Moscow Food Co-op Producer Profile

by Patrick Vaughn, from the October 2004 newsletter

George and Sue are known to most Co-op customers only by their sweet carrots that grace the produce display in the fall and much of the winter. That’s just fine by this farming partnership based in the forested mountains outside of St. Maries, Idaho.

Reticent on talking about their private lives and personal history, George and Sue display a quiet intensity born of scratching a living from the earth, balanced with a twinkle in the eyes that reflects an experienced perspective on life.

George, originally from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, came to north Idaho over 25 years ago from California; or the “old country” as he refers to his previous state of residence. He homesteaded a 20 acre tract of timber 8 miles from St. Maries, and in the “frontier-spirit,” cleared and fenced a couple acres for a garden and began building a home. His “hovel,” as he refers to it, remains off the grid and was constructed primarily with recycled materials. He describes wistfully how it looked and felt once with 21 candles lit for lighting.

Sue lives in Fernwood, a small hamlet on Hwy 3 south of St. Maries, in a house she built “one room at a time.” She says she and George came to know of each other because “When you live in an area populated by just 2,000 people, you can’t help but know about everybody.” Their first date was at the Santa Barter Fair. George calls Sue his “worthy partner, confidante, weeder, and thinner.” They have been together for eight years now. Though George starts to say with a grin that he is the overseer, it is obvious when they speak of their gardening operation that they share in every aspect of the work.

George and Sue began with growing flowers in flower boxes for the town of St. Maries. They planted, placed and nurtured 300 feet of boxes around the community, watering them in the evenings and changing the flowers three times a season. They eventually quit the flower business and started lettuce. They still grow some lettuce and spinach in the spring. “At 3,000 feet elevation, we can beat some low-lying places,” says George about their ability to grow better lettuce longer into the summer heat.

“Our Sweet Babies” is how George and Sue refer to their well-known carrots. They have developed a system for maintaining soil fertility and improving tilth that has stood the test of time in their licensed organic mountain garden. They dig trenches and bury manure, sometimes planting potatoes. Then, the next season, they plant carrots in rows one pick-handle apart. The spacing keeps dirt from falling into adjacent rows and allows room for the long, detailed hand-weeding that comes with growing carrots. Following years they cross-hatch the trenches and over time their garden plots evolve into black gold.

George and Sue plant their carrots relatively late in the season. They market their larger carrots in bunches with the greens. They leave the remainder of the crop in the ground, mulch with hay and straw and then dig the frost-sweetened carrots through much of the cold season.

They enjoy bringing their carrots to the Co-op, using their periodic trips to Moscow to treat themselves to getting cleaned up, visiting friends, and partaking of some of the deli’s baked goods. “We use this as our recreation,” says George with a wink. “Our one night in the big city. We love the Co-op and everyone in it.”

During the winter one of their favorite social activities is playing Parcheesi with friends. George says this 500-year-old game from India is best played with its original rules.

George and Sue deflect questions about the future with self-deprecating humor. “You don’t look up at that row of carrots in front of you or it’ll kill you. One day at a time. We don’t think in terms of the future. We think of what is being done now.”

They will admit to running a side hobby involving a peep show. Not to give away the show, they describe it only as a “religious experience and a family thing.” Until I make it to the Barter Fair I’ll have to take it on their word, and enjoy their sweet babies from the Co-op.

Pat Vaughan also enjoys going to town periodically to have a cup of coffee and something from the Co-op deli.

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