Young entrepreneur creates market for sunflowers

Katy Douglas grows and tends her own sunflowers to sell at the Tigard Area Farmers’ Market

By Barbara Sherman

The Times, Sep 13, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Barbara Sherman / The Times

HAVING FUN WITH SUNFLOWERS — Katy Douglas, with her mom Cathy, has been living, eating and breathing (non-allergenic) sunflowers this summer to add some color to her parents’ PM Farms booth.

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TIGARD – A popular figure at the Tigard Area Farmers’ Market this summer has been Katy Douglas, 11, who sells sunflowers that she raises herself.

The sixth-grader at St. John Fisher K-8 school in Southwest Portland has been helping out her parents, Cathy and Ken, in their booth for the past three years.

The family, which owns 7½ acres and plants a garden on three-quarters of an acre, operates the PM Farms booth, selling such items as green beans, wax beans, cucumbers, lemon cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, beets, onions, Patty Pan squash, Golden Jubilee corn, blackberries and more.

“We started doing this to keep a farm going and show kids where food in the grocery store actually comes from,” Cathy said.

Katy came up with the name PM Farms, which stands for Pond Meadows, and she also came up with the idea of growing and selling sunflowers.

“How my sunflowers got started growing is a really interesting story,” said Katy. “When I was really young, like in second grade, we planted sunflower seeds in cups to grow them. I put one by our gate at home, and now we have a forest.”

Cathy added, “She looked on the Internet and learned about sunflowers. For example, they have non-allergenic pollen.”

Katy explained, “I have allergies, and now I can just stroll through my sunflower forest.”

Mom and daughter offered some tips to keep sunflowers fresh after picking them, which include placing them in hot water immediately and leaving them in the water as it cools to room temperature.

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