Ohio Wine and More

A little clove all tucked in for a long winters nap

Planting garlic

I have to say one thing about my father-in-law Kay, when get tries something he tries it big. Almost a quarter acre of garlic, REALLY! Well at least we will have a “Vampire free zone”or is that Werwolf Free ?! I remember when we row covered almost 8 acres of melons years ago for our first go around with melons, whoops! Worked good till the wind blew it off and we had kites the size of football fields.

Anyhow the point is we are not afraid to try new things at Maize Valley. I got Kay started more on these crops a few years ago when I asked him “do you want to try some farmers’” markets and he said yes. Well we needed to learn to grow a whole new mix of crops to adapt and succeed at direct markets.

New crops, smaller plantings, wider varities all came into play as we moved forward in this are and the garlic is just one example. Stop in our farm market and winery next year, we are going to have PLENTY of garlic!

I wonder how a garlic wine would taste?????

Todd and Samantha cutting spinich

Tim Bagging up Fresh Cut Spinich

The Ohio Wine and More Blog is as the title says, more! Part of our winery is also a strong agricultural heritage. But that heritage is an evolving one. Maize Valley was once a “Conventional Commercial Dairy and Cash Grain” family farm enterprise. Maize Valley is now a diversified direct to consumer and wholesaler producer of of a wide variety of fresh market vegtables, as well as a new up and coming line of peppers, salsas, sauses and of course award winning wines.

In 2009 we attended 7 weekly farmers’ markets in the growing and harvest season. This winter we have expanded to attending one winter market to test the waters and see how that works. I do not mean to imply that we are experts at any of this. We are just one family farm trying new things to adapt to a changing marketplace

This years attempt at raising spinich and lettuce in the greenhouse is far from perfect. A “greenhouse” is not the idea enviornment for this type of production but before we invested a lot we wanted to give it a try with resources and infrastructure we already had. To do this sort of production a “High Tunnel” type of cover would be better suited. This might be in the future for us if we see a market emerge to sell product in what was traditionally a off season.

Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you again with more posts from The Ohio Wine and More blog. Come and see why Maize Valley IS the Place to BE!