April 29, 2005

JOEL DAVIDSON/Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - In a few days, automatic transplanters will be plugging millions upon millions of tiny vegetable plants into fertile Mat-Su soil. As the fledgling roots take hold, the two-inch plants will embark on an annual growth spurt, culminating in thousands of acres of lush greenery. As of Thursday, most Valley fields were still a tad muddy, but warm temperatures are quickly drying the puddles and farmers are just days away from tilling and planting. By summer's end, warehouses, farmers markets and produce departments across the state will teem with Mat-Su grown vegetables.

The process of transforming soggy fields into vegetable havens starts in early April, when farmers begin growing millions of plants in giant greenhouses. By the first of May, the two-inch shoots have outgrown their cramped flats and are ready to stretch their roots under the midnight sun.

Paula Giauque is one of about 30 Mat-Su vegetable farmers who both grow and sell produce. Giauque co-owns Gold Nugget Farms with her daughter, Teri Bernowski. The two of them and a handful of farmhands are preparing to fill 60 acres with roughly 10 million plants.

According to the latest numbers from the Census of Agriculture, a total of 319 acres of Mat-Su land is used to raise vegetables for market. Another 567 acres clasp potatoes, but seed spuds don't normally go into the ground until mid-May.

Giauque said the automatic transplanter makes life much easier for vegetable growers during planting season. She likens the machine to a gun. After loading it with starter plants, the transplanter inserts them individually into the ground, evenly spaced and ready to grow.

Before the transplanter era, seeds were planted directly into the fields, which meant the growing season had to wait until the ground was completely thawed and dry. In the 1980s, Giauque and other Valley farmers began using transplanters, which allowed them to start growing vegetables in greenhouses while the fields warmed up.

"Used to be we didn't harvest lettuce till August," Giauque said, adding that now the first heads of lettuce are ready to pick in early July.

Of course, growing and harvesting vegetables is only as profitable as the market dictates and while millions of American family farms have folded over the last 100 years, Gold Nugget Farms has found a way to compete with the larger agro-farms.

U.S. Department of Agriculture agricultural statistician Susan Benz said there is a growing number of smaller part-time farms, but the large commercial farms that compete with Outside growers haven't increased in recent years.

"A lot of farmers work off the farm as well or they are retired from some other business," Benz said of the smaller operations that sell to farmers markets and niche markets.

Farmers like Giauque and Ben VanderWeele of VanderWeele Farms sell to Safeway and Fred Meyer and have managed to carve out a living primarily from farming.

Giauque said local producers benefit from being able to sell fresher food, compared with vegetables shipped up from Seattle. She said statewide promotion of local products has also helped build statewide support for home-grown produce, allowing Mat-Su farmers to compete with outside prices.

"Either you sell it for market price or you just quit growing," she said.

With mounting pressure to sell land to developers, more and more Mat-Su farmers are calling it quits. Giauque, her brother and her father own some of the last large tracts of farmland in the Butte area and despite lucrative offers from developers, they plan to stay the course.

"There's always inquiries from developers, but we are committed to stay in farming," Giauque said.

Giauque started farming 28 summers ago, helping her father, Paul Huppert. Huppert has since turned the actual farming over to his children and now runs Palmer Produce, a company marketing locally grown produce.

"I guess I'm old-fashioned," Huppert said, "but the closer the market, the fresher the produce."

Giauque agrees and said she feels obligated to continue the tradition of her father and other Mat-Su farmers.

"My generation owes the next generation a food source," Giauque said as she worked with her daughter this week. "If we build houses on all the land, what are we leaving for them?"

Contact Joel Davidson at

352-2266, or joel.davidson@

frontiersman.com.