BELLEFONTAINE, Ohio — Everlasting flowers were what pulled Jan Dawson into farming. In 1988, when she was 37, she married Andy Reinhart, who was 38. He had been growing artemisia for friends who dried flowers.
Reinhart and Dawson started taking some of those flowers to North Market in Columbus, and sales were good. Dawson worked part-time; Reinhart had a full-time job. They grew their own food – looking at their extra produce at one point, they decided to take it to Columbus along with the flowers.
"We looked at each other and said, ‘That was kind of fun, selling food to people instead of just dried flowers,’" Dawson recalled. "We started gearing up and growing more produce; again, we grew it for ourselves. We just grew extra of what we wanted and started taking that to market with dried flowers."
By then, she had quit her job and Reinhart decided he too would farm full-time. Eventually, they grew tired of the long drive to Columbus and decided to market locally. They organized the Logan County Farmers’ Market. "That was about 17 years ago," Dawson said. "After we had done that, we started focusing on produce; it was so much more fun to grow produce to sell to people. Since then, that is what we’ve pretty much done full-time, is the produce."
The couple, who call their farm Jandy’s, has 40 acres, mostly woods. Although they are not certified as such, they garden organically on about an acre of land. That includes 300 feet of asparagus.
They rotate the rest of the land; part of it is always fallow, with a ground cover. They have one permanent and one movable hoop house. "Sometime around March we try to get (the hoop houses) covered and get the soil warmed up to get an early crop of tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce," Dawson explained. "As the weather warms up we take the plastic off."
At one point the duo decided to start growing garlic; they bought some at the grocery and planted it, but it didn’t do well. They began to read catalogs, then ordered and planted more garlic. Just when they thought they had too much, they learned about a garlic festival in Columbus.
"We had a pretty good crop that year and didn’t know what we were going to do with it, so we went to the festival and sold out," Dawson said. "People were so excited with the garlic."
When that festival was discontinued, they staged their own. "We advertised locally and invited some other vendors from the market, had music and we sold out of garlic," Dawson said. "It was great fun. We now grow about 5,500 bulbs of garlic, 12 different varieties. We can sell it through the farmers’ market locally and at the garlic festival."
The festival and farmers’ market keep Dawson and Reinhart busy. As time goes on, they find they have to think of their bodies and what they can and can’t do. They have become a bit more mechanized, as they think about things and come up with better ways to do them.
"We still cover this huge hoop house with plastic every March," she said. "That’s getting a little harder at our age but we’re kind of proud of ourselves when we get it done."
Dawson and Reinhart live simply on the $10,000-$11,000 they make from their land. "People don’t believe us sometimes, but it is true," she said. "The land is paid for, we don’t owe on anything, we don’t have children. Somebody could be doing what we’re doing, and they could make much more money than we do if they were willing to work hard. The market is out there."
This year’s Garlic Harvest Celebration will be Aug. 16. For more on Jandy’s, go to www.localharvest.org/farms/m8484
