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Ten Genuine Skagit Valley members got a combined prep talk and introduction to the program’s vision of making the Skagit Valley’s agricultural products as well known as Napa Valley wines at a rollout training Oct. 10. That’s consultant Duane Knapp’s hope for the branding program the Port of Skagit is championing to increase recognition, value and sales of agricultural goods regionally, initially – and globally in the future. The path to local agriculture’s future viability lies through a joint promise growers embrace in taking up the re...
Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry – to hear farmers tell it, farming is a lot like Goldilocks and the three bears. Let’s start with too cold. For Dean Swanson, Feb. 8 is where this year’s berry crop began. In January, temperatures were mild and the buds on Swanson’s berry bushes on La Conner Whitney Road were plump and healthy. “I thought winter was over,” he said. “I was wrong.” On Jan. 8 the temperature plummeted to 12 degrees. Tayberries, marionberries and boysenberries “got hammered.” Yields for these damaged plants were down...
Sustained rain has been so rare since April that its sudden abundance sprouts an editorial. There hasn’t been three days of rain and two inches in that short stretch, much less a month, since spring. These rains have ended the County’s burn ban, but farmers know this is too little coming too late. Drought has been the region’s curse. While western Skagit County is in a moderate drought, the western foothills of the Cascades are classified as “severe drought” by the U.S. Drought Monitor, a multi-federal agency team. The surprise summer bl...
Amy Moe and Byron Betts are bringing an old crop back to new life in the Skagit Valley. They are the first hop growers to surface in the valley in years. While most people think of eastern Washington as the hops capital of the state, Moe says hops were actually grown quite widely in Skagit Valley – before Prohibition. Fir Island was once filled with hops. No longer. But now, thanks to Moe and Betts, there’s Hop Skagit. Moe is a fourth-generation farmer using the land where she grew up. O...
New Nell Thorn co-owner and chef James Donahue has a simple ambition for greater success for the signature restaurant: make it known statewide, though he realizes that won’t happen overnight. The soon-to-be-30-years-old executive chef understands the opportunity in front of him. He and Albie Bjornberg are partners in Nell Thorn with Ted Furst, owner of Le Grand Bistro Américain in Kirkland. Furst is the majority partner, but Donahue and Bjornberg are at Nell’s full time. Furst comes up on...
Through cooperation between local agricultural businesses, a new approach to marketing hopes to live up to its promise of being “locally grown, globally known.” Genuine Skagit Valley, rolled out during February’s Agriculture Summit by the Port of Skagit Executive Director Patsy Martin, is a federal certification mark that almost 25 Valley companies have purchased to date. Boldly Grown Farm, Blanchard Mountain Farm, Bow Hill Blueberries, Samish Bay Cheese, Skagit Valley Malting and the La Conner...
Two truths about agriculture: One: Farmers have always promoted their products and seek to expand their markets and Two: Farmers are always getting older, and also younger. Even in our “more is better” culture, the best thing is to add value by improving the worth of a crop. Sometimes worth can be increased by asserting the intrinsic value inherent in the harvest. The creators of Genuine Skagit Valley, the marketing program for agricultural products and related services originating in Skagit County, believe that to be the case. From asp...
The Fisher family name is synonymous with home, commercial and industrial construction in Skagit County. Frieschknecht is a less familiar name, but one that remains vital to bridging the county’s rich history and its present status as a model for balancing economic opportunity with environmental preservation. The Frieschknecht legacy, in fact, is a key chapter in the Fisher family story, which will be shared as part of the 115th annual Skagit County Pioneer Picnic in La Conner Thursday. Their s...
A 36-year tradition concluded in late June when Tulip Town on Bradshaw Road in Greater LaConner was purchased by Spinach Bus Ventures. Since founders Tom and Jeannette DeGoede opened Tulip Town 1983, its colorful plantings, Peace Garden, murals of tulips in the Skagit Valley and Holland, and gracious owners have attracted hundreds of thousands of fans. Tulip Town has been on the market for two years and Tom DeGoede died June 2. The new buyers “are all local, they know farming and I think they a...
It has rained all of three times this month, for almost an inch as measured at the WSU weather station on Memorial Highway. The days have been generally blue sky sunny. Two thirds of the way through June, total rainfall measures 55 percent of the 20-year monthly average. June gloom? The school district discord is worrisome, a difficultly. That has been the primary thing making June gloomy around here. On the weather front, the general attitude seems to be “great, summer started early.” What are frogs’ high five equivalents, when they are croaki...
The first tulips in Skagit Valley were grown commercially on a forty-acre farm on Samish Island about 1905. Bulbs were imported from Holland to improve this crop and the valley’s bulb industry flourished. Early farmers were critical of the bulb growers for putting the rich valley land to such trivial use when it was excellent for cabbage seed, oats, hay, hops and barley. The bulb industry soon proved its value as more bulb farmers settled in Skagit County. They were an industrious and quiet b...
To the editor: I’d like to commend Rachel Cram for her wonderful article on the history of La Conner’s newspaper. There was so much detail to feast on and it reminds all of us of how invaluable a town newspaper is. She especially captured the spirit of Pat O’Leary, the newspaper’s editor. His intellectual curiosity certainly informed the Puget Sound Mail and how it reflected the community. I’d like to add a few lines however, about the earliest years of the newspaper. James Power began the Mail in 1873 as the Bellingham Bay Mail, the only pape...
Twice last week Whitney Meissner, superintendent of the La Conner school district, enacted a cornerstone of the district’s strategic plan: communications. Last Wednesday Meissner hosted a community meeting in the district’s auditorium. Monday she spoke at the La Conner Rotary Club’s second annual Farmers-Merchant Dinner to 115 attendees, including Town and County elected officials and staff. At both events Meissner first thanked the community for the overwhelming support for the school levy,...
Farmers and agriculture industry allies heard from Skagit County economic development leaders on the afternoon of the fourth annual Ag Summit Feb. 8, sponsored by WSU Extension at their Mount Vernon offices. Port of Skagit Executive Director Patsy Martin had the day’s big announcement, which she and the Innovation Partnership Zone, partners the Port is working with, shared with the group at the session on “Innovation.” Martin unveiled “Genuine Skagit Valley,” a certification program years in...
The Golden Age of Radio, at least for La Conner, is making a comeback. That’s music to the ears of listeners here, many of whom remember the 1991 production of “Have A Twisted Xmas,” the gonzo radio play hailed at the time for its social commentary, and which was originally presented in downtown La Conner. Its message, like the original Christmas story itself, is one for which time has few limits. Which is why, thanks to modern technology and the guidance of radio personality and former La Co...
Last weekend was more than full in La Conner: Friday the girls basketball teams were home against Anacortes, the Library was shaking the branches of its tiny trees raising money for the new building and a roomful of locals landed in the social hall of the Methodist Church to discuss the “plane truths” of the coming 36 Growler jets expansion at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Saturday was even fuller, starting with La Conner Rotary’s Santa Breakfast of pancakes and photos and ending with Santa getting help from the town’s kids to light t...
Alan and Ben Mesman’s farm offer more than meets the eye. Their families live on two parcels totaling 190 acres stretching from Dodge Valley Road along Chilberg Road to Pleasant Ridge. But that is only half of almost 400 acres of land they own or rent, contiguous, nearby and on the flats of eastern Fidalgo Island. They are milking about 100 cows, a variety of breeds and cross breeds including Holstein, Jersey, Milking Shorthorn and Normande. But that is only half the herd: There are 10 to 15 b...
Today’s page one story on large donations filling the No on Charter Committee campaign coffers is a tidbit worthy of your consideration. Whether or not you’re paying attention to the Proposition 1 ballot measure, whose passage opens the door to developing a county charter, consider whose thumbs are on the scale, that is whose checks are giving weight to the campaigns. Why are 14 people contributing $48,375? The total is $50,875.00 when the Skagit County’s GOP $2,500 donation is included – and some of that might come from those 14 donor...
Almost on cue, farmer Harley Soltes brought his van of blueberry products to the Puget Sound Food Hub Cooperative on Best Road Thursday afternoon. Soltes knows the value of cooperation and made time to recount the origins of this Co-op. In 2013 Soltes offered his Bow Hill Blueberries cold storage facility to area farmers for aggregating, storing and wholesaling their crops. Over three years that effort grew to 22 farms, becoming a hub linking King, Snohomish, Whatcom and Skagit County farmers wi...
La Conner farmer Dave Hedlin drives a pickup truck, a tractor, and a variety of farm equipment. The much less visible seat he sits in is as a board member of Northwest Farm Credit Services, a financial cooperative that’s part of the Farm Credit System. Hedlin is one of 11 elected members of the board of directors. For three years, ending in 2017, he was board chair. He finishes his third five-year term in 2021. As a co-op member, he has taken loans with Northwest since 1979, when he and his w...
“It is a growing process. You can’t just like beer. You have to start somewhere and learn the different flavors.” – Isaac Hanson. This weekend, kick back and sample the different flavors of 12 regional craft breweries, while enjoying the perfectly paired bluesy, funk rhythms of local favorite Mary Ellen Lykins & the CC Adams Band. Yes, it is that time again, for the 4th annual Brew on the Slough this Saturday at Maple Hall. The La Conner Chamber of Commerce organizes this brewfest, bringing together local breweries, merchants and enter...
MAKING A TOOL ON THE FARM – Farmers still make things as well as grow crops and raise livestock. Adair Orr, blacksmith, was celebrating his art for an attentive audience at Gordon Skagit Farms Saturday, part of this year’s Festival of Family Farms. – Photo by Ken Stern...
Dear Voters: The current structure of the Skagit County Commissioners needs to change. It concentrates too much power in very few hands and makes it too easy to abuse that power – no matter who is elected to fill those three seats. Those opposing a charter government, like Commissioner Wesen, say it would be detrimental to agriculture. However, a charter form of government could give us a county council of 5 to 9 part-time members. The newly elected freeholders who represent all demographics will decide the number and the structure of...
You can both imagine and make real this possibility: your influence deciding the shape of a new governing constitution for Skagit County. First you must pass the referendum calling to develop a charter. The 21 delegates, termed freeholders by the state’s19th century constitution, will then draft a charter framing a 21st century governance structure. We are much closer to the action than our 18th century ancestors were when our federal Constitution was created. Almost all of us would not have been eligible to vote. Today all of us have a v...
In a recent interview with the Weekly News, District 1 County Commissioner Ron Wesen shared why he is against the ballot amendment for adopting a county charter. Home Rule Skagit, a nonpartisan citizens group, placed the referendum on the ballot by submitting 3,333 petition signatures that their volunteers collected this year up to the Aug. 3 submittal. If citizens vote to create a charter, 21 freeholders, or delegates, elected in this fall’s election from 78 candidates, will meet and draft a proposal for a new form of county government. S...
