Originally published Friday, August 22, 2008 at 12:00 AM
Family farms cultivate mint as they look to diversify crops
Breathe deep and you can almost taste it in the air this time of year driving across the Rathdrum Prairie. It's sticky and sweet, like a...
The Spokesman-Review
Breathe deep and you can almost taste it in the air this time of year driving across the Rathdrum Prairie.
It's sticky and sweet, like a starlight mint melting on the tongue.
"Lots of people love it and lots of people don't like it," Wade McLean said as his Suburban bumped along a rutted dirt road between fields of peppermint growing as tall as his vehicle's tires.
McLean doesn't really care for mint.
The smell doesn't bother him much when he's swathing the fields at harvest time, but at the still — where the plant is cooked until oil is released from its leaves — it's too strong for the 58-year-old farmer.
He's happy the still is a mile from his house.
McLean and neighbor Terry Nichols are the only two mint farmers in North Idaho, with hundreds of acres of the pungent plant growing between the two of them.
Nichols and his brother, who grow the majority of mint on the Rathdrum Prairie, are already harvesting crops. McLean plans to start harvest next week.
For 30 years, McLean has been the manager for Satchwell Farms. His wife's family has been farming up to 1,000 acres on the prairie for generations.
Wanda and Wade McLean are the sixth generation.
Mint is a difficult crop, McLean says. He started growing it 15 years ago to better his soil, not long after Nichols planted his first crops of peppermint.
McLean used to grow bluegrass. It wasn't just the field-burning controversy that has him looking to other crops.
![]()
With the costs of fertilizer and fuel rising, bluegrass is not the money crop it used to be.
He's experimenting with ragweed. Pollen from the plant will be harvested and sold to be made into allergy tablets, McLean said.
"You have got to diversify and do things to make money so you can still survive," he said. He raises wheat, hay and cows, along with the mint.
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
Food-safety lawyer's wish: Put me out of business
Illegal workers quietly let go
Metro won't cut bus service after all
Jerry Large: Food-bank theft turns into a gift
Bumper to Bumper: How can the city let bridges go dark?

Real Salt Lake wins MLS Cup
Real Salt Lake defeated the Los Angeles Galaxy with penalty kicks after 120 minutes of play at Qwest Field in Seattle.
nwautos
Local riders say they've seen a surge in scooter interest in recent years, mostly from people wanting another commuting option. Seattle now ranks as o...
Post a comment
nwjobs
Post a comment
Michelle Goodman blogs about work/life balance.
Do you suffer from "sitting disease"?
Post a comment
- 'The Road' takes Viggo Mortensen to Mount St. Helens and Astoria, Ore.
- Tugboat sinks at Seattle waterfront pier
- Illegal workers quietly let go
- Child-support error costs nearly $21,000
- Vikings easily beat the Seahawks
- Craigslist adoption ad: A plea by young mother-to-be? A scam?
- Chase shrugs off loss of CD investors
- Woman stabbed by stranger in North Seattle
- Snow piles up on Cascade slopes
- Denny Triangle gains skyline, but tenants slow to come
- Illegal workers quietly let go
355 - Climate change speeds up since 1997 Kyoto accord
204 - Vikings easily beat the Seahawks
170 - Metro won't cut bus service after all
144 - Historic health care bill clears Senate hurdle
94 - New Husky recruit: Enes Kanter
88 - Tattoos at Mill Creek Church pierce skin, soul
81 - Jerry Brewer: Seahawks can't lean on the Hutch Crutch now
73 - Middleton says Huskies "plan on scoring at least 50 points'' Saturday
72 - UW, WSU once again meet to see who's worse
66
- Sprouts, raw fish on attorney's 'do not eat' list
- Tattoos at Mill Creek church pierce skin, soul
- Illegal workers quietly let go
- Food-safety lawyer's wish: Put me out of business
- Architects, chefs find 'kid' within to build Gingerbread Village
- Rediscovering Moab, 'the most beautiful place on Earth'
- It's possible to recover a life lost to hoarding
- Child-support error costs nearly $21,000
- 'The Road' takes Viggo Mortensen to Mount St. Helens and Astoria, Ore.
- Taste | The Great Pie Bake-off pits friends and fruit





