Nothing Sweeter
Dennis Bryan's 1978 Chevrolet three-quarter-ton pickup truck doesn't go far anymore. Because of it's farm-exemption sticker, it is still legal to drive it on the road between dawn and dusk, but mostly it sits in his driveway.
That's because Bryan uses the truck as sweet corn storage for people who drop by his driveway at 1350 Hooker Road in Fairview Township to pick up a dozen or so ears. They can help themselves to the plastic bags on the lowered tailgate and leave their money in the coffee can in the truck bed.
“We turned it into our corn stand for at least the past 10 years,” said Bryan.
Bryan is one of many farmers in Butler County selling produce directly to the public, said Evelyn Minteer, a member of the board of directors of the Butler County Farm Bureau.
That's the focus of the Farm Bureau's “Buy Local” campaign launched this year, she said.
“People do want to buy local. They want to support their neighbor. They want to spend it here and keep it here,” said Minteer.
To that end, the Farm Bureau has produced a 2021 “Buy Local” flyer that lists, among other businesses, nurseries, greenhouses, orchards, farm markets, dairies, butchers and suppliers of livestock, grain and hay.
The flyer was distributed to local businesses and handed out at the farm show as part of the buy local campaign.
Bryan and his family have been selling local for nearly 60 years.
Together with his father, Glenn, Bryan's family has been selling sweet corn at the farm since the early 1960s.
Glenn and his wife, Betty, bought the 170-acre farm in 1945.
Like many farmers, Glenn Bryan worked a day job at the former Witco Chemical Corp. plant in Petrolia. He was growing sweet corn and brought some in for his co-workers.
When they began asking for more, he decided to set up a table and umbrella and sell it from his home's driveway.That was in the early 1960s, Dennis Bryan said. His father manned the stand until the year before his death.Now, Dennis Bryan displays his wares on the truck.“I used to use the truck to pick the corn, but then I got lazy and just left it on the truck,” he said.“It's just corn now. When my father started out, he sold peppers and tomatoes too,” Bryan said, but the other vegetables got dropped in favor of the corn-only offering.The sales are on the honor system, he said, because he's usually working elsewhere on the farm. People are mostly honest, he added, saying he hasn't lost too many ears to pilferage.Right now, a baker's dozen of ears, 13, goes for $6. He remembers the price being 75 cents in 1973.Although he sometimes sells corn at the farmers' market in Petrolia, most of his sales are the drive-up variety.“I don't sell to stores. That's too much for me. I've had offers, but it's too much if you are out baling hay and your wife calls to tell you the store is out of corn,” he said.He estimates during the summer he sells 15 to 20 dozen ears a day. He hasn't stopped to figure out how many ears he sells in a season, which runs from just around the Fourth of July when the first corn ripens to the end of September, or the first frost.To keep up with customers' demand, Bryan plants three acres with eight staggered plantings, hoping to keep a constant supply of ripe ears.“I try to make sure to have corn here every day because people make a special trip out here,” he said.He plants bodacious sweet corn, a staple variety for backyard gardeners and market farmers for many years, as well as
Apollo, a late-season hybrid variety and Providence, another variety rated highly for farm markets.Bryan said he uses an herbicide on his sweet corn acres but not any insecticides. He instead relies on rotating his sweet corn acreage in different fields to cut down on the chances of insect pests such as corn earworms.Most of the corn will sell as fast as it's picked. Bryan said he or his three nephews who help out at the farm will pick sweet corn in the morning and again in the afternoon if the truck bed is empty.“I pick every day, 10 dozen in the morning and another 10 dozen if need be,” he said.He's even had people call him on his cellphone while he's in the fields to ask about the availability of a dozen ears or so.If there is corn left over at the end of the day, he feeds it to his hogs.He said the sugar content in sweet corn will decrease by 5% in the first four hours after it's picked and by 10% in the first eight hours.Last week, his best-laid plans have gone awry. He didn't have any corn ready to sell.A dry spell around the Fourth of July has stunted the growth of his later plantings.“There was a dry stint in July when the sixth, seventh and eighth plantings were knee high. They didn't like that,” he said.He said he probably won't have more corn to sell before Labor Day weekend, if then.Bryan said his sweet corn sales provide a supplement to the farm's other sources of income: cattle, hogs, hay, soybeans and field corn.Bryan noted he's 61 years old and has had knee and hip replacement surgeries.“Farming's rough,” he said.But he said the sweet corn sales will continue at least for the foreseeable future.
