From that first crop of garlic, Pleasant Lake Farm grew

HARWICH -- Karen Lee had suffered through enough early morning drives from Cape Cod to Reading to realize she couldn't spend the rest of her life as a leadership consultant in the corporate world. In late 2002, during one of her 100-mile commutes, she caught a story on National Public Radio about niche farming. She was intrigued. All she needed was arable land, she figured, which she already had, and a little perseverance.

``I told my husband I was going to quit my job and become a farmer," she says, eyeing rows of garlic plants at Pleasant Lake Farm. ``Here I am, four years later." Lee and her husband, Robinson, then working as a tugboat captain in Boston, owned 12 acres of open land carved out of a forested area of Harwich. A winding quarter-mile dirt path separates the farm from a neighborhood of mostly vacation homes. The Lees' barn-like house took up so little room that they had plenty of space for crops.

Being a fan of garlic, Karen Lee discovered it was hard to find it locally grown. It was also November, the ideal time for planting garlic but not much else. Using 35 pounds of cloves, she planted them with organic fertilizer and hoped for the best. In the spring, she was surprised and excited to have a larger crop than expected. She rented a stand at the Orleans Farmers Market and quickly sold out her first harvest.

The next year, Lee stepped up her planting to meet the high demand . She planted 200 pounds of five varieties, and sold out within three weeks at two farmers markets (she added the Wellfleet location). She also sold directly to restaurants around the Cape, including Chester, 902 Main, and L'Alouette. Her garlic scapes, the curly offshoots of pre-flowering plants, became popular with chefs who wanted to add a mild garlic flavor to their specialties. The high-end market also came calling when she started to grow nasturtium flowers, which are edible and have a slight peppery flavor. ``The chefs love the flowers for garnish," she says. ``I also made salad bouquets with different green and red lettuces and put the nasturtium flowers on top. The bouquets were huge sellers at the market because everyone wanted them for hostess gifts." The 2005 season yielded the most varieties of garlic -- 22 in total. Experimenting to see what kinds would thrive in Cape Cod soil, she planted Russian Red, Georgian Fire, Siberian, and elephant garlic, not an actual garlic but a member of the leek family. She also began to make hot sauces, mustards, and relishes with her garlic and the small number of hot peppers she was growing. Once the garlic was harvested and sold, however, she realized that she had no produce to offer her customers.

``It wasn't fulfilling anymore to specialize in a single crop," she says. ``There are very few farms around here, and the demand for fresh produce is so high." So this year, Lee cut her garlic crop by half, keeping the popular types such as Russian Red and elephant garlic. She used the extra land for lettuce, peas, beets, asparagus, strawberries, and blueberries. Unusually wet weather in June and early July caused her garlic crop to be delayed two weeks, but after the garlic was harvested, she started on eggplants and kale.

Pleasant Lake Farm recently received its organic certification, and the couple hopes to do more with their land. When the two first bought the property in 1998, Robinson Lee installed solar panels and a propane stove and fridge. This year, the farm received a large grant from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources to upgrade its solar panels, and another grant to improve its irrigation system. The 10 solar panels, along with a 1,000-watt wind turbine, produce enough energy to power the entire farm. The Lees are also in the midst of building a large root cellar for refrigeration and are planning for two wells that will go with the new irrigation. Two 8-month-old Scottish Highland cows provide all the fertilizer and compost needed for the crops.

This June's harvest of peas and rhubarb brought local families to the farm on weekends to buy produce from the new farm stand Robinson built. And to picnic. ``Cape Cod is all pavement," says Karen. ``People love coming down here to the woods." With lunch in hand, customers inevitably become curious. So she has found that half her job is being an educator. Along with Tim Friary from Cape Cod Organics, she has spoken on the radio about organic farming and encouraging independent farming. The demand for fresh produce on the Cape is especially high in the summer, she says, and ``there still isn't enough available." She leads school groups on tours around her farm and is also adding bunking accommodations in the root cellar so that college students studying agriculture, who have e-mailed asking for internships, will have a place to stay.

The rest of her time is spent working the land. This year, she cut back on farmers' markets and has applied for another grant to build a greenhouse, which will let her grow more kinds of produce and have a longer growing season.

She is still devoted to the crop that got her started. ``Garlic is great," she says. ``But having crops available after garlic is even better."

Pleasant Lake Farm, 2 Birch Drive, Harwich, 508-432-3557, or pleasantlakefarm.com . Farm stand hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.