Farmers, orchardists, and a spate of new businesses on Green Bluff, northeast of Spokane, are looking to capitalize on a growing agritourism trend in the U.S.

For many years, Green Bluff growers have been engaged in such activity, defined as any agriculture-based effort that brings visitors to a farm or ranch, but now they're marketing to potential agritourists more intently.

"Green Bluff has been evolving into an agritourism site, and they didn't even realize it," says Cynthia Paulson, who opened A Sanctuary Bed & Breakfast there in May.

Janet Thorson, president of the Green Bluff Growers Association and co-owner of Thorson's Country Farm & Nursery, says she regularly sees visitors from Idaho, Montana, and Canada at the family's fruit stand, and many visitors come from the Seattle area during peach season. She says she has some visitors from beyond the Northwest who first learned of Green Bluff from the association's Web site.

"We get hits on the Web site from back east. People want us to send them a brochure because they're planning a trip," Thorson says. "We're becoming a destination vacation stop."

Paulson, who moved to Green Bluff from the Seattle area five years ago, says the growers association has bolstered its marketing efforts this year by buying more print advertising and expanding its Web site to include a list, updated daily, of ripe produce and farms and orchards that are open for picking.

Because of zoning changes won by Green Bluff growers earlier in the decade, farms have been able to diversify their business activities to include country stores, cornfield mazes, and hosting of events such as weddings.

"That's what's allowing farms here to survive," Thorson says.

This year, a list of family-owned businesses on Green Bluff has grown to include the new bed-and-breakfast, two new wineries, and a horse ranch. Other recent additions to the farming area are a lavender farm, an alpaca ranch, and a candy store.

One of the new wineries is Trezzi Farm Food & Wine. Davide and Stephanie Trezzi were running a catering business in California when they visited Green Bluff, fell in love with the area, and decided to relocate there. They opened the business last fall. Its first vintage, from grapes planted on their 22 acres in 2006, is a Barbera, a red wine that originated in northern Italy.

The Trezzi Farm tasting room is open Friday through Sunday. Throughout the week, it also offers catering of Italian food for events, and sells frozen Italian entrees, soups, and sauces.

Another new business there is Cowgirl Co-op, a working horse ranch that also offers concerts, readings by cowboy poets, and special activities for women veterans.

"It's great that it is so diverse, with so many different types of farms. It causes you to want to go up there more than one time a year," says Jeanna Hoffmeister, vice president and director of destination marketing for the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"People have done Disney, and other artificial things," Hoffmeister says. "Now, families are taking an interest in agritourism. They realize that their kids don't know where their food comes from."

She says that in 2003, about the same time the zoning changes were completed for Green Bluff, the CVB received a $15,000 grant from the Washington state Department of Agriculture to help the association re-brand itself. Efforts have included updating the association's logo and grower map, forming a cohesive marketing strategy, and underwriting commercials.

"They had a hugely successful summer that year," Hoffmeister says.

Since then, the CVB has continued its efforts to promote agritourism on Green Bluff.

"In the last seven years, we really are seeing that becoming a more important component of our 'near nature, near perfect' brand," she says. "Green Bluff delivers the brand promise. For us, it's a critical component."

Hoffmeister adds, "We take travel writers from all over the world up there. We encourage motor-coach tours, bringing 50 people at a time, to go up there. We have a two-page spread on Green Bluff in our festival guide, and we promote their festivals on our calendar of events."

Hoffmeister says the Green Bluff growers "do a phenomenal job with their festivals," which she says makes the agritourism experience there a success. The festivals held each year include Blooms on the Bluff, in May; a Strawberry Celebration, in June; the Cherry Festival, in July; the Peach Festival, in August; the Apple and Harvest Festivals, in September and October; and Holiday Memories, in November and December.

Interest in Green Bluff festival events appears to be growing. For instance, a record number of runners and walkers participated in this year's Cherry Pickers' Trot on July 15.

"There were considerably more people than we've had before," Thorson says. "We ran out of numbers and we ran out of T-shirts, so we don't know exactly how many participated. That's never happened before."

That's good news for the growers, whose livelihood depends on visitors.

Thorson says that while many small farms and orchards in Washington are "being gobbled up by bigger farms," direct selling of produce to customers who visit Green Bluff farms, along with side activities that increase income, has kept them alive.

"Some fought the changes all along. They didn't want all this activity. They wanted their quiet place in the country. At one point, we weren't sure it was going to survive," Thorson says. "Now, I'm pretty sure we're over the hill as an entity."

The method of selling Green Bluff produce has changed significantly from when Thorson's Country Farm & Nursery began operations, Thorson says.

"Twenty years ago, Green Bluff was shipping 75 to 85 percent of its fruit to packing houses in Quincy or Wenatchee," Thorson says. "In October, you would see semi-trucks here full of apples in bins to be hauled away. Now, there's not any fruit going to packing houses."

While small orchardists on Green Bluff that sell only fresh produce directly to consumers are barely getting by, she says, other growers on the bluff, who have opened country stores, produce and sell value-added foods and gift items, and offer extra activities, increasing their revenues dramatically. Thorson says she and her husband, Lloyd, would like to expand their fruit stand and create their own value-added products, but "that takes capital." They have no intention of giving up their livelihood and retiring, though. She says, "We would have retired 20 years ago if that's what we were going to do."

Lisa Beckman, a lifelong resident of Green Bluff, hosts the Cherry Picker's Trot fun run each year at the Beckman's Legacy Farm. She is saddened, yet pragmatic, about changes in the Green Bluff community.

"I've seen the big farms get pushed out," Beckman says. "As generations have gotten older and passed on, family members have sold the farm because they know it's a lot of hard work and not a lot of money."

She says that when a Green Bluff farm is subdivided, "it makes me sad to see yet another piece of fertile soil being built on."

At the same time, Beckman says she sees that newcomers to the Green Bluff community, who purchase smaller pieces of land on which to build homes and start businesses, often have knowledge and skills needed by the growers association.

"As long as I don't turn into a NorthTown Mall, I'm OK," she says.