Grow what you can. Supplement what you must. Buy strategically.
Provision is not a yield-maximizing system. It's a coverage-maximizing system — built around one honest constraint: most people only have 20 square feet to spare.
The diagram
Four lit shelves of greens and herbs. Mushrooms grow outside the rack — in a humid closet or bucket nearby. The dots are the ambient humidity that surrounds the whole setup.
2′ × 4′ shelving, year-round
microgreens (broccoli, sunflower, pea shoot)
mushrooms 🍄
(lion's mane, oyster)
Four principles
Grow what you can
A 4 ft × 5 ft rack with 4 shelves under LED lights gives you 80 sq ft of growing surface. Microgreens, leafy greens, and herbs cover most of your vitamin and phytonutrient needs.
Grow mushrooms outside the rack
Mushrooms don't need light and they want humidity that would rot your greens. A closet, a bucket, or a humidity tent right next to the rack handles your apartment protein.
Supplement what you must
B12, Vitamin D, and Omega-3 are the predictable gaps. A short supplement stack closes them honestly — no pretending greens alone are complete.
Buy strategically
Eggs, beans, oats, sardines. Four cheap staples close the calorie and remaining-nutrient gap. The plan tells you exactly what to buy each week.
Why coverage, not yield
You can't out-grow a grocery store on 20 square feet. But you can out-cover one — by choosing crops with the highest nutrient density per square foot, and letting cheap pantry staples fill in calories.
Broccoli microgreens for sulforaphane. Pea and sunflower shoots for protein and minerals. Kale and chard for vitamins A, C, K, magnesium and potassium. Parsley and basil for flavor and phytonutrients that don't show up anywhere else. Oyster and lion's mane mushrooms — outside the rack — for B-vitamins and apartment-friendly protein.
The remaining gaps — B12, Vitamin D, Omega-3, calories — are predictable. You don't pretend they aren't there. You close them with a short supplement list and four pantry staples.
Ready to build the rack?
See the full plant list, shelf layout, and the four staples that close the gap.
See the Starter Rack →