Catch sight of the young woman surrounded by a riot of fresh color, and you might think she’s purely the front-line salesperson.
And when she calls out, “Try this! I dare you,” to a shy passer-by, you get to watch how she awakens new fans to her sugar snap peas.
The whole truth, however, is that Lela Copeland does more than sell at the Port Angeles Farmers Market. She raised, harvested, hauled and arranged all of the produce in baskets and bunches on her table, after moving to the Olympic Peninsula with not a speck of farming experience.
A trip to her own first “garden,” in fact a 1-acre field at the Lazy J Farm on Gehrke Road, provides a taste of life as a small-scale grower.
First off, Copeland hands her visitor a crisp stalk of celery, just picked from one of the many rows.
Then the tour continues, through the lettuce, the spinach, the red cabbage, the broccoli and cauliflower and peppers, the fingerling potatoes and the bright-gold cherry tomatoes.
Copeland is a farmer who’s found success — on many levels — in the fertile soil along Siebert Creek.
She began growing her own business last year, on that acre leased from longtime Lazy J owner Steve Johnson — “he wants to grow farmers,” she says — and though Copeland calls this a difficult way to make a living, she’s not about to shrink from the challenges.
A product of Bellingham, Copeland attended Whatcom Community College as a Running Start student while still in high school, and then began looking for internships on websites such as OrganicVolunteers.com.
She was one green intern, and just 19, when she landed her first job at Christie and Kelly Johnston’s place, off Old Olympic Highway west of Sequim.
So Christie Johnston, “one of the most hardworking women I know,” taught her from the ground up.
The teenager “was an extremely quick learner; always on task,” Johnston remembers, adding that Copeland also brought a natural enthusiasm to the farmers market, even after a a long work week.
“I jumped right in and loved it,” Copeland said. “Working hard just feels good on the body. I love watching things grow and being outdoors.” No iPod for this one; she tunes her ears to the creek and birdsong.
Copeland does have a greater appreciation now, though for the opportunity to sit for a spell indoors, after her 10- or 12-hour day.
Copeland worked at the Johnston Farm for three seasons over four years, with time off in between for travel to California and Hawaii, where she visited and worked on farms and took a permaculture course while living on the island of Oahu.
Copeland was still in Hawaii when Johnston phoned, in early 2008, to tell her she had no interns that season and needed help on the farm.
Remembering this, Copeland held her tanned hands out, palms up.
“I thought, Hawaii, [or] friends?” she said, moving her hands as if weighing the two on a scale.
She chose friends, flew back to Washington and worked another season on the Johnston Farm.
In fall ’08, Copeland reached a turning point. She and her boyfriend had split up, harvest time was coming to an end and she was thinking about where and how she wanted to live.
“I was wanting to pro Âgress,” she said. “I decided I really like it here.”
“Here” is her field, which has grown this season into a glorious hotbed of flavors.
Lazy J owner Steve Johnson now leases 3 acres to Copeland and her partner, Mike Gwaltney, who worked as an intern at Collinwood Farms in Port Townsend.
They met in late 2008 at the Port Angeles Farmers Market, went to the annual barn dance at Nash’s Organic Produce in Dungeness — and this year combined their energies.
This summer has been busy: the pair sells their certified organic produce at the Port Angeles, Sequim and Poulsbo farmers markets, Country Aire Natural Foods in Port Angeles and the Red Rooster Grocery in Sequim.
They also deliver to local restaurants including Sequim’s Alder Wood Bistro and Port Angeles’ Bella Italia, Kokopelli Grill, Oven Spoonful and Blackbird Cafe.
“We sell out of pretty much everything they bring us,” said Lisa Boulware, co-owner of the Red Rooster.
Last week, Copeland and Gwaltney brought spinach, lettuces and celery, all of it “very, very clean; they triple-wash everything,” she added. “Lela and Mike know what they’re doing.”
Right now, Copeland said, is tomato time. She’ll bring multihued cherry tomatoes and red slicers out to the Port Angeles Farmers Market in The Gateway at Front and Lincoln streets from 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, and to the Sequim Open Aire Market from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on West Cedar Street on Saturday.
Over the past year, Copeland has watched appetites for fresh, local produce increase. She regularly chats up people who are at the farmers market for the first time — and makes sure they taste something from her table.
Behind the market scenes, though, the summertime living is not easy. Copeland and Gwaltney work a lot of long days and nights, harvesting, washing, packing boxes and making deliveries.
And with their eyes on the fall and winter, they’re hoping to build two more greenhouses at Lazy J.
This year, they’ve been using one movable greenhouse, with much success.
Here’s how it works: Copeland, Gwaltney and their farm hand, Jason Meloache, plant tomatoes and such in the greenhouse in spring.
When the plants are established and the weather warms, they pick up the greenhouse, move it down the row to shelter another set of crops. Meantime, the newly exposed vegetables ripen in the sun.
This enables the farmers, Copeland said, to start planting crops such as tomatoes much earlier in the year.
With her produce regularly selling out at farmers markets and stores, Copeland figures there’s demand ample enough for her to expand her operations. Fruit, such as raspberries, is something she and Gwaltney may start growing more of.
Yet Copeland has no illusions about the hardships of running a small farm in Clallam County. She’s making no predictions about the future.
Then again, Copeland is just 24 this summer; Gwaltney is 25.
For now, the couple are making the most of their time and their leased land.
“I feel so privileged,” Copeland said, “to have this opportunity with so little investment,” as Johnson not only provides the 3 acres but also makes his truck and tools available for Copeland and Gwaltney.
To his mind, that’s about the only way young farmers can get going.
Johnson, 56, inherited Lazy J and is concentrating on growing Christmas trees and selling compost.
After getting his fill of the farmers-market circuit, he’s pleased to bring a new generation of growers onto fertile ground.
Copeland and Gwaltney, meantime, are gauging which crops will prove most popular among market browsers and restaurateurs. They’ve got Romaine lettuce for Michael’s in downtown Port Angeles and soon cipollini onions for Bella Italia.
A walk through their larger, 2-acre field takes one past seven 200-foot-long rows of leeks and onions alongside an abundance of other crops, from cilantro to delicata squash to parsnips.
Copeland, a member of the Port Angeles Farmers Market board of directors, is also a believer in the interconnectedness of the local economy. She looks for opportunities to buy local and feels intense gratitude to the local restaurants and groceries that stock her goods.
Participating in the local economy, she said, “is the only way we’re going to move forward.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.