| First Quarter 2013 | story by ANNE BROCKHOFF | photos by STEVEN HERTZOG |
Change is the only constant in agriculture, and Karen and John Pendleton of Pendleton’s Kaw Valley Country Market have seen plenty of it in their 34 years of farming.
From the farm crisis of the 1980s to calamitous weather and shifting consumer trends, they’ve thrived by adapting.
“We have a business plan, but things happen,” Karen says. “There’s a lot of variability in what we’re doing, so staying flexible has been important.”
The Pendletons’ operation two miles east of Lawrence is among the 1,040 Douglas County farms that together generated $41.2 million in agricultural sales in 2007, according to the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture. Soybeans, corn and other commodity crops account for more than half that figure, just as they did when the Pendletons began farming.
Theirs is a second-generation family farm, and the couple moved back after college to help John’s parents manage a cattle feedlot and about 1,000 mostly rented acres of row crops. The timing seemed perfect.
“1979 had unbelievable crops, unbelievable weather and unbelievable prices,” Karen says. “Farming was fantastic.”
But the next decade wasn’t. Drought shriveled grain yields, interest rates spiked and grain exports to the former Soviet Union were embargoed. Thousands of families across the U.S. lost their farms.
The Pendletons planted one-half acre of asparagus to diversify their income. It went so well that they added hydroponic tomatoes and rhubarb. When customers asked for bedding plants, they started growing those, too.
By the 1990s, they’d cut down on rented crop ground and closed the feedlot to grow more vegetables, bedding plants, flowers and perennials for their on-farm store and the Lawrence Farmers’ Market.
Karen and John were gearing up for the season in March 2006 when a powerful microburst leveled two silos and destroyed or damaged almost every building, vehicle and piece of equipment.
They considered quitting, Karen admits, but then some 300 people arrived to help clean up. Neighbors brought casseroles, friends salvaged seedlings and garden centers sent supplies. School kids, churches, customers and strangers all pitched in.
“It was devastating, and we’re still crawling out from it,” Karen says. “But we had all these people come out. How could we tell them we were stopping? We couldn’t.”
The Pendletons rebuilt, and their farm now features a succession of edibles and ornamentals that changes every three to five weeks.
January, February and March are spent planting and transplanting seedlings in the greenhouse, digging asparagus crowns to sell and catching up on paperwork and maintenance.
Some of their 15 employees begin in March, others in April and most stay through Thanksgiving. Five volunteers each work one day a week during the season.
The farm store opens April 1, and it stays open seven days a week through April and May. Those two months generate about 35 percent of the farm’s annual sales, John says.
Spinach is the first crop harvested, but ready-picked and pick-your-own asparagus becomes the main draw in mid-April. The Pendletons would like to expand their now 20 acres of asparagus to meet growing demand, but it’s too labor-intensive.
“We need more asparagus, but I can’t manage more asparagus,” John says.
Spring is prime time for bedding and potted plants, as well as greenhouse-grown hydroponic tomatoes and other early crops. Peonies bloom in May, marking the start of flower and wedding season.
Cut flowers are a farm staple, and Karen has designed dried floral arrangements since the 1980s. Those skills transferred readily to wedding flowers, and the business has steadily grown through word-of-mouth. She now does three to five weddings a weekend during peak months, generating about half the farm’s summer sales.
There are more budget-conscious brides these days, but Karen’s as happy selling flowers to do-it-yourselfers as she is creating arrangements for pick-up or providing a complete floral design, delivery and set-up service.
“We’re flexible,” she says. “Because we’re flower growers, I don’t really have a problem selling them just flowers.”
The Pendletons also sell bouquets at the store and the farmers’ market. They even offer a punch card that allows customers to pay $60 in advance and then redeem that value in blooms whenever the mood strikes them.
The card’s been so successful that the Pendletons included a similar option when they launched their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program in 2011 in partnership with the Douglas County Child Development Association.
About a third of their CSA members buy a $60 punch card that can be used at the Pendletons’ store or farmers’ market stall. The remaining CSA members buy a farm share in early spring, and then pick up a weekly bag of produce at one of several area childcare centers. The Pendletons plan to add a CSA for Douglas County employees this year.
Strong CSA participation means they can now skip the Tuesday and Thursday farmers’ markets, but the Saturday market remains an essential outlet. Sales have slipped slightly in recent years due to the weak economy and an influx of new market farmers, but it’s still the best place to showcase the farm’s harvest and reach new customers.
Surprisingly, there’s little overlap between farm store and farmers’ market shoppers, Karen says.
“Our farmers’ market people are farmers’ market people. Our people who come to the farm come to the farm. It’s so segmented,” says Karen, who communicates with them all via a 3,000-member email list, the farm’s web site and Facebook.
About three-quarters of Pendletons’ farm store customers drive over from Johnson County, often several times a week. John credits the trendiness of local produce, which is what most come to buy.
alt=”hose” class=”fltrtpad” />“The idea of locally grown food is big,” he says. “That has been our biggest change the last three years, to get back into the vegetable business with both feet.”
By the time the six-week asparagus run ends in May, there are peas, greens and radishes. Farm hours drop to six days a week in June as tomatoes from the high tunnel, potatoes and green beans ripen.
July brings corn, melons, and outdoor tomatoes. Heat lovers like melons, okra and eggplant come on in August. That’s also when the butterfly bio-villa, which showcases native butterflies’ role in pollinating local crops, opens.
Visitors and school groups can tour the bio-villa until mid-October, and there’s a nearby play area. Customers pick pumpkins and dig sweet potatoes in the fall. The Pendletons host two open houses in November and December and participate in the Lawrence Farmers’ Market’s holiday market.
Then, Pendleton’s closes for winter. It must, according to the terms of the seasonal use permit it operates under. The farm is within Lawrence’s urban growth area, so it must also comply with city codes. Highway rules dictate what its roadside signs can say.
And then there are the licenses—a retail food store license, two live plant dealers licenses (one for the farm and one for the farmers’ market) and a license to sell asparagus crowns across state lines. Paperwork and fees add up to countless hours and thousands of dollars, Karen says.
Market scales must also be certified annually by the Kansas Department of Agriculture, so area farmers host a “scale party” to share the cost—an example of what Karen calls “coopetition.”
Kaw Valley farmers are unique, she says, in their willingness to share resources, network through organizations like Growing Lawrence (www.growinglawrence.org), volunteer on farmers’ market committees and support events like the Kaw Valley Farm Tour.
The result? A stronger local farm economy that benefits everyone.
“What other communities wish they had is what we have—the camaraderie between growers,” Karen says. “We’re all working so hard, let’s at least help each other. Nobody’s working any harder than anybody else.”■
Pendleton’s Kaw Valley Country Market
1446 E. 1850 Rd.
Lawrence, KS 66046
(785) 843-1409
www.pendletons.com
27 Comments
Hi, its good paragraph regarding media print,we all know media is a impressive source of facts.
bookmarked!!, I like your site.
Excellent article. I am facing some of these issues as well..
There is certainly a lot to find out about this issue. I really like all of the points you have made.
Having read this I believed it was rather informative. I appreciate you spending some time and effort to put this content together. I once again find myself personally spending a significant amount of time both reading and leaving comments. But so what, it was still worth it!
I would like to thank you for the efforts you’ve put in writing this blog. I’m hoping to view the same high-grade content from you later on as well. In fact, your creative writing abilities has motivated me to get my very own site now
I’m impressed, I must say. Rarely do I come across a blog that’s equally educative and entertaining, and without a doubt, you’ve hit the nail on the head. The issue is an issue that not enough people are speaking intelligently about. I’m very happy I found this during my hunt for something relating to this.
The very next time I read a blog, I hope that it does not fail me just as much as this one. After all, Yes, it was my choice to read, however I really believed you would probably have something interesting to talk about. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you can fix if you weren’t too busy looking for attention.
F*ckin? tremendous things here. I am very satisfied to see your post. Thank you so much and i am having a look ahead to contact you. Will you kindly drop me a e-mail?
I have noticed that car insurance businesses know the cars and trucks which are at risk from accidents and various risks. In addition, they know what sort of cars are susceptible to higher risk and also the higher risk they’ve the higher the premium amount. Understanding the straightforward basics with car insurance will help you choose the right sort of insurance policy that should take care of your family needs in case you happen to be involved in an accident. Appreciate your sharing the particular ideas in your blog.
Interesting article. It is rather unfortunate that over the last ten years, the travel industry has already been able to to handle terrorism, SARS, tsunamis, bird flu, swine flu, as well as first ever true global downturn. Through everthing the industry has really proven to be robust, resilient along with dynamic, locating new ways to deal with hardship. There are often fresh complications and opportunities to which the business must just as before adapt and act in response.
Thank you ever so for you blog article. Awesome.
A person necessarily help to make critically posts I’d state. This is the first time I frequented your website page and up to now? I surprised with the analysis you made to make this particular publish extraordinary. Excellent task!
I really liked your blog post.Much thanks again. Fantastic.
Pornstar
Thanks for the recommendations shared in your blog. One more thing I would like to state is that weight reduction is not information on going on a fad diet and trying to shed as much weight as you’re able in a set period of time. The most effective way to lose weight naturally is by getting it slowly but surely and using some basic guidelines which can make it easier to make the most out of your attempt to shed weight. You may understand and already be following a few of these tips, nevertheless reinforcing awareness never does any damage.
Viagra
Im grateful for the blog article.Thanks Again. Really Cool.
Nice post. I learn something totally new and challenging on blogs I stumbleupon every day. It’s always helpful to read articles from other writers and use something from other websites.
An outstanding share! I’ve just forwarded this onto a friend who has been doing a little research on this. And he in fact bought me breakfast simply because I found it for him… lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending some time to discuss this subject here on your website.
Everything is very open with a really clear description of the issues. It was truly informative. Your site is extremely helpful. Many thanks for sharing!
bookmarked!!, I really like your website.
Nice read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing some research on that. And he just bought me lunch as I found it for him smile Therefore let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!
An intriguing discussion is worth comment. I do believe that you should write more on this topic, it may not be a taboo matter but typically people do not discuss such subjects. To the next! Cheers!!|
We absolutely love your blog and find almost all of your post’s to be just what I’m looking for. Does one offer guest writers to write content to suit your needs? I wouldn’t mind producing a post or elaborating on many of the subjects you write concerning here. Again, awesome site!|
A motivating discussion is definitely worth comment. I do believe that you should write more about this subject matter, it might not be a taboo matter but usually folks don’t discuss these topics. To the next! Many thanks.
Hey, I think your blog might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your website in Opera, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, awesome blog!