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7-1-07 Fitch's Farm Market
NEWS ARTICLE from The PRESS, 6-30-99, By JoAnne Easterday
"Local farm markets offer homegrown fruits and veggies
AVON - "Eat your vegetables!" Mom coaches at the dinner table. That's no problem if the vegetables are young and succulent, fresh and firm. The fruits and vegetables offered at local farm markets frequently meet that test of edibility because they're grown on site or close by.
Farmers at Fitch's Farm Market, Mayton's, Nagel's and Pickering Hill Farm can monitor availability and pick just at the peak of freshness without waiting till the peas are hard and the corn is coarse and overripe. Berries keep longer because there is not a long period of time between picking and the sale. They're picked before 10 and can be eaten at noon or can be refrigerated for the next morning's breakfast and not be shriveled or rotted.
The elder Nagel said he and his son have "a couple hundred acres under cultivation;" 90 acres of that is in corn. The crops include tomatoes, peppers and cauliflower as well. Perhaps what makes the "down-the-hill" farm distinctive is the sale of fresh garden flowers-tall stately zinnias and gloriously huge magenta celosia entice market shoppers. Hugh's wife Anna Mae and daughter Diane Deitz are in charge of making floral designs and wreaths during the season. The farm has 17 acres of grapes, 5 acres of which is composed of Niagara grapes used by the Klingshirn Winery.
Jay Pickering of Pickering Hill Farm, 35699 Detroit Road, said his family-run market is taking orders for Michigan sour cherries that will be available about July 1 and run through July 15. No one in this area of Ohio grows cherries in sufficient numbers to stock the market, he said.
Sweet corn from southern Ohio is available now and the authentic homegrown sweet corn should be ready by July 4. Homegrown tomatoes will also be available in 3 to 4 weeks. With the warm spring peaches are ready now. All the "good stuff," raspberries, beans, and pickles will be ready in 2 to 3 weeks ..."
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NEWS ARTICLE from The PRESS, 6-30-99, By JoAnne Easterday, continued
Richard Fitch is part of the sixth generation to farm the land at 4413 Center Rd.. The seventh generation, 19-year old Adam, 17-year old Daniel and Michael, 13 are lending a hand in production as well.
Richard has been operating the farm on a full-time basis for 19 years and says he grows items ranging from A to Z, Asparagus to Zucchini. Before that he worked a full time job and ran the farm on a part time basis. The farm is operated as a family affair with Richard's father and with his wife, Rita, who is a teacher in North Ridgeville.
Fitch remembered farming in his youth. He said his father had the last operating team of workhorses in Avon. During a particularly wet spring neighboring farmers had small tractors become stuck in the mud. His father's horses pulled the tractors out of the mud.
Those workhorses were useful when the time came for digging horseradish. Fitch remembered dreading coming home from school and following the plow to root out the plant.
When son Adam complained that he was the only kid in high school who had to come home and dig horseradish, Richard hardly commiserated with him. He merely corrected his son. "You're the only kid in the state of Ohio who has to dig horseradish," he said considering the fact that that farm is the only one to grow the condiment commercially in the state.
The root is sold to a processing firm in the Dayton area. That rootstock dates back at least to the four generations Richard remembers. They dig most of the crop in February to be made up for dressing Easter hams. By March the remaining roots are planted for the next year. There is a smaller digging in the fall as well ...
The 35 acres surrounding Fitch relatives' homes and the market are enough to maintain a steady stream of produce; but eventually the Fitch family may have to eliminate the pick-your-own portion of the business.
"It's harder to get down the roads with a tractor," Fitch said. "People want rural character but they don't want to wait" for a slow vehicle. The influx of new people is good for business, but the appreciation of those very customers does not extend to courtesy on the road to farmers ...
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Morning Journal, 6-10-07, By MEGAN KING, Morning Journal Staff
``AVON -- The Fitch family puts the family in family farm. After six generations, Fitch family farmers ranging in age from 3 to 84 work together to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables to serve the growing Avon area. Fitch's Farm Market sits on 75 acres of farmland. Located on SR 83, the farm includes a retail store.
In addition to vegetables and fruits such as peas, lettuce, rhubarb, squash, melons, sweet corn, pumpkins, peppers and tomatoes, the farm also sells hanging baskets and vegetable and flowering plants in its greenhouse.
The farm is owned and operated by Dick Fitch and his wife, Rita Fitch, a North Ridgeville high school teacher.
As summer begins, strawberries and strawberry picking are among the most popular items at the market, according to Dick Fitch. ''It's so fresh, and people see it's grown by us,'' he said.
Tomatoes and peppers also top the list of most popular items at the market. The farm produces 14 varieties of peppers and 12 types of tomatoes, Fitch said.
Fitch's Farm Market is unique in that the vast majority of all of its products are grown on the farm, rather than being brought in to be sold.
The farm was founded in the late 1800s when Avon was a farming community, Fitch's is one of only a few family farms remaining in the area. It was at one time a full-time farm with working horses and other animals.
The walls inside the market still have several momentos from the farm's history - including pictures of the family's ancestors working on the farm when it had a team of working horses and a photo of SR 83 when it was a dirt road.
Above the cash register hangs an ''Old Elmfarm'' sign that Fitch found in the barn several years ago. ''That was two generations before me,'' he said. When Fitch, 53, took control of the farm's operations about 27 years ago, he converted the family business into retail and opened the market.
Fitch's 84-year-old father, Robert Fitch, still works on the farm, cultivating the entire thing once each week. Fitch's sons, Adam, 27, Daniel, 25 and Michael, 21, also work in the family business.
Robert Fitch said the farm business has changed considerably since he started farming with his father when he was young, mainly that the farm used to be a wholesale business and now it focuses on retail.
With the advent of large chain stores dominating the market, there has been less of a market for wholesale farming. Fitch recalled that when his father used to plow, nearly everyone he passed by knew him by name, but with the growth in the city, they don't know everyone in town anymore. ''It was one field then the next field after the farm and the next field was another farm,'' he said.
Robert Fitch still has a passion for farming after so many years in the business. ''It's all I ever knew I guess,'' he said.
Fitch's three sons were raised in farming life, just like he was, and the three boys used to take their naps in the back of his tractor. Now all three are somehow involved in keeping the farm running.
''I wanted the boys to have the experience in working outside. It's a lot of work,'' he said. ''When they were younger they didn't care for it when they got up early and stuff.''
Adam Fitch studied construction management but eventually found his way back into farming. Now his two sons, ages 3 and 6 months, are following in his footsteps and beginning to appreciate farming.
''He rides (the tractor) with me. He's out here every day,'' Adam Fitch said of his son, adding that the boy knows the different crops and which ones he wants to help with each day.
Adam Fitch said farm work is rewarding, and he enjoys working with his family. ''You work 12 hours and it doesn't feel like work,'' he said.
Seeing a field full of weeds that at the end of a day's work turns into a cultivated field of crops provides a reward for his efforts. ''It's just perfect. It's like instant gratification.''''
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