City Lights:

Last year, I saw the Oscar-nominated documentary “Food, Inc.,” which exposes the horrors of the modern food industry. I say “food industry” as a whole because, by the end of the film, you’ll be as squeamish about buying supermarket vegetables as you will about ordering steak. You may also find yourself, for the first time, staring at the contents of your fridge and not having a clue what’s really in them.

The film has plenty of targets, from inhumane slaughterhouses to corporate monopolies to the junk food that’s made readily available to kids, especially poor ones. It also poses a number of solutions — in particular, supporting your local farmer’s market. What’s the difference between buying in-season produce from a nearby garden and buying out-of-season produce at a chain store? The former probably didn’t pass through a laboratory on its way to the supermarket shelf.

With movies like “Food, Inc.” and “Super Size Me,” plus a slew of vegan diet books and raw food restaurants, there’s a small but growing movement toward sustainable food production. And that vegetable garden in front of Cucina Alessá at 520 Main St. may not be the only one in town for much longer.

The Italian restaurant downtown is one of a handful of restaurants to have bought self-watering herb and vegetable boxes from Harvest to Home, a new company that allows residents and businesses to easily and cheaply grow their own produce.

On Friday, I met founder Mike Saraylian for lunch at Alessá, where he invited me to savor the taste of parsley and sage grown right outside the door. Of course, they tasted great. But more about his business first.

Saraylian, who lives in Newport Beach, launched his company less than a year ago. He worked as the sales and marketing manager for a suction cup manufacturer, then left to pursue his passion.

Harvest to Home, which has nearly 40 residential and business customers, sells boxes containing soil with seeds and a three-gallon water tank. Customers can buy a device that, when hooked up to a hose, senses when the water in the tank is low and automatically replenishes it.

On a laptop, Saraylian showed me pictures of his customers’ gardens. One woman had filled the back porch of her swank home with nearly a dozen crops; another house had a rooftop garden with corn and squash. Saraylian told me about the shock he felt eating his first salad in Europe, which, to his knowledge, was the first time he had eaten organic produce.

Then the waiter brought us three Italian courses containing the parsley and sage grown outside. It was a first-time offering, as the chef had been waiting for the plants to mature.

“First meal, my friend,” Saraylian said. “Those things are just big enough.”

Well, “big enough” is relative, because I wanted seconds the moment I was done. And while Saraylian’s plants continue to sprout in the shade on Main Street, I hope his enterprise blossoms as well.

City Editor MICHAEL MILLER can be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at michael.miller@latimes.com .