PORT ANGELES — Four hundred heads of lettuce. Italian tomatoes, grapevines, peas, cucumbers, amaranth and artichokes.
And weeds? No, the farmer says. Not a problem.
There do tend to be rubberneckers, seeing as how this farm, blooming madly into the summer, is on the main street in downtown Port Angeles.
Greg Voyles, the Farmers Insurance agent whose office is close by, buys a half-pound bag of lettuce here every week.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “Fresh as you can get.”
Maureen Wall of Port Angeles is the farmer beside the old Odd Fellows Hall at 314 W. First St. She owns that canary-hued building, and now she’s using the quarter-acre beside it for an aquaponic operation.
Its name is “This Is Odd: An Urban Farm,” and it uses a combination of aquaculture — tanks of fish — and hydroponics in raised beds where the plants grow in water instead of soil.
Yet there’s nothing odd about Wall’s method.
Aquaponics is an ancient practice used by the Aztecs, the Chinese and the keepers of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The University of the U.S. Virgin Islands, to reduce dependence on imported food, grows vegetables aquaponically.
Wall, always interested in gardening, began researching this method some years ago. She completed aquaponics training in Ukiah, Calif., and built her system of tanks, water filters, greenhouses and grow beds.
Tanks of troutlike Arctic char are in the basement of the Odd Fellows Hall; the fish waste, through bacterial conversion, supplies the nutrients needed in the grow beds.
Wall has two built two beds so far and has installed the plumbing for a second pair.
She runs a community-supported agriculture, or CSA, operation for 10 subscribing households now, and as the farm grows, she hopes to sell — and deliver by bicycle — produce to nearby restaurants.
To local chefs, she says: Stop by the farm, where I am most days, or call me at 360-460-5483.
So far, Wall, 55, is a one-woman show, and as a farmer must be, she is both industrious and optimistic.
Her next set of grow beds will go online in about a week.
The two greenhouses are jammed with tomatoes, and she envisions a day when the salads in Port Angeles restaurants are made of her local greens.
Wall also sees the need for a commercial kitchen for canning of local fish and produce — and she knows where it could go.
The Odd Fellows Hall basement, she says, is spacious enough for exactly this purpose: a simple, batch-processing kitchen.
Betsy Wharton, owner of Clallam Canning Co. and a contributor to the Peninsula Daily News column “Peninsula Kitchen,” shares Wall’s interest in such a facility. The two women have known each other for many years; both want to see sustainable businesses grow up here.
Wharton added that she’s “completely impressed” at the way Wall turned a vacant lot into a farm.
“She has a really forward vision for that place,” Wharton said.
“It’s a surprisingly sunny spot. And she’s growing beautiful plants. The proof is in the pudding.”
Now and then, a passing motorist will pull over to take a look at the farm, dotted as it is with flowers — and bordered with that sun-loving herb that made Sequim famous.
Wall acquired four lavender plants several years ago — they were offered free in the Peninsula Daily News’ Bargain Box classified ads — and now they’re in furious purple bloom.
Wharton, alongside her Clallam Canning Co. pickles, sells lavender bundles from Wall’s farm.
She sets them up at her booth at the Port Angeles Farmers Market, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays under The Gateway pavilion at Front and Lincoln streets.
Wall, meanwhile, is busy building on to her farm and her vision.
She hasn’t always adored Port Angeles. After living in Italy for 11 years, she moved here in 2004 to care for her elderly parents. They’re now deceased, and there was a time when Wall wanted to move away.
In 2012, she put the century-old Odd Fellows Hall up for sale.
It didn’t sell, but things have improved: For the first time in years, Wall has rented both of the ground-floor commercial spaces and all three of the apartments.
Naturally, Wall wants to be part of an economic, environmentally conscious recovery in Port Angeles. With its water-recirculation system, her farm uses far less water than conventional agriculture, she said.
Wall imagines a future with farming as a livelihood, even a creator of green jobs for local residents.
“The very first economy,” she said, “is food.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
