NORMAN — There is nothing that puts a smile on the face of Susan Bergen quicker than talking about public school children eating fresh, organically grown vegetables. It is a passion for this city-girl-turned-farmer, whose Peach Crest Farms is making a mark on the plates of Oklahoma school children, as well as cooks intent on preparing fresh, organic vegetables for their families.
Her 330 acres near Stratford are producing tons of vegetables, with some being harvested throughout the year. There are more than 20 vegetables, from lettuce mix to green onions — available to her wholesale clients today — plus five culinary herbs, all of them grown without chemicals.
She was told that she couldn’t do it by folks who supposedly were in the know, she said.
“They told me I couldn’t do this … couldn’t make it work,” Bergen said, showing both indignation and determination as she drove through fields with 800-foot-long rows of crops including radishes, bok choy, turnips and other crops.
“Ten acres of spinach,” she said.
This week, she is shipping 10,000 pounds of white sweet potatoes.
The business is in the black for the first time this year, and she could sell more if she had the land and the help to do it.
When she started in 1999, finding help was difficult, until she turned to the U.S. Labor Department program for temporary workers in agricultural jobs.
“I ran ads for months, and no one would work. I am paying $9.30 an hour. It is hard work,” she said.
A few were hired, but no one lasted more than a few days.
“Now I am an H-2A employer,” she said, which allows her to hire non-immigrant workers from another country to work the field and process the crops. “I have to provide them housing and transportation and take them to the grocery store,” she said, and they only stay in this country for 10 months. “Their passports have my name on them.
“And they work hard. Last night, we were here until late in the evening getting ready for a truck that came at 6 a.m. today.”
The refrigerated truck was loaded with pallets of vegetables destined for Whole Foods stores.
While she is proud of sales to the big guys, like Whole Foods or Buy for Less, she is most proud that her products are being served to children in Norman, Tulsa Union and Oklahoma City public schools and at the University of Oklahoma.
Last week, she stood in the serving line at a Union school and asked the children if they had eaten sweet potatoes before. Most hadn’t, she said.
“A few turned up their noses and wouldn’t try them. But those who did liked them,” Bergen said. “Imagine how much better that is for them than a processed potato patty.”
She will ship 10,000 pounds of white sweet potatoes to Tulsa next week.
The scattered parcels of sandy soil that comprise Peach Crest Farms sit over the Gerty Sand Aquifer. It is a combination that spells success for the farming operation. Wells bring water to the surface for the miles and miles of tubing that take water to the plants — tubing that has to be replaced each year.
Some of the fields are “fertigated” with emulsified fish particles carried in water to the plants. Here and there are parcels of land planted in a cover crop.
“I am feeding the soil,” she said, adding the nutrients back to the soil through the cover plant growth.
As the vehicle rolls through the fields, she exclaimed, “Can you imagine this? In Oklahoma? Not in California. In Oklahoma.” Fabric protects the plants from the frost, and some plants — including the herbs — grow in greenhouses.
It hasn’t been all rosy around Peach Crest Farms. Peach production was minimal this year, and the drought and heat took a toll on the tomatoes. But the newly planted apple trees are coming along, Bergen said.
Bergen has two assistants who help her manage the farm business, but she is integrally involved in the process, sometimes working beside the crew members as they triple wash, spin dry and bag the vegetables.
Potato and squash culls that are oddly shaped or have gotten bruised or marred are set aside for a “gleaning group” from her church, McFarlin Methodist, who bring the food to Norman to feed the hungry.
She is a participating grower in the Oklahoma Food Cooperative and the Oklahoma Food Policy Council.
Born and raised in Boston, the fields of Oklahoma might have been a culture shock. But when she married Floyd Bergen in the early 1980s, she said, “I married into an agriculture family, and they taught me to love it.”
While this former PTA mom and stockbroker could sit back and live a leisurely life, she said the work “fills a need to be of use” and gives vent to the drive to teach about healthful living through eating healthy food. In 2006, she made the farm organic, and she hasn’t looked back. She has her eye on some nearby land that is for sale.
