Potato Grower

November 2017

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20 POTATO GROWER | NOVEMBER 2017 ALL ABOUT POTATOES When Norm Nelson, who passed away in 1984, struck out on his own in the late 1930s, he knew he wanted to grow potatoes. "He never really reminisced a lot about it," says Jerry. "But I think he wanted to be a potato farmer for two reasons: One, he really liked potatoes; and two, he could have control of what he grew if he got his own packing facility." In the early years, Norm included cabbage for seed in his crop rotation. When World War II ended in 1945, the price for cabbage seed skyrocketed as millions of Americans rushed to plant victory gardens. The upswing in the cabbage market was a major boon to the farm. But, in an act of impressive prescience, Nelson pulled out of the cabbage business for good in 1946. "He decided, 'Cabbage isn't what I'm going to do; potatoes are what I'm going to do,'" Jerry Nelson says now. "And the price of cabbage seed turned out to only be good for that one year. He took that money and put it back into potatoes. That's what helped him buy the packing facility in Burlington." While the original packing shed no longer stands, Norm Nelson, Inc.'s current, much larger, modernized facility sits on the same plot of land. The Nelsons pack and sell all their own potatoes all over the continent, from San Francisco to Montréal. Rising more than 10,000 feet above the Nelsons' farm in Bow, Mount Baker's not- so-distant snow-capped peak stands in contrast to the lush green of the Skagit Valley. GROWER OF THE MONTH

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