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Merry Christmas from Maize Valley!

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Merry Christmas from Maize Valley

Greetings once again from Farmer Bill the FunTSAR at Maize Valley! It has been a long time since I sat down and entered the blogosphere on a regular basis but I hope to be back now that I have more time to sit down and report on what we have been doing at Maize Valley. I have shot lots of videos about what has happened throughout the year and believe or not we are pretty busy right now getting ready for next years growing season.

This is the season of giving, but also thanking. We have put our farmers’ market produce trucks to work decorating them for the holiday season and welcoming guests as they enter our market and tasting room.

Breakfast with Santa is sold out with well over 225 guests set to sit on Santa’s lap and pass along their wishes, or at least get a photo with him. Gift baskets are rolling out strong, thanks to all the great folks who chose Maize Valley to be a part of their holiday giving. We are adding new dinner specials for weekend evenings starting now and going all winter and beyond. New events coming up for next year include a “winemakers dinner” new appetizer, entrees’ and more!

Tags: 1951 Ford F6, 1952 Ford F5, Agri-tourism, Buy Local, Farm Market, Homegrown, Ohio Winery
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#Farmers’ Markets, #Greenhouses, New frontiers old needs

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Greenhouse sporting a new plastic cover

Well here we go again, we are trying something NEW at Maize Valley once again, what is old is now new again. As we constantly search for new ways to make our business relevant and of value to our guests and customers I try and look at life from more than “both sides now”. That is just not enough, you need to look at it “Three Dimensionally” if you will. Pick it up, turn it over and see how it smells that will tell you a lot!

The greenhouses are getting new plastic because after about three years they don’t let in the full light spectrum for optimal plant growth. So we have to get up there and put new plastic on to optimize the sunlight coming in and give the plants their best shot at a productive life. This particular house will be used for early tomato production. My father in law has another house at the home farm growing spinach and lettuce for the winter farmers’ markets and dinners in the winery. Starting next week you will be able to order our weekend dinner special in our winery with carrots fresh dug from the farm and a salad with our own fresh grown greens, IN OHIO in December!

What is new is how we are working at selling the products. Winter farmers’ markets, dinners in the winery crops grown in the cold months being marketed outside of traditional seasons. Stay tuned for more updates of things coming up down on the farm.

My wife Michelle shot the videos because I actually had to do some work this time! That’s me in the grey vest and black hat, Todd and Galen are up helping too.

Tags: Buy Local, Family Farm, Farm Market, Homegrown, Local Produce, Ohio Proud
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Vineyard/Crop/Events update @ Maize Valley: #Farm,#Ohiowine,#Agritourism

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Green Farmers' Market

Readying for Battle

Chelle getting Blood Pressure Check at Cruise In

Wow, what a summer, the heat is here! I love it! Or at least I HATE plowing snow more, skiing on it cool, plowing not so much.

Things get sorta crazy in August, the weeds really pour the coal to it and grow like crazy as you can see in the Pumpkin update video. What a train wreck, nothing to be proud of there but as I said I would show “Warts and All”. Late season weed breakthrough with rain and heat, what a mess!! Frost should fix it lots of pumpkins out there.

Vintage Ohio, The Civil War Re-enactment, Farmers’ Markets, Kids in cross country, Did I mention weeds, Rain making grass grow everywhere, Did I mention weeds? Oh yea my main computer took a total CRASH, (all files backed up except “outlook”)

Thanks to all the folks visiting our ole’ green trucks at the Farmers’ Markets!!! Really getting some good sales! Thanks to all the folks coming out and buying wine and in the stores, sales good! Thanks to all the folks e-mailing and calling about fall activities like the Corn Maze, Pumpkin picking, campfires, wagon rides, the pumpkin cannon, pig races and more!!

Right now we are re-tooling and beginning the shift from growing season to harvest. Grapes changing color, pumpkins turning orange, fall is in our sights. Stay tuned for big news on the fall harvest agritourism events and activities. I might just be able to pull off a way cool added attraction this fall, check back too see!!

Check out the videos below sorry they jump around a bunch just trying to keep up with the work and the documentation of this summer’s progress and report it, it ain’t easy! Hopefully this winter I can sit down and make some better use of this data.

Take care

Tags: Agri-tourism, Buy Local, Family Farm, Farm Market, Farmers' Market, Homegrown, Ohio Winery, Ohio Wines, Vineyard work
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Maize Valley @ #Farmers’ Market

Friday, August 14th, 2009

View of the parking lot

Set up takes about 15 min.

Farmer Bill the "FunTSAR" in front of his 52' Ford

Well here we go again in 2009 for another season at local farmers’ markets. Let me first start off with a disclamer that goes something like…. I do not claim to be any sort of expert at selling at farmers’ markets. What I do have going on is my father-in-law grows awesome quality produce and I do know how to merchandise product. Basically with produce the saying goes, “Pile it High and Watch if Fly”.

We attend farmers’ markets for two reasons to promote our home farm market, winery and agritourism enterprises and second to sell some produce. Farmers’ markets are a great deal of work for the return compared to a stationary market or stand. But they do fulfill a roll and area piece of our marketing plan.

A huge side benifit is my daughters go and participate in the retailing of our products. It gives them first hand knowledge of what it takes to be a good salesperson. They earn some income and learn more than most kids do these days. I feel it will give them a competitive edge in life, no matter what they choose to do.

We have outfitted a couple of old Ford trucks as seen in the pictures especially for the purpose of attending the markets. The biggest reason is due to the diversity and size of our business a family member cannont always get to every market. We needed trucks set up to minimize the labor required and improve product quality while on the truck. The less you handle a product the better.

We use the trucks for wine pours, and mobile concession stands at our home location as well. They help provide brand identity. I do not believe that true success at a farmers’ should depend upon the grower himself attending. In order for a business to be successful in should be system based and not be dependent upon specific persons to fill necessary roles.

So whatever the case please shop as local as you can when it is competitive and enjoy! Here are a few vids of us on our journey into Canton one Saturday morning.

Tags: Buy Local, Family Farm, Farm Market, Farmers' Market, Homegrown, Local Produce, Ohio Winery, Ohio Wines
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Crop Progress/Update, Time to start Harvesting!!

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Sweeeaaat Onion

Green Maters,

Yellow Squash

Green Bell Peppers

A Trio of Cabbage

Baby Watermellon on a bed of leaves

Broccoli lookin' fine

Well it feels like it has been a long time coming but we are finally starting to pull some measurable product out of the fields. Sweet Corn started July 20th and about a dozen other crops are starting to fill in the gaps too. This is a long post, why because it rained today!!! It was a MONEY rain for us as it has been dry and we needed it. So I will cram a bunch into one day. Lots of words, lots of pics, lots of video. Hope you enjoy what’s comin’ up down on the farm.

The growing season has been strange this year. It has been much cooler and cloudy than usual especially for July. Great to be a human but not so much to be a corn plant. We have been using some new crop fertility products that go along the lines of natural I suppose you might say.

Basically they reduce the amounts of chemical based fertilizers and crop protection products we would use and stimulate the bacteria in the soil to breakdown the nutrients already present making them avaliable for plant uptake. We will see how it works, so far things seem to be working well as we have very good growth especially in our curcurbites with not so great weather. Our watermellons are about two weeks ahead of past years, just sort of strange, maybe this “snake oil” actually works??!! Go figure!

You see people always talk about “organic” and I just have to laugh knowing what I know about soil chemistry and plant fertility. You see EVERYTHING is a chemical or made up of elements in different combinations. Organic chemistry is powerful stuff and just to think you can simplify things and that will make all things all better is naive at best. Good crops come from healthy soil and that takes a balanced approach to how you treat them. You can just as easily mess things up going the “organic route” as you can mess things up by getting soils out of balance by going the “commercial” route.

All in all most of us eat pretty well in this country. It is mostly a matter of choices what we put in our mouths. It is mostly a matter of balance. It is still better to eat a piece of food that our bodies evolved on that has a part per billion of something that if hunderds of tons of it were eaten in a given period of time may be harmful, than not to eat it at all.

We have a marvolus food system despite some of its faults. It’s development and use has allowed we as a people to do things today we take for granted like only work 5-6 days a week, only 40-60 hours a week, take vacations, days off, run and exercise for fun or “health”, eat out, the list goes on and on.

All I am saying is thank you very much for supporting us at farmers’ markets and the like, thank you very much for appreciating the simple things in life that give a family farmer an edge but also remember you can hardly think of the last time you went hungry in this country.

Tags: Add new tag, Agri-tourism, Buy Local, f, Family Farm, Farm Market, Homegrown, Local Produce, Ohio Winery, Ohio Wines
Posted in Crop Progess | 2 Comments »

Vines, Wines, and Pines 5K Went AWESOME!! #Agritourism, #Farm

Friday, July 17th, 2009

Great food from Subway, and cool awards from Maize Valley

On your mark!

It's not like your getting married or anything...Uh maybe it is??

What an awesome day! Our Third 5K race went off without a hitch and to the raves of the participants. It is really ALL about them anyway because without runners….we don’t have a race! Thanks to Cope Equipment for providing the Gator to lead the race, and Terry, Sally and crew of R&S racing who time the race and make it all go sssoooooo smooth!

The entire race takes place on our property and our next door neighbors, Moore Christmas Tree Farm thanks to them too!

Part of what we are working at is branding Maize Valley as “Destination Health” if ya get my drift. You see we grow all these healthy veggies, sell all this good for you locally grown food, have all this open space to exercise in I mean hey, how could you not get healthier hangin’ with us?

As part of creating a first class agritourism destination we had mostly been focused on the “Fall Season” with pumpkins, corn mazes, wagon rides etc. But you see I maintain all the trails and fields all year long just because we like to keep things looking neat.

Well I got to thinking why don’t we have more events and get more use out of the grounds? So we have events more often now and we are even working at developing walking trails in partnership with local health care businesses to promote an over all healthy lifestyle that is FUN and rewarding.

Come join us for the “Stomp The Grapes” half marathon on October 3rd if you are ready for the challenge!!

And if ya just want to have fun….get married!! We had a bridal party run in the race, come back for the shower, then regroup and close the place down too!!

At Maize Valley, We Make Great Wine…FUN!!!

Tags: Agri-tourism, Buy Local, Family Farm, Fun, Homegrown, Local Produce, Ohio Proud, Ohio Winery, Ohio Wines, Vineyard
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Baleing Hay, and breakdowns, Now I remember why I like farming so much!

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Lookin' in the sideview mirror

Raking ahead of the baler

Main Drive Shaft...Now we have Two Oh Boy!

Breakdown and shop time

Phillips Machine, saves the day

Making Hay while the sun shines

On our farm we as a family help each other out. My father in law Kay has helped make much of what has become Maize Valley Market and Winery possible. This past week he needed help baleing hay so I chipped in. I thought I was just going to be towing wagons. I spend most of my time at the market and winery and marketing etc.

I was there about an hour till we had a major breakdown. Just like back in the day I thought. This happens a lot especially when you use your equipment hard. We maintain the heck out of it but it still happens. I suppose if farm folks read and watch this stuff you just have to laugh. But we are just putting this blog up for ALL to see and learn so I am not trying to come across like something special, just report on what goes on down on our farm.

I guess it was a good thing I was there as I was able to help out in the repair, via cell phone and google searches from my blackberry in the field I discovered the shaft that broke was a day away and almost $200.00. The cool thing was we were able to tap into our local machine shop and find the same part for about $30.00 and I was able to run over and get it and we were back in business about four hours later. That is a cool part about living near in an area that was once a very heavy steel production center. I love buying steel “buy the pound” vs. covered in green paint!

I don’t know if you have ever “timed” a baler before but I learned how this day, I also used a whole bunch of my vocabulary skills too! After a while I threw the book away and just figured it out. If you ever have to time a John Deere Baler, start with the book then throw it away and use your head.

Last year Kay and crew made about 48,000 little square bales, this year looks like they might close in on 60,000 if the weather cooperates. We got these field done and got about 12,000 bales off of about 45 acres.

Now next week start second cutting, farmers markets, wine pours, vegi harvest, you know life!

Tags: Agri-tourism, Buy Local, Farm Market, Homegrown, Ohio farm market, Ohio Proud, Ohio Winery, Ohio Wines, Sustainable Agriculture.
Posted in Farm Stuff | No Comments »

Crop Progess, Vineyard Update, Raspberries TOO!

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

Todd in Air Blast Sprayer

Pumpkins starting to form

Baby Rasperries

Raspberry Patch

WoW is stuff growing fast now, from Raspberries to pumpkins to corn we got it going on here are a few pics and video of what growing up down on the farm at Maize Valley.

Tags: Agri-tourism, Buy Local, Family Farm, farm fresh, Farmers' Market, Homegrown, Local Produce, Ohio farm market, Ohio Proud, Pumpkins
Posted in Crop Progess | No Comments »

Come on over and let’s do a little Pollinating!!

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Irrigation Booster Pump

Watermelon with blossoms starting to emerge

Bee Hives next to watermelon patch

There is a country song with a line that goes something like “come on over and let’s do a little pollinating”. Well I guess if a whole lot of “pollinating” didn’t go on in some form or another, none of us would be here nor would be all the goodies we get to eat would either.

All living things need a variety of things to survive, our school tours touch on that. While I was out filming about how we get water to the plants via our irrigation booster pump, I stumbled upon the pollination process, I was able to catch some bees pollinating some newly emerged blossoms or “flowers” in the watermellon patch. Some times it is tough to get the bees in the right place and I was happy to see them, well Busy as a Bee?

To be sure we get good fruit set we put bee hives right out in the field. The bees will travel up to two miles so we can cover just about all our fields from one spot if we have enough hives. As the bees move from one plant to another they pick up pollen on their body from blossoms. Some of the flowers or blossoms are Male and some are Female. As you move the pollen from the different blossoms from plant to plant you assist in the fertilization process which is necessary for fruit development.

In the video you can see how the bees legs brush against the parts of the flower and that is how the plant get the necessary genetic material it needs.

Tags: Bee Hives, Buy Local, Homegrown, Plant growth, Pollination, Watermellon
Posted in Crop Progess | 1 Comment »

Field update; Do, Do, Do, lookin’ out my backdoor

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Sweet Corn beginning to tassle

Pepper Patch June 26th 2009

Cabbage Patch June 26th 2009

Things have really been busy as our field crops are now beginning to get set to go into reproductive stages of development. What does that mean you ask?

In the case of the watermelons they are starting to put out blossoms as they vine out and cover the ground around them, the Sweet Corn is starting to shoot tassles, and peppers are beginning to flower. In the video you can see some of the pollen shedding off the tassle as it floats toward the “ear silks”. We should have Farmers’ Market volume hopefully by the second or third week in July.

Well here are a few videos that can say with a picture more than my word can in a lifetime. I am going to be putting up a few more blog posts that talk more specifically about some of the “Rock Star” crops like our grapes, sweet corn and pumpkins. These guys really tend to steal the show mostly because they get to go and do Fun Stuff with people!