Treadway Gardens started out as a roadside stand on a two-lane country road. A few years later a housing development came in so Mr. Treadway moved the stand to the other side of the road. A few years later another housing development came to the other side of the road and Mr. Treadway bought a farm right around the corner so his farmer's market would never have to move again.
Centerville and Washington Township used to be all farmland but now builders are buying the farms and putting up houses. Farmland is still interspersed between developments but they are becoming few and far between. Field corn is planted on all these remaining farms. Each acre typically has around 35,000 stalks of corn on it, opposed to 24,000 stalks for sweet corn.
I remember running through the corn fields at my grandparents' farm and Grandpa telling us not to go too far in because we might get lost. Not a lot of light gets in when the stalks are packed that tight and it's easy to lose your bearings. Those stalks are impressive - they have to be at least 8 feet tall (2.4 meters). And of course as little kids we made up monster stories about the fields and as it got dark the fields took on an eerie vibe.
When I was close to this field to take pictures, I thought about walking among the stalks, but looking down the rows it got dark in there pretty quick and I thought, "Nope," and I could hear Grandpa saying, "It's a jungle in there!"
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beware the tall stalks
for the field has countless ears always listening |
Such a shame that farmland is being lost to more and more housing developments. It's the same here in our small island unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteOnce it's gone, it's gone forever.
We need farmland, not more houses.
DeleteThere was about a five acre field on the corner of the farm when I was growing up, it was planted with corn a few times - wheat more often. The field was small enough that you knew that even if you got lost, you were not far from an outside edge. Walking in a field just after wheat has been harvested is a fond memory of childhood, I last did that in Normandy, after one too many glasses of Norman Cider.
ReplyDeleteNow that's an adventure!
DeleteBrings back memories. We don't see much corn grown around here but back in Illinois, it was everywhere.
ReplyDeleteWhen my sibs and I went on our quick trip through Illinois and Iowa the cornfields stretched on and on. It was everywhere and amazing to see.
DeleteI miss the corn fields in Indiana. Sometimes the fields on both sides of our house would be planted in corn, making us feel quite enclosed. Walking into the rows of corn would be oppressively hot and unpleasant. But the blue morning glories twining up the stalks were wonderful.
ReplyDelete