2020 Our Valley Our Future Award Winner - Diane Szukovathy
Diane Szukovathy, Jello Mold Farm - SPF’s Innovation in Agriculture Award
On a brisk spring Skagit Valley morning, Diane Szukovathy carefully looked through her just-blooming Icelandic Poppies. Tiny slivers of coral, salmon, and pink peeked through green buds. The flower is notoriously finicky and difficult to grow. They are picked in the early morning, before the buds open up too much, to ensure a long vase life.
For one perfectly bloomed salmon-colored poppy, it was too late. The flower’s delicate, papery pedals rustled in the wind. Diane set it aside, unfit for market.
“We farmers don’t see a lot of color,” she joked. This is the great irony of flower farmers: the best blooms are saved for later – wedding days, dining room tables or other special occasions, far from the gritty fields where they’re grown.
This is the key to the success of Diane’s Jello Mold Farm. Not only has she mastered her passion for growing flowers, she’s sorted out how to make the business side of it pencil.
Years ago, Diane saw that regional flower farmers with a similar ethos to hers – salmon-safe, good stewards of the land, and high quality standards – would be better off working together, so she helped found the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market, located in Georgetown. Seventeen farms from Oregon and Washington belong to the cooperative, including three other Skagit Valley flower farms. Their storefront draws buyers from some of the most well-regarded restaurants and florists in Seattle, as well as grocery stores like the Ballard Market and Burt’s Red Apple in Madison Park. Because these farmers work together, they spend more time growing and less time delivering, which Szukovathy says is critical for the success of small farms.
Diane is also dedicated to sharing her knowledge with others – both the farming and business aspects. Her vibrant intern program brings a steady stream of passionate growers through Jello Mold Farm, some of whom have gone on to start their own farms. “It’s a different kind of crop,” she said as she picked a sleeping bug off a branch she was cutting, carefully placing it on another leaf to continue its nap. “They fill you back up with their creativity.”
Diane thinks of her seven-acre farm as a habitat sanctuary for wildlife. A White-Crowned Sparrow recently made a nest, laying four speckled eggs in one of Diane’s hoop houses. Frogs and toads are regulars. “The farm itself is nature,” she said.
Szukovathy’s goal is to sustainably compete with large flower growers in tropical areas that abuse people and planet by flying their industrially-grown flowers around the planet, for slightly cheaper than you can buy locally. “That’s f** up,” she said. “You can quote me on that.”
With Covid-19 challenging the globalized model, Szukovathy hopes for the better, although the pandemic is cutting into Jello Mold Farm’s revenue as well. Large weddings and events are cancelled. But like always, Diane’s entrepreneurial innovation is helping keep Jello Mold Farm and the rest of the cooperative going. Flowers and fashion are intertwined and ever-changing, so she’s used to adapting. Mother’s Day was the biggest they’ve had yet, weddings are turning into elopement flower packages, and more people are buying bouquets of flowers at home to cheer themselves up.
Diane recently received a call from an immune-compromised Seattleite who regularly picks up Diane’s specialty Colibri Icelandic Poppies at the Ballard Market this time of year. The woman said every year she looks forward to the poppies – watching them in the vase until the petals fall off, continuing to watch the stamen after that. The customer can’t go in the store, but wanted to know if she could order some of the poppies to pick up curbside, which, of course, Diane will supply.
For years, Diane and her husband Dennis have been dedicated to bringing nature to the places it’s needed most, and, she said, it’s needed now more than ever. “That’s why we do this,” Diane said. “The flowers are an ambassador for nature.”
Story and photos by Tahlia Honea: info@skagitonians.org