Growing up in north Minneapolis during the Great Depression, Harriet Reed learned to garden at a young age. On narrow strips of land between the rented rowhouses, Harriet and her mother would plant rows of radishes and lettuce. "She had a deep love for growing things," said her daughter Linda Stover.
After graduating from vocational high school where she studied art, Harriet worked at a dry-cleaner and as a photo developer before marrying George Lazaroff and joining his family's vegetable farm in Brooklyn Park, where they raised their six children.
"She wore a lot of hats — bookkeeper, payroll, and she was always out in the field," said daughter Colleen Held.
The wearer of many hats died Sept. 11 at age 87 in a Golden Valley nursing home after battling heart and lung disease.
The Lazaroffs were "truck farmers" who transported their produce to grocery stores. Harriet pitched in with that, too.
"She could back a truck in anywhere," said Stover. "The men would watch to see what she would hit. But she'd zig-zag. She could do it every time."
Harriet put her artistic skills to use designing packaging under the brand Lilac — for the lilac hedges that bordered their farm. "She had a passion for flowers," said Held. After visitors repeatedly admired her garden and asked if her flowers were for sale, she persuaded her husband to add a garden center.
At its peak, Lazaroff Gardens employed about 100 seasonal workers, inner-city youths whom Harriet would pick up and drop off, then later, migrant families that were housed on the farm. Stover remembers her mother routinely hauling a pickup full of kids, plus a cooler packed with sandwiches, to the State Fair to give workers a day off.
