Job’s Nursery celebrates 80 years in business next year

As the calendar flips to October, families begin to visit the region’s pumpkin patches.

Many head to Job’s Nursery in Pasco.

“We have two acres of pumpkins in our pumpkin patch,” said Alex Job, who has been a co-owner of the business since 2012, along with his brother Arthur and parents Duane and Kathy Job. “We don’t have food or attractions like some of the other places. It’s more of a laid back thing. A little simpler.”

And that’s fine with the Job family, which has run the business since 1940.

The nursery has been operating at 4072 Columbia River Road in north Pasco for 40 years.

The business’ original site was near Road 36 and Argent Road, where the Tri-Cities Airport is.

The move to Columbia River Road in the late 1970s was necessary when the airport needed another runway.

It took almost three years, from 1978-80, to get everything moved, Alex said.

“People have been shopping with us since the move and beyond,” he said. “And we celebrate 80 years in business next year.”

Alex’s great grandparents, Conrad and Sophia Job, came to the Mid-Columbia in the early 1930s from Minnesota when they lost their farm.

“My great grandpa was a migrant strawberry picker,” he said.

He’d move around the Northwest to pick strawberries, but decided in 1938 to buy land near the airport.

“They were growing produce and selling it to the people at the naval air station on the other side of the airport,” Alex said.

Then one day, a customer asked Sophia about getting some peonies.

“My great-grandma said, ‘Oh Conrad, wouldn’t it be fun to start a nursery?’” Alex said. “They were in their 50s at the time. So it became a produce stand and nursery.”

But from 1940 on, Alex’s grandfather Norbert and grandmother Marion went completely in on it being just a nursery, and it became Job’s Pasco Nursery.

“My mom and dad took it over in 1986,” he said. “The old nursery was 20 acres, then became 36 acres out here. It keeps us busy.”

Today, the business sells fruit trees, herbs, ornamental grasses, perennials, roses, shrubs, trees and vegetables. Tree and shrub sales make up Job’s biggest business.

Job’s also provides the following services: delivery, tree planting and installation, landscape design and transplanting.

The pumpkin patch is U-pick and open daily in October. There also are nursery tour hay rides in October on Saturdays and Sundays.

And the nursery also hosts field trips to the patch for preschool, kindergarten and first grade students.

“We’ve entertained ideas of having something bigger, but probably not within the next few years,” Alex said.

Instead, Alex said the small business —which, including family, has 10 employees—will continue to do what it does best: help customers enjoy gardening.

“I like the creativity of the business,” said Alex, who is the retail manager. “For instance, I love helping someone create a flower bed with layers of flowers in yellow and purple. It’s fun. Gardening has one of those stigmas that it’s harder than it needs to be.”

Alex does his part by writing a “Plant of the Week” blog on the company website.

At one point in his life, Alex entertained the idea of not joining the family business and instead becoming a computer science teacher.

His brother joined the Marine Corps for four years.

But they both came back to it. Alex said he loves it.

“It’s been kind of fun with the increasing population of the Tri-Cities,” he said. “You get the old customers and the new.”

And new challenges, such as modernizing.

“We’ve added (point of sale) systems,” he says, then smiles. “We’re also trying to manage a better work-life balance for the owners by having things such as a computer-controlled irrigation system. My wife does like to see me now and then.”

Watering in the desert, of course, is a constant challenge.

“And the temperature swings are key around here,” he said.

But the small family business is always considering how to improve, stay competitive and find new customers.

“We’ll go to events such as the Home and Garden show,” Alex said. “We put ourselves where the people are.”

And Job’s Nursery plans on that continuing, to the point Alex’s young son may one day join the company as an owner.

“I’d like to take it to that level,” he said. “I’d love to see it get to 100 years. I’d be in my 50s by then.”

Meanwhile, the company will continue with its laid-back, simple way of providing great customer service with a strong line of products.

“We invite people to come out here,” Alex said. “It’s off the beaten path. But it’s nice and quiet out here.”

Job’s Nursery: 4072 Columbia River Road, Pasco; 509-547-4843; jobsnursery.com.