By Kevin Revolinski | Photography by Courtney Terry Photography
Growing up, Jessi Ricci, the New Life Greens, a specialty microgreens garnish farm, had more than 100 plants in her bedroom. The plants were arranged on custom shelving her father built.
“I always loved growing things,” explains Ricci. “[And] I became very good at reading my plants and understanding what they liked.”
She also had a special connection with her grandfather, a devout environmentalist, and remembers many conversations with him before he passed when she was a freshman in high school. Accordingly, Ricci’s goal in high school was to go on to study environmental science at UW-Madison.
During her junior year in high school, she did a youth apprenticeship at Clean Fresh Food, an aquaponics farm in Paoli, where owner Mike Knight encouraged her to start her own business selling microgreens. In 2023, Ricci founded New Life Greens.
She was accepted to UW-Madison, but as her business grew, she kept deferring enrollment. Her realization that it made more sense to skip college was “a really big mental challenge,” she says, noting her laser- focused academic ambition. “I had about a full year of college credits already done.”
Another challenge is being a woman in agriculture.
“Madison is a very accepting community where chefs want to support a young woman in farming, which I really appreciate,” says Ricci. “But I also think I get asked a lot of questions that there’s no way a middle-aged man would be asked.”
Being young, a woman and skipping college, she feels, can lead to assumptions. But she’s happy to prove herself. She credits the support of her family and Knight, her former boss. The ecological impact of forging relationships with local chefs to be a microgreens supplier makes her feel connected to her late grandfather.
You can find her microgreens in dishes at restaurants, including Ope Haus Pub in Barneveld and Hi Point Steak House in Ridgeway. She also sells at the Westside Community Market, and the Dane County Farmers’ Market, and offers a home delivery service.
