Tonight's featured vendor? Pumpkin Patch!!

It must have been a combination of the serene setting and their engaging company, but I could’ve happily sat on their porch all day, chatting and sipping iced tea that I normally don’t even like! It was delicious, as was my view.

With 7 total acres, their property is peaceful, utterly lovely… and Doc is the kind of generous, proud tour guide who gladly gives you a taste of everything. I soon learned he was also a gardener after my own heart, when he emphatically stated “Watermelon should be seeded, and tomatoes should be red!” Nell of course gave him the same look I’d seen my grandma give my jokester, gregarious grandfather a million times, which just endeared them both to me even more.

Living and gardening here since 1975, they said they’d always been growing things… from tomatoes they’d sell to restaurants (150lbs a week!) to heirloom melons they’d bought on a trip to Monticello – of course saving the seeds, to continue the strain Thomas Jefferson himself enjoyed. They even used to grow an entire acre of pumpkins, hence their “Pumpkin Patch” moniker, to provide the area schoolkids from Miami East and Piqua a fun field trip where they’d all go home with a pumpkin!

But he’s most proud of his honey, and Doc’s honey is special – not only is it raw and pure, but with his perfect set up, there is no need for it ever to be filtered, heated or strained. Standing in the building specifically for processing his honey, I was wholly envious how well he’d perfected a routine that worked, and afforded him “the best hobby” he ever had.

It all started when his 10-year-old middle son picked bees as his 4-H project, and Father and Son learned together at Bruckner, from the Miami County Beekeepers, where Doc has now been a member since 1982. Their 3rd son also helped care for the honeybees as a hobby, but it was good old dad who carried on after the sons went to college (I gave myself a good laugh when I got home and read what I’d written, that “dad carried on after sons went to cantaloupe” – Nell had been talking with me when Doc came out with yet another tasty sample, and as furiously as I’d been taking notes, it was easy to get a bit mixed up!)