Small but Mighty: Organic Growers are a Vital Part of the Community

DAYTON--There are commercial harvests other than for wheat, barley, or peas, in our region.

Marcus and Lacey Mead of Smith Hollow Farmstead, Lorrie Ryzek Bensel of Verdurous Gardens, Richard Heieren and Amanda Allred of Tucannon Farms, and Patricia Sacha of Hidden Gardens, are growing many of the foods we eat, and are available for sale at the Blue Mountain Station.

These organic farmers have a passion for growing healthy food for their families, and for the community, as well as building relationship with their customers.

Verdurous Gardens

Lorrie Ryzek Bensel said growing a garden is "laborious," which is short for labor-intensive.

"This is one of the hardest things I have ever done," she said.

Bensel and her husband, Tom, own Verdurous Gardens, and are leasing the garden at the Blue Mountain Station, from the Port of Columbia County.

"The fresher it is, the closer to us, the better it is for us," Bensel said about her gardening philosophy.

Tom supplies the brawn, and Bensel said she supplies organically grown lettuces for spring mix, two styles of cabbage, strawberries, broccoli, tomatoes, cherries, zucchini and herbs to her customers.

She is utilizing landscape cloth in the garden to keep the weeds down.

"Landscape cloth works really well, and also sterilizes the soil if it is down for a long time. As time goes on there will be less and less weeding," said Bensel, who gardens in the style of Curtis Stone, a Canadian urban gardener and author.

"This year I know I am not going to do well. The land needs a major overhaul. It will take a couple of years," she said.

"Selling is a big deal," Bensel said. She has contracted with a couple of local restaurants, including the Weinhard Café in Dayton, to buy the lettuces, small vegetables, and herbs she grows.

"I hope to expand that, and learn about restaurant needs, and how much to grow," she said.

Bensel hopes to build a greenhouse and extend the growing season.

"The hardest thing about working a garden is never depending on something being ready to go. I have to be ready to go whenever it is," she said.

In spite of all the hard work, Bensel said she has inherited a passion for the dirt from family members who have always gardened.

"I come from dirt," she laughed.

Hidden Gardens

This is the second year for Hidden Gardens. Grower Patricia Sacha leased the garden at the Blue Mountain Station last year, but is now growing on one-tenth of an acre at her home in Dixie.

Sacha is growing microgreens, herbs, radishes, and salad greens. T Maccarone's Restaurant, in Walla Walla, and Manila Bay Restaurant, in Dayton, have sourced them from her, but she is mainly selling at the Blue Mountain Station, she said.

Sacha has found a unique way of growing in a series of raised gutters, which are 4 ft. high, and 24 ft. long, as well as in raised beds. This works well for her because she and her husband are expecting a baby at the end of August, and she doesn't have to stoop, or reach very far, she said.

Sacha uses soil from Wenzel Nursery in College Place, and organic fertilizer, from Victory Organics, in Eltopia.

Sacha said she also uses landscape fabric to keep the weeds down, but she also allows her flock of chickens to control stray weeds and pests.

"I'm still in the figuring out stage," Sacha said about her first year of growing at home.

She said her goal is to grow crops year-round, and that plans are in the works for building some greenhouses.

Sacha said she has tried 12 different varieties of pea seed for the microgreens she grows and is searching for a balance with the appropriate qualities for growing during the winter and summer months.

"It's constant!" she said.

Farming is expensive, too.

She said she recently paid $88 for 20 lb. of pea seed.

Last year her business broke even.

"I just finally paid myself for the work I did in February and March," said Sacha. "It was nice to be able to have enough money left over."

Sacha said she has obtained an operating loan for the gutter set up and for the greenhouse she will build. The Blue Mountain Station is open all year around, and Sacha said appreciates having a consistent place from which to sell.

Smith Hollow Farmstead

Lacey Mead and her husband Marcus are the owners of Smith Hollow Farmstead, which is located at the corner of Smith Hollow Road, and Hwy. 261. The Meads lease about two acres from wheat ranchers Skip and Julia Mead, and they are growing vegetables in 30"wide x 75' long raised beds.

"We haven't got all of it planted, yet," Mead said. "We hope to have all of it in production in 2018."

"The business is to support our family and to contribute to the local community and food system using organic practices," Mead said.

The Meads are concentrating on a minimal till method, with the help of a broad fork, rotary till, and crop covers such as oats, buckwheat and clover, which will fix the nitrogen in the soil when the plots are out of production, she said.

They are also utilizing an intense crop spacing method to maximize production, that will improve the soil, she said. They will also benefit from having chickens in the garden for weed and pest control.

"Chickens are like little rototillers that will give you an egg," Mead explained.

The Meads are focusing on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Each week, shareholders receive five to eight types of vegetables, one type of fruit, two pasture-raised broiler chickens, eggs, and fresh-cut flowers, personally delivered by Lacey, sometimes with the couple's children in tow. A recipe card, made by Lacey, is included with each delivery, she said.

The Meads also sell produce at the Blue Mountain Station and to the Weinhardt Café. Their CSA produce boxes are delivered to customers in Waitsburg, Dayton and Walla Walla. Right now, the Meads are concentrating on efforts to build the garden infrastructure, and extend the growing season, she said.

This spring they built a greenhouse, installed irrigation, and ran utilities to the cold storage site. They have yet to place the cold storage inside a building, she said. Seeds were started indoors, and the transplants were moved into the raised beds, when the weather finally cooperated..

"We managed the planting calendar, well," Mead said. "The wild card is the weather."

Weather and farming is something both of the Meads know about, since they both come from farming families.

Working with the Farm Services Association to achieve organic certification has given the Meads a whole new appreciation for the bureaucracy on the management side of things, and has added to the labor involved, Mead said.

In the future, Mead said the family plans to offer different farm functions, including farm-to-table dinners.

"Not only do we have this business, but we are creating community around it and making an impact on our local food system," she said.

The farm is also more accessible through an active website and weekly videos.

"People will have a better sense of who their farmers are through social media," she said.

Lacey called the whole enterprise "crazy-amazing."

She particularly wanted to express her gratitude to officials at the Port of Columbia for the support, they, have received. In fact, her husband Marcus was attending a Food Summit, in Walla Walla, on the day of this interview.

While she is grateful for herself and her family, she said there is an incredible amount of work involved, which led her to wonder, "Why am I here, and not out in the garden?"

Tucannon Farms

Since moving to their 30-acre farm last Thanksgiving, newcomers Amanda Allred and her husband Richard Heieren, have jumped right in growing fresh fruit and vegetables and raising pasture-fed hogs, cattle, chickens and ducks. They also operate a bed and breakfast at the farm, for short-stay guests to enjoy.

Allred said she is growing heirloom varieties of vegetables because they taste better and have better flavor. Produce is offered for sale at the Blue Mountain Station and at the farm, which is located at mile 1.3, on Tucannon Road.

Allred said the farm works in a cyclical fashion. Hay and corn is grown on the farm for the cattle, hogs, chickens and ducks, and fertilizer from them supplies the garden. In turn, the chickens and ducks, perform weed and pest control.

"Nothing gets wasted," said Allred. "When I clean out the chicken house, that goes into the garden."

Allred said the Franz Bread Bakery donates bread to the Starbuck Community Church. Any that is left over is donated to them for feed for the chickens and ducks.

This year, seeds were started in a new greenhouse and transplanted into traditional rows in the one acre garden. Crops will be rotated through kale and lettuce, watermelons, pumpkins, and squash.

Allred said she is looking forward to having a drip irrigation system, which will be operational in 2019. Work on the farm is shared among family, with some of the work hired out.

"I get up at 4 a.m., water, weed, and feed the animals. If guests are coming in, I clean the bunkhouse. I take a nap in the afternoon, and around 7 p.m. I feed and water the animals," she said. "It's very physical!"

She also said it is very "grounding". Why go to all that work? "I want my kids to eat the way I did," Allred said.

That refrain was echoed by all four growers, which should be reassuring for us consumers. It will be interesting to see how these hard-working, spirited growers are doing, when next summer rolls around.