The Power of Interdependence at Bow Hill Blueberries
/
Pictured: the European Honey Bee (left) and our native Bumble Bee (right).
Bow Hill Blueberries co-owner, Ezra Ranz, can list off several benefits of planting a Wet Feet Farming buffer along the slough bordering the farm, but there’s one reason that rises above the rest.
“It’s all for the Bumble Bees,” said Ezra.
And he does mean Bumble Bees specifically.
“Bumble Bees coevolved with Blueberry plants,” said Ezra. “So they pollinate about 60 times more effectively than a Honey Bee.”
Part of this has to do with buzz pollination, a technique Bumble Bees use to vibrate their bodies, dusting their way down the bell-shaped Blueberry blossom and effectively removing pollen from the stamen.
“That’s why Bumble Bees can visit seven to ten plants in a minute while a Honey Bee is only going to visit one or two,” said Ezra. “Plus, a Honey Bee needs to visit a Blueberry blossom four to six times for it to be fully pollinated whereas a Bumble Bee can do it in a single visit.”
This kind of effective pollination is especially important since the number of good pollination days each spring can vary significantly, particularly with climate change. But efficiency isn’t the only advantage our native North American Bumble Bee has over the European Honey Bee. Bumble Bees are larger in size, covered in dense fur (which gives them their fuzzy appearance) and able to generate heat and regulate their body temperature. This allows Bumble Bees to fly at colder temperatures than most other bees.
“That means that they can work earlier in the morning, later in the evening, and they’re less weather dependent,” said Ezra.
Ezra, Emma, Audrey and Andrew pictured with their families.
A Family Affair
While the relationship between Bumble Bees and Blueberries is mutually beneficial (the Bees get nectar and pollen in the spring and the flowers get pollinated) Bumble Bees need food from early spring to late fall, both for themselves and their larvae. The Aronia and native plants in the Wet Feet Farming buffer will help provide food and habitat throughout the seasons.
And just as the buffer, Blueberry plants, and Bumble Bees each have important complementary roles, so do Bow Hill Blueberries’ four owners. Ezra oversees the farm; his wife, Emma, is in charge of finance and operations; Ezra’s sister, Audrey, works on marketing and product development; and Audrey’s husband, Andrew, handles the photography, website, and events.
A drone photo of Bow Hill Blueberries courtesy of Studio 44A.
“We each have individual strengths,” said Ezra. “I'm grateful to have collaborators that are fluent in areas where I’m not.”
Before the pandemic, buying a farm together wasn’t something the team of four necessarily could have foreseen, although it was an idea they’d dreamt about. Ezra and Audrey grew up on a rural five-acre property with a half-acre kitchen garden and had fond memories of the experience.
“I remember picking Raspberries and Rhubarb with my mom and grandma,” recalled Audrey. “Some aunties—whether they were related or not—would be around canning Peaches or we'd be putting up a whole bunch of Apple sauce or Gooseberry jam.”
It was a lifestyle they lost in their teen years when their family moved to the city, but after college, Audrey suggested to Ezra that they take an Organic Gardening/Sustainable Agriculture course at UC Santa Cruz. Audrey had been working with sustainable agriculture nonprofits and Ezra had just returned from working on a grad-level biogas digester project.
What they learned during the Organic Gardening/Sustainable Agriculture course percolated in the back of their minds until 2020. Audrey and Emma had both lost their jobs as a result of pandemic layoffs, Ezra had just finished renovating and selling their home, and Andrew was working part time.
“It was a really difficult period for a lot of people,” said Audrey. “But it gave us that push to take a leap toward something where we’d be living more of our values.”
Finding Community
In 2021, after just a year of running the farm, they lost their production building and farm store in a fire.
Bow Hill Blueberries had been growing Blueberries since 1947, when the original farm owners purchased starts from a post-war traveling salesman. In 2011, the Soltes family transitioned the farm to certified organic and began creating value-added products, including Blueberry juice which developed a strong local customer base.
When Ezra, Emma, Audrey, and Andrew bought Bow Hill Blueberries, they knew these value-added products were an essential part of the success of the business. However in 2021, after just a year of running the farm, they lost their means of production in a fire caused by old wiring.
"We lost the processing facility where we were making our products," said Audrey. "And the smoke damage to our farm store was significant so we had to take that down as well."
Thankfully, they found out they weren’t alone in this new endeavor.
“Because of the Puget Sound Food Hub Cooperative, we were able to pivot and make connections with farmers that had the infrastructure we lacked,” said Ezra. “Those partnerships and co-packing relationships made it possible to keep our products alive.”
Rising From the Ashes
The following year, as Bow Hill Blueberries rebuilt their farm store, they also worked with the Salal Native Plant Society to plant native hedgerows adjacent to their u-pick lanes. Then in 2023, they partnered with Skagit and Snohomish Conservation District to plant their Wet Feet Farming buffer, a project funded through a WSDA Specialty Crop Block Grant.
This planting, designed to tolerate extremely wet conditions, will have benefits beyond providing forage for Bumble Bees. The Aronia (mixed in with Willow, Snowberry, and Cascara) will provide Bow Hill Blueberries with a high-value specialty crop.
“It gives us an opportunity to play around with recipes like Blueberry-Aronia jam,” said Audrey.
As the plants grow, the buffer will also help shade out invasive Reed Canary Grass which thrives in full sun.
“In terms of harvestable space we're constantly fighting that creep of Reed Canary Grass from encroaching on our field,” said Ezra. “Once the buffer’s established, there's going to be less sunlight for those Reed Canary Grass plants.”
Wildflowers & the “Woodwide” Web
Bow Hill Blueberries is also partnering with Xerces Society’s Pollinator and Agricultural Biodiversity Co-Director, Eric Lee-Mäder, to implement a “Bee Better Certification.” As a farmer himself, Eric has an intimate knowledge of the needs of both large-scale agriculture and smaller farms. (Read Eric’s story here.)
“It’s typically for larger farms,” said Ezra, “But Eric was able to tailor it so we’ll be able to create kind of a wildflower meadow in between the Blueberry rows instead of just grass.”
Ezra is planning to start trialing the inter-row wildflower plantings this fall using a no-till seed drill.
“We’ve completely stopped any subsoil tillage,” said Ezra. “We're not doing any root disturbance because those mycelial threads are feeding our Blueberries and we want to keep those intact.”
Just as Blueberries have coevolved with Bumble Bees, they’ve also developed a mutually beneficial partnership with mycelium.
“Blueberries don’t have fine root hairs, so they’re generally poor at nutrient uptake,” explained Ezra. “But they’ve formed a relationship with specialized mycelial threads called ericoid mycorrhizae. The Blueberries give them sugars and simple proteins and, in return, these mycelial threads are breaking down micro and macro nutrients and delivering them to the roots.”
Photo courtesy of Megan Farmer (KUOW)
Stronger Together
In agroforestry, this kind of interdependence is considered an essential part of a healthy system and is a quality Bow Hill Blueberries seems to embody—whether it’s the connection between the Blueberry roots and the mycelium, the Bumble Bees and buffer plantings, or within their family business.
It’s also a key part of long-term sustainability, which is something Ezra experienced first-hand while building relationships with other farmers after the fire.
“It took lots of learning and lots of conversations,” said Ezra. “Now I'm so much more sure about the sustainability of our business model because of its interconnectedness to the local food network.”
But that wasn’t the only thing Ezra discovered.
“The biggest lesson I learned from the fire is that you are not your assets, you are not your product. You're what you're willing to do,” he said. “So if you're willing to reimagine how you get something or how you make something, then you can remake it or reimagine it in any way.”
