It was about 18 years ago that some tiny basil seedlings changed David Sasuga’s life in a giant way.

A customer at Sasuga’s nursery was picking up some tomato plants when he noticed the baby basil.

“He was really intrigued by them and he said, ‘Oh by the way, I’m also a chef down at L’Auberge in Del Mar and that’s the littlest basil I ever saw,’ ” Sasuga recalls. “ ‘We would love to use that in our restaurant.’ And I was like, ‘What are you talking about? It’s only this big.’ ”

Sasuga laughs, still seemingly aghast that anyone would be interested in the tiny greens.

“How would you even think that?” asks Sasuga. “And that’s how it evolved, from there.”

Today, Sasuga’s Fresh Origins operation in San Marcos is the largest producer of micro greens in the United States. All those delicate, colorful and intensely tasty miniature greens that chefs at high-end restaurants love to incorporate into their dishes — from micro wasabi to celery, cilantro, cucumber, tangerine lace and mustard dijon — come from the huge hothouses on the 24-acre property.

Whether chefs are in New Orleans, New York, Chicago or on the Food Network, chances are that if they’re using micro greens, they’ve come from Fresh Origins. Each day, the company ships an average of 1,000 pounds of its mini produce via FedEx or UPS. The plants can be harvested one morning and on a plate in Boston the next night.

“They literally order it today and they have it tomorrow,” says Sasuga. “It’s an amazing world we live in.”

Fresh Origins, which employs about 100 people, is essentially a family-run operation that involves a number of relatives, including David, its founder; his daughter, Kelly, who’s involved in marketing, sales and social media and has a role as research and development chef; and David’s brother, Victor, the chief grower.

David’s first job was at a nursery in Torrance, and he eventually ran his own business for about 20 years, specializing in flowering plants and some vegetables.

“I always loved growing things,” he says.

But he never knew there might be big things in tiny greens until that chef opened his eyes.

“We thought we were on to something,” says Sasuga.

So he found a consultant who worked with restaurants in Orange County. He soon was marketing the idea to the chefs there, along with samples.

“Everybody he showed it to wanted it and bought it, so it kind of grew from there,” says Sasuga.

Restaurants in San Diego and Los Angeles were soon buying in, and then the greens were going national. Six years ago, Fresh Origins’ operation moved from its smaller site in San Marcos to its current location.

Sasuga credits the creativity of chefs as being the driving force for micro greens.

“Chefs, especially the high-end, white-table-cloth chefs, are constantly looking for something unique and interesting, and this was really perfect for them,” he says. “They’re flavorful and they look amazing.”

By incorporating the greens, often to top off a dish, a variety of color, texture and flavor is added to seafood, meats, appetizers, cocktails, soups and desserts. They can be a dramatic visual addition with “a huge amount of flavor,” says Sasuga.

Kelly Sasuga says the impact can be “dramatic.”

“You eat with your eyes first,” she says.

Over the years, Fresh Origins has greatly expanded what it offers. Through the suggestions of chefs — who might be looking for a very specific ingredient — and the company’s own experimentation, new plants are added to Fresh Origins’ menu. More than 400 plants and edible flowers are produced and sold.

One example: a celebrity chef getting ready to appear on the Food Network’s “Iron Chef” series asked Fresh Origins if it could produce micro okra, because he believed he was going to be required to use it and wanted an edge.

The Sasugas had never considered it before, but produced it.

“It’s got a pretty pink stem and big, green leaves, and it actually tastes like okra,” says Kelly Sasuga. “Has that texture, a little bit of the sliminess, but not as much as the full size.”

Tangerine Lace micro greens, on the other hand, were developed by Fresh Origins and immediately accepted by chefs who love the surprising citrus tang of the baby herbs.

When some chefs visit Fresh Origins, they hustle through the hothouses, excited by what they can see, smell and taste, which leads to other suggestions and discussions about how to use micro greens (which are simply very young, edible herbs and plants).

“They’re always tasting,” says David Sasuga. “Everything they can, just like a baby, a 3-year-old that puts everything in their mouth. The chefs are the same way.”

Other, smaller micro green growers operate around the U.S., but they don’t have the climate that allows Fresh Origins to keep up production year-round in its 500,000 square feet of growing space.

A visitor entering one of its hothouses — each covering more than an acre — steps into a protected environment of soft, white light where thousands of flats about 2½ feet off the floor stretch into the distance.

The flats rest above water-carrying black tubes that can be heated to ward off winter chill. Each flat is filled with tiny containers where seeds are planted and nurtured for an average of two weeks until they are harvested.

Kelly Sasuga, who graduated from the San Diego Culinary Institute, works as a development chef for Fresh Origins, helping create ways to use new products. For Kelly and her dad — who also loves to research plants and discover new possibilities — it’s one of the most exciting aspects of their jobs.

Their most recent innovation is herb and flower crystals. Micro greens, herbs and flowers are combined with sugar to create small, sweet, crunchy crystals that pack the flavor of basil, fennel, cilantro or roses, for instance, and can be added to entrees, desserts or salads.

The crystals were launched about a year ago and have been hits at national trade shows.

“There’s nothing else out there quite like it,” says Kelly.

Micro greens are the company’s best-selling product. Those include lavender, lime, basil nutmeg, as well as combinations such as Micro Intensity Mix (15-20 herbs and greens) and Micro Mirepoix (celery, onions and carrots).

Next come the petite greens (slightly larger plants with stronger flavors), micro vegetables (including onions, beets, turnips and carrots) and crystallized and edible flowers.

Micro greens are the result of research, the product of finding just the right plants that can be harvested at about 1 to 1½ inches high, complete with stems and leaves, or finding plants that produce perfect mini flowers.

Or, say the Sasugas, it’s magic.

“We have tiny people” who do the work, says Kelly, smiling.

Says her dad: “We have a shrinking machine.”

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