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Skagit Valley's Tulip Town trying to rebound from pandemic, heat wave and flooding

For nearly 40 years, Tulip Town has been a blossoming boutique tulip farm.

SKAGIT COUNTY, Wash. — There’s trouble in Tulip Town, but some of the Skagit Valley's newest farmers say they’re determined to spring in to April.

In 2019, a group of Mount Vernon High School graduates teamed up to create Spinach Bus Ventures to help promote, preserve, and create economic development in the place where they were raised.

“We’re not new to the valley, but we are certainly new to farming,” said partner Rachael Ward-Sparwasser. “We need people to come. We’ve worked really hard to make this a special place.”

For nearly 40 years, Tulip Town has been a blossoming boutique tulip farm. The new ownership group said they’ve focused on making the property an attraction and gathering space for colorful flower photos, food, and fun.

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Partner Andrew Miller said the harsh realities of farming were compounded by historically bad timing.

“In the years since we bought the property, we’ve had a global pandemic, scorching heat wave, and incredibly flooding,” said Miller.

The farm planted five acres of colorful flowers but have just one acre of flowers to show for their work.

“It’s so painful as a farmer to do everything right and then get hammered by the rain in a way that our valley has never seen before,” said Miller.

Kristen Keltz, the CEO of Spinach Bus Ventures, said the team is working overtime to make up for the traditional abundance of flowers.

“We have a 10,000-square-foot indoor space with flowers, shopping, food, a beer and wine garden, and a ton of great photo backdrops,” said Keltz.

The team has also removed the fences that lined the fields so guests get a more immersive feel and can walk through the rows of tulips. 

Tulip Town opens on April 1 to coincide with the Skagit Tulip Festival that runs through the end of the month.

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