DeMoss' Vegetable Stand Grew From 4-H Project

Jared Anderson, 26, grew up in Minnesota surrounded by corn but an early morning at Dick DeMoss' pumpkin farm was his first time picking it.

Anderson and three other men twisted the sweetcorn from its stalks until the ears popped free. When they could hold no more they tossed the corn into a bucket as DeMoss slowly inched his Farmall tractor forward, following the men into rows of sweetcorn. DeMoss provided the first timers gentle instructions, hoping to fill the bed of a pickup within two hours so that he could sell ears by the dozen to bypassers and later at a stand at the . DeMoss leads the market which runs from 3 to 6 p.m. Wednesdays and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays through the end of October.

DeMoss, 78, and his wife Letha DeMoss, 64, usually drive into the North Grand Mall parking lot about 6:15 a.m. on about three hours of sleep. They set up tables and tents and pull baked goods from a minivan and home grown vegetables from the back of a covered GMC pickup. On a recent Saturday, the DeMosses covered five long tables with breads, jams, cinnamon rolls, pies and more. Letha DeMoss' baked items have slowly crept into Dick DeMoss' vegetable space over the 34 years they've sold items at the market.

“We fight over space,” Dick DeMoss said.

His crates of eggplant, cucumbers, squash, onions and cabbage covered about one full table and half of another. The pile of sweetcorn sold from the back of a pickup labeled with the name of their farm DeMoss Pumpkin Farm.

The DeMosses call the spread a 4-H project gone bad.

It started when their 9-year-old daughter planted some vegetables for 4-H and brought them to the Story County Fair in Nevada.

“She turned 50 the other day,” Dick DeMoss said.

Producing local vegetables or farming for that matter was never an intentional career.

Both Dick and Letha DeMoss worked for Iowa State University. Letha DeMoss was in finance and Dick DeMoss was a manager of the university's central store. He retired in 1993 but vegetable sales continue.

“We've been doing it for so long and they expect it,” Dick said of his customers.

They farm on 16 acres west of Gilbert where they plant asparagus, snowpeas, tomatoes, beets, potatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, sweet potatoes and sweet corn.

“Just everything a bunch of stuff,” Dick DeMoss said, “Some of it we like to grow and some of it we don't.”

The North Grand Farmer's Market ends Oct. 29, but producing the farmers' market goods is a year-round job.

In January, the DeMosses buy the seed and plot where to plant it and so that everything is ready for customers to eat today.

It costs many $1,000 to plant, Dick DeMoss said. The seeds for this year's sweetcorn for example cost $860, he said.

“You hope to sell it but 40 percent of it is never consumed,” Dick DeMoss said.

Some is lost during growing and picking and the rest of it spoils in the fridge purchased but never prepared, he said.

When the market closes at the end of October, customers will still find Dick and Letha DeMoss at their pumpkin farm, which has its own store.

There they also offer hay rides and bonfires and host busloads of children on field trips and foreign Iowa State students who want to see a real Iowa farm.

People ask Dick DeMoss why he keeps doing it at the age of 78.

Letha DeMoss has the answer, “It's his life,” she said.

“He loves to sell,” Letha DeMoss said. “He loves it.”