Trending
As you may have heard, the Washington Country Fair gets under way Saturday. If you are reading on Saturday morning and you are in Marietta, you can likely hear the fair parade, Marietta's largest parade, snaking its way through the city.
The fair celebrates the agricultural achievements of people in Washington County. Farming has been an important part of our heritage since people first arrived. The fair can trace its roots back to 1851. Before that a Wood and Washington county fair was held as early as 1819, just 30 years after residents started clearing the land to plant crops in the area. In many cases, those families participating at today's fair have been doing so for many generations. We all have important jobs, but without farming you would not have anything to eat, and I think we will all agree, eating is important.
The fair offers a lot of people their only chance each year to see this important industry up close.
As anyone who does it for a living will tell you, farming is hard work. We all take their efforts for granted.
Farms come in many sizes and types in Washington County. There are some very large farms along the Muskingum Valley, along the Ohio River east of Marietta, and in the gently rolling lands west of Ohio 339.
It is important to understand there are several different types of farms in Washington County with distinctive purposes. You will find different crops and animals on a farm depending on their use.
Many small farms in our area operate to raise cattle or other animals like hogs. The animals are then sold off to market to provide meat for all of us. On these farms you likely see cattle grazing in pastures. Other fields are devoted to raising hay, wheat or corn. The hay is baled several times per year. The wheat was cut months ago and may now have hay growing in the field. There are two types of corn grown in fields. Sweet corn and field corn. Sweet corn is consumed by humans and is picked when it is nice and juicy. Field corn is eaten by animals and is picked once the moisture level has dropped down to a point where it can be stored in bulk. Most corn you see in fields is field corn and will be used to feed livestock this winter.
The area is also home to several dairy farms. The cows on these farms are bred to produce milk for human consumption. They are milked every 12 hours every day of the year. Try to plan your life around that kind of schedule.
There are also several truck farms in the area. A truck farm is not where you raise Chevys or Fords, although you will likely see some there. A truck farm raises produce that is then taken to a market and sold. The green pepper that you may have eaten on your pizza last night likely came from a truck farm somewhere. A truck farm is like a giant garden. Some may contain thousands of tomato plants, or cabbage, or zucchinis.
For the first time in 30 years, I established a miniature "truck farm" this year in the form of a large garden that I planted with my father-in-law. I live in the middle of a farming area, so I have gotten a lot of advice not only from him, but also nearly every other farmer that rolls by on their four-wheeler.
It's all been great advice and it's been a lot of fun growing stuff and then getting to eat it. Broccoli, potatoes, lettuce, corn, zucchinis, cucumbers, carrots, beans and three different types of tomatoes are some of the crops on our little "farm."
Raising a garden helps you appreciate how hard it is to farm. There are so many things that are out of your control. The weather can play havoc on things. We planted corn twice because the first time it failed to thrive after it was too wet for too long. Some plants would fail to do much of anything while a different plant a few feet away thrived.
During a dry spell I got in the habit of watering some of the plants on my way to work. You can't do that when you have 5,000 tomato plants. Irrigation is harder than using a plastic bucket.
The one crop that thrives without effort is weeds. I keep reminding myself that using a hoe is good exercise. Hoeing though doesn't scale to hundreds of acres, which is why if you visit the fair, you will see some large, and expensive equipment on display that is used to manage actual farms.
This weekend we celebrate Labor Day and honor all workers. In Washington County that has always meant that we particularly honor the efforts of the farmer. The fair runs through Tuesday at the Washington County Fairgrounds at the end of Second Street.
Art Smith in online manager of The Times. He can be reached at asmith@mariettatimes.com