Grower News

Tulips grow in a greenhouse at RoozenGaarde on Friday. The farm has scaled back its operations due to financial challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Tulip Town’s farm stand sells boxed lunches, bags of flour and other essential items in addition to tulip bouquets. Farm stands that sell food are considered essential and may continue to operate under Gov. Jay Inlsee’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected Skagit Valley’s tulip growers in multiple ways, from a collapse in flower sales to the cancellation of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival and loss of several hundred thousand visitors who roam the fields each April and buy merchandise, bulbs and bouquets. The seasonal businesses that earn a majority of their income in early spring are doing everything they can to make up what they lost. “Instead of truckloads (of tulips), we’re doing a box at a time,” said Brent Roozen, a third-generation tulip grower for RoozenGaarde. “If we could replace … what we lost, we would be beyond thrilled, but that’s probably a long time off.” A few weeks ago, orders for a million tulip stems destined for grocery stores throughout the country were canceled, as stores prioritized stocking up on essentials such as toilet paper, Roozen said. “Flowers were the first thing everyone cut,” he said. Roozen said the farm tried to donate as many tulips as possible to hospitals and first responders. Ultimately some ended up in the compost pile. “They are a perishable product,” he said. “When the whole market dries up, there is nowhere for them to go.” He said bouquets are back in grocery stores, but it’s a fraction of the volume the farm had expected. Roozen said in a normal year, crews would be cutting flowers from a portion of the farm’s 300 to 350 acres of tulips. This year the farm is filling all its orders from tulips grown in its greenhouses, and has cut its workforce. “We can’t afford to have any extra costs at this point,” he said. Roozen said this hardship is different than any the family-owned farm […]

Source: www.goskagit.com