So what is coming up down on the farm you ask? All kinds of things my Dad says it’s been a tough start to the year with all the rain but things are sort of catching up now. I turn 18 next month but I have already been selling produce grow on our family farm for Half my Life!!!
Grandpa Kay cultivating beans
This blog’s name is “Ohio Wine and More” yes my family owns and operated a winery and a vineyard but it is so much, well “More”! For me growing up a “Farmer’s Daughter” has meant
After much consternation I have been able to get my two wonderful daughters to assist with some of Maize Valley’s Social Media work!
Breanne is absolutly thrilled with me!
This year has been, well just tough. It started with a long, snowy and cold winter. We went right into a VERY wet and long and cool spring. Now we are looking at some extremly dry conditions. We still raise crops on about 700 acres and this weather pattern has made it challenging to get all the field work done AND keep bringing out all the new cool events, products, ideas and good times at Maize Valley.
X-Country Runners
It has been hard to keep up with the Ohio Wine and More Blog too. So I (Farmer Bill the Fun TSAR at Maize Valley) have enlisted the assistance of my off spring to help PAY THEIR CELL PHONE BILLS , among other things I am putting them too work.
Cara on the climb
To be fair they are awesome kids. We started Cara working at the age of 9 selling produce, making change and meeting people when she was 9 years of age. Breanne has been mowing in the vineyard, helping in the corn mazes, and a whole lot of watching her little brother all the while too.
With Mom and little Bro Brett at Put in Bay
But now I need their help even more with the most important thing, telling our story. You see the house they grew up in THEIR Greatgrandfather was born in. Their grandpa is still growing the crops today, and their Mom and Dad try and provide for them selling all the great things Maize Valley grows and makes. Now we need them to help us continue to tell that story.
A "Survivor Mom" w/her 2 Daughters
So I introduce to you the “Next Generation” of Maize Valley Farm Market and Winery to help tell you the “Rest of the Story”, Cara and Breanne Bakan. I hope you enjoy their perspectives of what it is like to be a “farmers daughter”.
Me and my little girls helping install a engine in my cafe racer bike
Last years crop of Red Raspberries just recently found its way into the bottle in the winery but it’s story didn’t start there. There was a great deal of work that went into getting that rich red goodness into that glass carrier of pleasure.
Red Raspberry Beds
Well the snow might still be on the ground but we are getting ready for those long hot daz of summer!
Along with all the “good-for-you” vegi’s we grow at Maize Valley we also grow fruit. One of the most sexy fruits out there has to Red Raspberries. Especially when Todd my brother-in-law and our wine maker balances the sugar with the acidity and makes our Red Rasperry wine.
Visiting Relatives
Like most things on the farm Rasperries take a great deal of work. The first years we pruned the berries we used a chain saw and walked down the rows all bent over and such swinging the saw back and forth. We then graduated to a weed eater with a metal saw blade on it. This was better but still not a whole lot of fun. Now we thing we got it down! I bought this 40 year old sickle bar mower last fall and what was old is now new again.
1952 Ford F5 Farmers' Market Truck in the shop for winter repairs
At Maize Valley We Make Great Wine…FUN, that is just “how we roll”! And these trucks are a big part of how we do actually “roll”. I found this truck in warehouse about eight years ago with 3,343 original miles on it. We used it here or there around the farm and parades etc. for a while till we really “put it back to work”. You see this truck travel thousands of miles a year again now in the summer attending area farmers’ markets and wine festivals.
Last summer when coming back down I-77 from the Cleveland Garlic Festival I just heard something “not-right”. More just a feeling I had in my gut. I couldn’t find anything but a few weeks later it gave my brother some starting trouble then one day on the back from a market in Akron it just about quit. He limped it home and there it sat.
Old School simple
We were only running on five out of six cylinders, and figured we broke a valve. It was near the end of the season so we got by but were not looking forward to the work or expense of fixing this. So today I got after it in the shop to try and start to get a idea of what we needed to do.
Well this was a Monday and I pulled the valve cover off to find that only a push rod had come out of adjustment and slipped out of its seat….SWeeeeTt! I popped it back in, tightened it down and she ran great! Even a blind nut can find a Squirl some daz!
At Maize Valley yes we say “We Make Great Wine…FUN!!” But we also still grow a whole bunch of stuff besides just grapes and make wine. There are five family members currently involved in our farm. Todd makes the wine, Michelle runs the store, Bill is the “Fun TSAR” and does stuff like this blog, Donna handles the banking and running and all “that” kind of stuff and Kay grows the vegi’s.
Tomatoes waiting for a new home
These tomatoes should hit be ready end of May or so we are planning on and have flavor like a field rippened fruit should have growing in the soil. It is really tough competing with the imported tomatoes from the South. We try and grow a great local product early that we can sell at farmers’ markets and sell in our market and also serve in our entree’s in our Winery Cafe’.
Come on little guy, U can do it!
There are also Asian Greens, Spinach, Lettuce and Radishes in this greenhouse.
We have tried a variety of early growing techniques over the years. Some have worked better than others. One year we tried to cover melons with a “row cover” that covered the beds in the field. That worked great till two years of back to back wind storms pretty much gave us the counties largest kite.
Back in the day when my wife of now over 25 years and I were first married a couple of years after we were married we had the opportuntity to purchase the house her grandfather was born in. Nobody knows how old it is as his parents were not the first to live there.
Our home
You see he died over 15 years ago now and was in his late 80′s, this is an old house. For indoor plumbing it had a kitchen sink downstairs and upstairs a commode and a sink. The shower was in the block building about 50 feet out behind the house. If you look in the picture above it is slightly to right of center of the pic. The building was built for when they drilled the well and built a cinder block building above and around it. It had a sink and a shower
The farm has a “gas allotment”, meaning there are natural gas wells and we get a certain amount of gas for “free”. It’s a good thing too because when we moved in the house it has ZERO insulation. But the block house had one awesome little natural gas heater. You could turn it up to about 90 degrees in there if you wanted and make our own little redneck sauna. We were young just barely out of college then and it was sort of fun I guess, it was real. It was real warm till you had to make the dash back to the house on a cold winter night after coming home from the dairy barn that is.
They say “you don’t own an old house…It owns you”!
Someday I suppose I might tell this story to someone’s grand children too, I suppose…
But the wash house was still warmer than the barn!
Getting ready to put some of the early tomatoes in the soil.
Equipment usually only found out in the field in the greenhouse
I won’t write too much here as the video at the end of this post really shows how this machine works. So if you catch this blog on face book the face book notes feature usually cuts off the You Tube video, be sure and follow up and go to www.ohiowineandmore to see the entire blog post.
Long view of the raised bed
The crops grown in this greenhouse and our others get sold at area farmers’ markets, thru a local modified CSA group up in Cleveland, at our farm market and in some of the meals we serve in our winery cafe’ and market.
J.D. 2630 with plastic mulch bedder
At Maize Valley we are many things. My wife family have made a living with the land here in Marlboro township since the 1800′s. We grow about 52 different crops on about 700 acres we are a small farm anymore. But we think it is our diversity that keeps us in the game and keeps us strong. From Corn Mazes to Cabernet, from Garlic to Greenbeans, 1/2 marathons to Merlot, come and see why Maize Valley IS the Place To BE!
