Vashon’s first retail marijuana is nearly ready for harvest.

In an old horse barn near the island’s south end, rows of bushy marijuana plants sit under LED lights, basking in a  pink glow. In a couple of weeks, buds will be picked off the most mature plants, dried, packaged into bags labeled Vashon Velvet and trucked to pot stores throughout Western Washington.

“It all started with a dream,” said islander Susan Reid, who runs the new operation. “You sort of pinch yourself every day that this is what you do.”

On Oct. 31, after a year of planning and working through the state’s arduous application process, Reid’s business, with three off-island investors, was granted a license by the state Liquor Control Board (LCB) to grow and process marijuana on Vashon.

Though a few other islanders are also working to get their marijuana businesses started, Vashon Velvet is the first on the island to earn the approval needed to sell pot on the state’s new retail marijuana market. They plan to have their product on shelves alongside other Washington-grown weed by early next year.

“Who would have thought that at 63, I’d be raising marijuana?” Reid said.

Indeed, standing in her barn last week wearing an apron and pearl earrings, Reid admitted doesn’t seem like a typical marijuana grower. Then again, she said, she hopes the new business is also not like a typical marijuana grow.

Pot plants at Vashon Velvet are grown under LED lights — a practice that’s not common in the marijuana industry — and using organic chemicals. The operation is small, and employees select specific strains of marijuana to grow and tend to each plant by hand. The result, Reid hopes, will be something like the marijuana equivalent of a fine wine.

Though the business has yet to sell any product, retail marijuana is in demand in Washington, Reid said, and the company expects that several state-licensed retail stores in the Seattle area and beyond will carry Vashon Velvet products.

“People will pay for that just like they pay for a good wine,” Reid said.

Reid has always loved gardening, she said, and made her career as an entrepreneur — she and her husband owned a garbage company in California and a marina in Portland. However, Reid’s husband died a few years ago, and she recently decided to move to the Seattle area to be closer to family.

Around the same time Reid began looking at homes on Vashon, where she lived for a time during the 1970s, her sister in Mukilteo was thinking about trying her hand in the state’s new retail marijuana market and asked Reid if she wanted to get involved.

Reid’s daughter, Ivy Gress, who recently graduated from college, also decided to join the business, and together Reid and Gress found a large, wooded parcel with a home and two-story barn that was for sale on the south end.

“Sort of spur of the moment we decided to give it a try,” Reid said.

The business, operating under the LLC Merry Echo Productions, now has three investors, including Reid’s sister, who works as design director at a sign company in Bellevue, according to LCB documents. A couple who is friends with Reid and has a business background are also investors. Living on Fox Island, the couple currently work as a self-employed plumbing contractor and chief financial officer of a nonprofit health organization in Federal Way.

As an employee and the business’s manager, Reid handles day-to-day operations at Vashon Velvet. Gress, who lives at the property, does marketing and runs the business’s website and social media. The group also hired an experienced marijuana grower to help set up the operation and tend to the plants. Patrick Rooney, 22, moved to Vashon from Florida for the job.

“This is kind of a dream job for me,” Rooney said.

Getting to their first harvest has been a challenging process, Reid explained last week. Since getting a nod from the state earlier this year, the group spent several months working through the lengthy licensing process — which includes extensive background checks and on-site inspections — and spent thousands of dollars outfitting their barn to meet the state’s detailed requirements.

Licensed as a Tier 1 marijuana grow, the smallest possible, Vashon Velvet has about 400 plants. Their operation uses a hydroponic watering system, which conserves water use by reusing it — so far, they’ve used less than 50 gallons a week, Reid said. They also installed LED light fixtures, which are more costly than other options but use about half the electricity, Reid said, and should pay for themselves within a year.

“We try to be very earth conscious, and in the end it saves a lot of electricity,” she said.

Per state regulations, they also installed an alarm system and 16 surveillance cameras at the property, as well as a computer system to track everything that’s done with the plants — even dead plants and trimmings must be recorded and properly disposed of.

“A lot of people can’t afford it,” Reid said, referring to the high start-up costs. “We’re lucky.”

Earlier this year, the LCB received about a dozen applications from people interested in growing marijuana on Vashon, with many putting in to process — or dry and package — their product as well. Since then, however, only a handful have moved forward, in part because of a move by King County that added size restrictions and extra permitting requirements for grows within the county limits.

Shango Los, founder of the Vashon Island Marijuana Entrepreneurs Alliance (VIMEA), noted that one of the trade group’s first meetings was attended by at least 16 people or groups interested in pursuing marijuana licenses.

“Here we are a year and a half later, and we’ve got one,” he said. “There are a lot of folks who have been frustrated by the zoning requirements or multiple layers of regulations. It’s a real challenge to get the license.”

Islander Scott Durkee has experienced that challenge. Durkee and his business partner applied to start an outdoor marijuana grow, leased a piece of property and were ready earlier this year to start growing pot as Buds of Vashon. But when the state didn’t process their application by last spring, in time for the outdoor growing season, their new business had to be put on hold for a year.

Recently, they moved forward with the LCB, Durkee said, and as long as they have a final inspection by this spring, Buds of Vashon should have a license in hand in time to plant in April.

“I think they really flubbed the whole process,” Durkee said. “On the other hand, its hard to complain when we live in one of the two states that are open minded and liberal enough to (legalize) recreational marijuana for adults.”

At Vashon Velvet, Reid said she’s gotten mostly positive reactions from the few people she’s told about her new business venture. Some of Vashon Velvet’s neighbors, however, have complained about the operation and expressed concern that it might attract crime or affect their property values.

Reid emphasized that marijuana won’t be sold out of their barn and won’t even be available on Vashon, since the island does not have a retail marijuana shop. She said she hopes islanders will think of the business as akin to a winery.

“I hope they realize we aren’t here to cause any trouble,” she said.

There are now more than 250 licensed marijuana grows across the state, and more than 80 stores approved to sell their products. Reid said that many of the large, outdoor grows in Eastern Washington sold their product after it was harvested in October, and she hopes there will now be more room on the shelves for Vashon Velvet, which will offer several different varieties of marijuana, with names like Laughing Buddha, Acapulco Gold and Vashon Purple. She was unsure when the business will be able to turn a profit — especially with the high taxes it will pay — but said the investors are eager to start selling.

“It’s a business,” she said. “It’s fun, but it’s a business, and that’s what we’re here for.”