and that one is on track to produce three million heads of lettuce this year.

“We are harvesting 6000 heads of lettuce a day,” says Leigh. “We have twenty employees who help run this place.” 

The lettuce is packaged in clamshell containers with the root ball attached for retail and in bulk packaging for restaurants.

“Our lettuce is distributed all across Mississippi and into Louisiana and Alabama,” Leigh says. “We are looking to distribute within a 200-mile radius of Flora, so that could take us to Memphis and into Arkansas and still be considered local.” 

Visit Salad Days Produce on Facebook, or check out their website.