When it comes to vegetables, Valley teenager delivers

Sept. 4, 2005

DAWN DE BUSK\Frontiersman reporter PALMER - At the tender age of 4 years old, Rachel Kenley earned 10 cents an hour to weed the garden her sister, Amy, tended every summer.

"It was more than I was worth," Rachel laughed.

It was just a way to keep Rachel occupied and nearby while everyone else was working in the garden, her mom said.

A decade later, Rachel has inherited her sister's job of harvesting in-season vegetables and delivering those garden-fresh edibles and a bouquet of flowers once a week to her 18 customers in the Valley and Eagle River. She runs a subscription garden business, offering her clients a weekly basket of whatever is bountiful in the Kenley Farms' garden and greenhouse, located on several acres of fertile soil at about Mile 3 Palmer Fishhook. The property belonged to Rachel's grandfather, Clyde Oberg, who purchased it from a homesteader in the 1950s. Later, he split the parcel between his children.

On Friday, Rachel apologized for the shape of the garden. It's late in the season, she said. The yellow-flowered chickweed has gained ground, but still, the weeds stand short among the bushy broccoli and dozen artichokes that look like green roses poised at the end of their stems. A row of stately sunflowers clings to the fence, appearing a little bedraggled from the recent rain, while Pioneer Peak, sifted with termination dust, looms in the background of a sunny September day.

Rachel's customers get vegetables fresher than the local grocer's produce, along with a list of what they are getting in their baskets and how-to's for more unusual veggies like kohlrabi, she said.

In addition, Rachel provides her clients with an update on how the garden is growing and what's ripening next.

"This year, it rained a lot so we had slugs. We don't use pesticides, so people didn't get as much lettuce as last year," she said. "The past two years the radishes have done poorly. But two years ago, people got lots of radishes. We let them know when the tomatoes will be ready and stuff like that."

Rachel tops off the information with an envelope full of recipes so her customers can experiment with different ways to prepare the items in their vegetable baskets.

Most people opt for the smaller basket, which costs $300 a season, Rachel said. The one-time payment covers weekly deliveries from mid-May to mid-September. The medium basket costs $350 per year, and just a few people select the $400 basket for their garden needs.

Some of her customers have been buying produce from Kenley Farms since Amy ran the business. Others - like Rachel's aunt, who was moving into a recently built home on her property and didn't have time for her garden this year - are first-timers.

Who are Rachel's customers?

"People who don't have time to commit to a garden," she said. "Some people are experimenting with their gardens. So they know they only have a small variety."

Rachel runs the business, but gives credit and some of the money to her mom, who "helps out a bunch." Her mother arranges bouquets and shuttles the baskets to Eagle River once a week.

Rachel uses the payment from one of the large baskets - the $400 one - to cover the cost of seeds, starters and gas. From there, some of the profits pay her cousins for help and pay her mother. The remaining money goes into Rachel's college fund.

Every Monday, Rachel enlists the help of her cousins. Together, they harvest the heartier vegetables like carrots, cauliflower, and potatoes. Those veggies are washed and arranged in a basket.

On Tuesday mornings, the more perishable vegetables are picked, along with the bouquets. Then, the Kenleys hand-deliver the food plus flowers to decorate the dinner table.

Sometimes people get one sunflower or a bunch of sweet peas. Other times, Rachel's mom might have extra time to arrange a more spectacular floral spread.

"One lady paid $60 extra just to have a bigger bouquet," Rachel said.

Weeding the gardens occupies Wednesdays. Preparing animals, flowers and baked goods for fair competitions has overshadowed that task recently, she said.

The elements necessary for a successful agricultural project exist not only in the soil here, but in the Kenley family's blood.

Rachel's older siblings have followed careers related to the farmland where they were raised.

"All of them have gone into something agricultural. Amy is going to be an agricultural educational teacher," she said. Another sibling studied business agriculture, while a third Kenley delved into urban landscaping.

Rachel guesses that once she finishes college, she will always have some sort of garden, even if it's small.

"Sometimes you take it for granted. My mom is making a salad and she'll ask me for some lettuce. I just run out to the garden and get a head of lettuce. We don't have to drive to the store," she said. "But when I do eat vegetables from the store I think, 'Yuck, this tastes fake.' I like how fresh our vegetables taste."

Contact Dawn De Busk at

352-2252, or dawn.debusk@

frontiersman.com.