Dayton "Dirt" - July 10, 2015

Tomorrow is the Blueberry Fest with hayrides, children’s activities and lots of blueberries all centered around the Owl barn Market. If this were not enough, the “Plow to Chow” dinner for the Ronald McDonald House is next Thursday evening in which 120 paying guests will sit down to an  outdoor gourmet dinner sponsored by the Summit County Farm Bureau. The event will also be used as “teaching” tool that will center on talks of various agriculture activities to produce food that will be on the gourmet menu and one on water conservation and recycling as we now do at the nursery. Unfortunately only paying guests will be able to take part in the activities, hor’s d’oeurves, wine and food as the $100 each that the participants have paid will cover the expenses of the gourmet chef , waiters and other workers and yet have enough left over to benefit the  Ronald McDonald house in Akron.

In the nursery, even more trees became available for sale from our spring potting and include more Eastern Redbuds, Sweet Bay Magnolias, American Elms, Flowering Pears, White Fringe Trees, American beech, Maples and even more flowering crabapples. Sadly for us, those trees were not available for sale in May when they would have quickly sold because they were bare root trees when they were potted last March. These trees will stay out all winter long and are actually meant for next spring’s sales although they could easily be planted now.

The continuous rain has been a real “bummer” in that annual flowers are not in their prime and are even dying do to the constant wetness and limited sun. Even our greenhouse manager planted 300 plus wave petunias for her daughter’s wedding which have stopped blooming and have gone to  “sticks”!

At least some sun is supposed to be present for the Blueberry Fest tomorrow.

~Tom

P.S. Don’t forget to join me at 1590 AM WAKR at 8 a.m. on Saturday, July 18th as I interview Chuck Seiberling about everything “down on the farm”. The Seiberling farm has been growing and selling sweet corn and other produce that Chuck’s mother began selling from the front steps of  the old house beginning in the 1940's.