I thought of a lovely repeat of last Saturday this morning. Then I remembered that I'd received an email from the Burpee Seed folks that their research farm was going to be open to the public today. It was open yesterday but the announcement made it sound like today might be the last time it's ever open to the public.
My first mistake was in not looking on a Google map before I left home and taking Burpee's website directions. I know a semi-back way that could have saved me a lot of grief.
But anyway, I got there and picked up my bottle of water and wallet and paid my five bucks to get in.
Beneath a huge sycamore tree - I'm guessing upwards of 80 feet tall - stood a white haired man in a khaki jacket over what appeared to be a pair of purple pajamas. I like his style. There were about fifty other people gathered around him and he started talking about the origins of the company.
In case you care, Atlee Burpee sold farm equipment door to door or farm to farm. While he was in the kitchen talking to the Papa, Mama would come over and say, "You know, we don't get dem beetroots like ve used to in Chermany. Can you get us some beet seeds from home?" Atlee, realizing a customer need when he saw it, began ordering the seeds and before he started hawking them around PA and the midwest, tried them out.
They were awful. Too accustomed to the short growing season of northern Europe, now in a subtropical climate, the plants would take off like wildfire and then turn to mush. He began experimenting, trying to elongate the life of the planted seed, and began selling them when he had something worth selling. Boom. The seed business took off.
The history got a little muddled here. Something about Burpee Senior's failing health and Junior coming back from college at age 19 to run the business for the next 60 years.
And then who should buy it but ITT. I swear. ITT. "Actually," said the pajama man, "ITT was a very good owner. They like to invest money in research and certainly did a lot to encourage it.Then it was bought by investment bankers and you can only imagine what they were going to do with it and I couldn't let that happen. Eventually, the bankers put it up to auction and I didn't win. When I found out who it was, it was a friend of mine and we had some chats and well..." Vague hand gestures, "I bought it and now I'm the CEO." Aha! Hence the purple pajamas!
He took us on an abbreviated tour. Here was the Carolina shade garden. There was the kitchen garden and in front of the house that once belonged to the farm family, a verandah garden.
I began to wander around. There were plants for sale but I contained myself. Seriously. The focus of the day was blueberries and there were many varieties of blueberry bushes on sale for $10 or so each. I resisted. I continued wandering, realized I was going too far afield, literally, and found myself in a garden with neatly mowed paths.
And my right eye swelled until it ached. And my sinus filled up. Allergic? To what? The last time I had such a reaction to plants was during a trip down to Virginia. I'd stopped at the park where George Washington's boyhood home had once stood. The minute I stepped out of the car, my eyes began to water and I couldn't see. I ran to the gift shop and in one corner, held a wet handkerchief to my eyes and washed my face. This was pretty much like that.
When I got out of the garden, I noticed there was a banner fluttering in the humid wind. "The Happiness Garden", it read. Yeah, happy this.
On my way out, I got so turned around that I ended up having to pull over to one side of the road and consult VZ Navigator. If it hadn't been for that, I'd still be wandering around the charming countryside of eastern Pennsylvania.
I've been home for a while now. I'm still glad I went. Did you know that Burpee sells seed to a red corn? http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/corn/sweet-corn/sugar-enhanced-se/corn-ruby-queen-hybrid-prod000673.html
Despite the waterworks, I need to keep up with these cheap ventures out. I think it did me some good to feel grass under my feed and look on rolling meadows with great, tall trees in the background,
No comments:
Post a Comment