Summer 2024:
Dear MNFGA,
It seems like our May 11, 2024, Spring Meeting was only yesterday, when actually it was 11 days ago for me as I write this. It was a great meeting. Thank you to all who attended and helped set up, clean-up, take down, sign-up, register, record minutes, create and send out the MNFGA News, help with the auction, present, bring and distribute infected Japanese beetles and teach! It certainly takes a lot of people to make this work. And bonus, the grafting class had 27 participants and I have heard that some of the tree grafts are already sprouting. Yay! Thanks too to all who donated for the auction; there were a LOT of nice items and a lot of generous bidders! And thanks for Paula Ruffin and Jackie Smith for your willingness to join the Board as two, new Directors-at-Large, joining Marc Boone, PJ Chmiel and Levi Clark in that role. Our Bylaws allow for up to 6. It will be great having two more inputs for Board discussions. And I must mention congratulations and thank you to Dick Wolthuis for your many years of support of MNFGA and as our 2024 recipient of the MNFGA Outstanding Achievement Award! Very well deserved!
Our Summer Meeting is June 15, 2024, starting at noon with the potluck. If anyone wants to grill something for the potluck, Bill Nash has offered to have a grill ready. Please plan to bring your own table service and a chair and maybe even a card table or something similar to hold your plate of bounteous food. If it is warm, I will not bring the coffee pots but will certainly bring the 5-gallon jug full of ice water. We will meet rain or shine, so please dress accordingly. Please also plan accordingly for mosquitos! If the weather person calls for rain, we will plan to have a tent to gather under for the lunch, meeting and such, or we will be under shade-giving trees in case of bright sunshine. We will then walk/ride around to see Nash Nursery. For those who put their orders in by the May 24, 2024, deadline, your plants will be ready to be picked up at the meeting. If you have not paid for them prior, please bring payment to the meeting. And, like always, if the potluck and all is not your thing, please come anyway and just chat with us while or after we have eaten. Bill has offered too that anyone who wants to come a little early is welcome to wander around the nursery prior to the potluck, but please not before their starting time of 9:00 a.m. For sure, there is a lot to see. The address is: 4975 W Grand River Rd, Owosso, MI 48867
Noon potluck
1:30 introductions and business meeting
2:00 nursery tour
The Fall Meeting is September 28, 2024, 5171 W Waters Road, Ann Arbor: home of MNFGA Member and disc golf extraordinaire Terry Calhoun. Noon start, with, yes, a potluck meal! 😊
I have several things for you all to ponder:
- Should MNFGA have a trailer to store and hold meeting and show equipment/items? Something weather and mouse proof that would tow easily behind a SUV or pickup truck. I am always a little surprised when I load my truck with all of the meeting supplies. It would be much handier for them to be stored in a single spot, ready to go. If you do not know, my wife presently does all of the stocking and prep for us with the coffee and potluck supplies (Leah Van Antwerp did it before her)…she may or may not be willing to do that too much longer, so that is part of the trailer idea too is that the whole kit and kaboodle could be easily transferred to a new stocker/organizer when she retires! The sides could be painted with our name, Internet website name, Facebook page name and some nut and fruit tree drawings for advertising when it goes on the road to a meeting or show. Does anyone have or know of such a trailer at a reasonable price? Is anyone artistic and/or sign painters for murals on the sides?
- What would you say to having a Sign-Up Genius for each meeting? It could offer the opportunity for all to see what needs to be done prior to, during and after the meeting. As I noted above, it takes a lot of hands to make this work without anyone having to work too hard! When multiple people pitch in, the work gets done without much fuss.
- Have you all considered another plant purchase from Hartmann’s Nursery? What if we planned another purchase for 2025? We would need someone to coordinate the ordering and determine how/when to make the distribution. For the 2023 order, there were 879 plants and 30 buyers. Coordinating it all is not trivial, and it needs to be done with the utmost consideration for Hartmann’s to not make it a nightmare for them. Similarly, that is why we had one coordinator for the Nash June 15 order; to keep it simple for Nash’s.
- Who amongst you knows of some high school or college age students who are interested in robotics? Maybe it is one of you? It is still my goal for us to develop a method of robotically separating nut shells from nut meats. I fully believe that the technology is out there, just that it has not yet been focused on nuts. I envision a system that could be set up for under $500 and easily duplicated. It would hold a 5-gallon bucket of cracked nuts and shells and sort them. It could work slowly, as long as it could work without help beyond the initial set up. It is fine if it takes all day to sort the bucket, as long as it can do it by itself. I believe that such a machine could be patented and sold for profit, if that was the designer/builder’s goal. Many of us have ample supply of nuts (hazelnuts, black walnuts, English walnuts, hickory nuts, etc.) that we can crack, but are still separating by hand.
- 4 is enough for now!
You are most welcome to contact me or other Board members with your thoughts/comments/concerns about my ponderings. We will need to discuss them at a meeting prior to taking action.
Best regards and I look forward to seeing all who can attend the Summer Meeting with our most gracious hosts: Bill, Jon Nash and family and the employees at Nash Nursery! And, ONE last thing about the summer meeting: it will be a regular busy, business day for Nash Nursery, so please be considerate of their customers.
Dennis Strahle
MNFGA President
Eagle, MI
517-204-8600
MichiganNutGrower@gmail.com
Spring 2024:
Hi MNFGA!
And we are off to a great start to the year! 9 new members from the Lansing Home & Garden Show and at least one renewal. Thank you to the volunteers who staffed the booth, in order of appearance: Joe & Michelle Grant, Jim & Cecelia Fydroski, Bob & Ginger Rinkel, Levi & Amelia Clark, Michael Walker, Matt Dochoda, Morley Stevenson, Crystal Evans, PJ Chmiel, Margaret Eiler, Paul Swartz, Ken Howe and Becky Ladewski…we could not do it without your help! Thank you! And thanks to the LH&GS staff (ShowSpan) for giving us a complimentary booth for the Show.
It was fantastic this year that our neighbors at the Show were Nash Nursery. They had several trees on display that were in bloom: peach and paw paw were most striking. They also drew a crowd with their chestnut products. We sent Show visitors to each other’s booth several times during the Show.
The MNFGA Summer Meeting is at Nash Nursery, June 15, 2024. We will start with the noon potluck and then tour the facilities. Bonus is that if you order, through me (do NOT order directly with Nash Nursery), Nash Nursery is offering 20% off all nursery stock. We will pick up our orders on June 15. Their online catalog is at https://nashnurseries.com/Nash%20Nurseries%20Catalog.pdf Please note that some stock may be out of stock and you may need to make a substitution. Deadline to order is by May 24, 2024, midnight. The easiest way to order is to send an email: MichiganNutGrower@gmail.com with your list. Your list should include: cultivar/generic name of plant, quantity, container size and price. I will add you to the list and confirm back to you. You may pay Cecelia (Treasurer) on pickup day. Thank you, Nash Nursery, for this opportunity and for hosting the Summer Meeting on June 15, 2024!
Hey, what about the Spring Meeting?
- It is May 11, 2024: MSU Farrall Hall, 524 S Shaw Lane, East Lansing, MI 48824. It will start with coffee and chit chat anytime you arrive between 9 and 10 a.m.
- The business meeting gets underway at 10:00.
- At about 11:00, Melissa Flora will talk about using mycorrhizal fungi and the benefits thereof.
- At about 11:30, Bill and Jonathan Nash will give highlights of their trip to Spain for the big 2023 chestnut symposium held there.
- The potluck is at noon (lots of yummy delights from fruits, to nuts and many things made with them). You can bring a dish to pass, or if you are still a little nervous about COVID or have other reservations about a potluck, please do not hesitate to bring your own lunch or go to a nearby establishment (on or off campus) for lunch.
- In the afternoon, we will have our fundraising auction of items donated by members and guests: often included are trees, plants, tools, and other great fruit and nut related items.
- There will be a scion exchange available throughout the day.
- Starting about 2:00 p.m. will be the grafting class. There will be a $20 fee for the grafting class (the rest of the day is free admission and all day is free parking). If you have a favorite apple or pear tree that you would like to clone, please bring some scions for grafting. If you want to choose from the selection of scions that people bring for the scion exchange, that works too. Each student will go home with at least one apple and one pear tree that the student has grafted. All grafting supplies are provided, except for a grafting knife. If you want to sign up or have questions, please leave an email at MichiganNutGrower@gmail.com or call/text me at 517-204-8600. Please register in advance. You can pay that day. We expect to be done about 5 p.m.
Our year would not be complete without a Fall Meeting: thank you, Terry Calhoun, for offering your disc golf/orchard for our Fall Meeting on September 28, 2024. Terry is near Ann Arbor. We were going to have it on a different date, but as it turns out, Terry has been nominated into the World Disc Golf Hall of Fame! A celebrity amongst us! Okay, potential in that this is a nomination and not presentation (yet!), but still way cool!!!!! Thank you, Terry, for hosting the Fall Meeting and congrats on the nomination…I hope you get it.
Also cool is that our Facebook page continues to grow and provide many comments and photos. As of this writing, we have 2,310 page members. Of course, not all are active, but still, we have a fair amount of activity on the page.
If you have been working on your own plantation (no matter the size) and would be willing to host MNFGA for a summer or fall meeting in 2025 or beyond, please let me know. MNFGA covers the cost of a tent and tables in case of inclement weather. Otherwise, we are happy to meet under shade trees or in a barn.
And, yes, the Fall Meeting did have a bit of inclement weather at the Levi and Amelia Clark “Old Brick Orchard” farm last October. It rained but that did not stop people from attending and then getting out our umbrellas and raincoats for the tour. Thank you, Levi and Amelia, for clearing out the barn to make room for us! It was great to see your farm and the well-planned progress you are making toward having a hazelnut orchard, along with your many other fun projects. Thank you for hosting MNFGA!
I look forward to seeing as many as can attend our upcoming meetings. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me or to any of our Board Members with questions, comments and/or suggestions.
Happy spring!
Dennis Strahle
President – MNFGA
Eagle, MI
517-204-8600
Summer 2022:
Dear Michigan Nut and Fruit Growers,
It is with great joy that I tell you, if you did not already know, that we have a summer meeting location: Bill Brinkerhoff (new member at the 2022 Spring Meeting) and wife Kathy Sample have invited us to Base Lake Farm. They have about 2 acres of fruit and nut trees and about 200 acres of regenerative farming with grass fed beef. The meeting is on July 16 and follows our typical farm tour format: noon potluck, business meeting, fundraising auction and farm tour. We will have shelter in case of rain, so do not let a couple of clouds stop you from coming.
Base Lake Farm is a 7861 Strawberry Lake Road, Dexter, MI 48130.
Please plan to bring a chair, table service and possibly a dish to pass. I know some are not comfortable bringing a dish to pass or are unwilling to participate in a potluck in our still-COVID world. No problem. Just bring your own, personal lunch. No one will mind and we will still get to chat with you. Win, win! Not sure yet if we will have coffee, but for sure there will be a large cooler of ice water. If you need the caffein fix to keep going, possibly bring your own thermos.
Looking forward to seeing our new members at the July MNFGA Meeting, some guests (all interested guests are welcome) and all of our current members, people I consider friends and people with whom I enjoy chatting to find out what’s new at your place and how you are doing. I enjoy that we are a group of friends who share many interests, especially the interest of growing our own fruits and nuts rather than just going to the store to buy them. Sure, it is more challenging, but there is no way the best store has fruits or nuts that compare flavor wise, or nutritionally, to anything you can walk out to your deck, yard or orchard and pick for fresh eating. And, with some additional care and work, you can store those fruits and nuts for use all year. As an example, the ingredients in my lunch yesterday included black walnuts, mulberries, persimmons, pears and sorghum seeds: all from our 2021 crop. Pretty awesome. I am grateful for all of the guidance and suggestions from my MNFGA friends that makes my homegrown ingredients possible.
Thank you, Bill & Kathy, for offering your farm for our Summer Meeting!
Another item of great joy was the presentation of Outstanding Achievement Award at the Spring Meeting to Bill Nash of the Nash Family and Nash Nursery. Not sure if anyone has been as loyal, generous and supportive of MNFGA as Bill and his family. Bill continues as our Resident Agent and as a great resource of knowledge and helpfulness to our organization. His PowerPoint presentation at the Spring Meeting was very interesting. MNFGA has visited the nursery several times as a group and a couple of years ago, when we needed to pot trees for the grafting class, Bill and the nursery were there with all of the supplies and then took care of the potted trees until the following spring, during our COVID period. There are many other examples of the kindness and generosity extended to MNFGA by Bill. Thank you, Bill.
If you were at the Spring MNFGA Meeting, you know that we have two new members on the Board, and a bunch of carryover members too. Levi Clark and PJ Chmiel are replacing Tom Latterner as Directors-at-Large…yes, it took two to replace Tom! Thank you, Tom, for your years of service and support as Director-at-Large. You are definitely a man with lots of enthusiasm and many thoughtful, clever ideas, definitely deserving of the title, Black Walnut Guy. I look forward to the wisdom and enthusiasm that Levi and PJ will bring to the Board. My predecessor, President Trevor Newman, is still too busy in his new job to be able to participate with MNFGA activities. Consequently, with Trevor’s permission, Mike Dority will serve officially as our Past President, continuing his support of the Board because our Bylaws allow two past presidents to be on the Board. Mike was President prior to Trevor. Thank you, Mike, for your willingness to stay on the Board. And thank you to the rest of the Board for your willingness to support MNFGA as Board Members. Your input helps keep MNFGA going in a direction of interest to everyone.
While thanking everyone, I want to thank Cecelia and Jim Fydroski and Marc Boone for working at the “Pollineighbor Celebration” in Novi, MI at the MSU Tollgate Farm on June 18, 2022, 11am to 4pm. The weather was windy but absolutely gorgeous. It was the inaugural year for this hopefully annual event. We met some very eco-minded, grow-your-own kind of people and picked up some new members. I always enjoy seeing the children crack walnuts and hazelnuts and then for them and their parents to taste them for the first time. It is so common to hear them say that they did not know they were edible and have been tripping over them in their yard for years. The effervescent and hard-working Katie Gallagher, Education Garden Leader, Michigan State University Extension, Tollgate Farm, did a lot of work to make this event happen. Turnout was not huge, but not bad for an inaugural event. Our hats off to Katie! And, not to be left out, Clay and Julie Ottoni were there as well, with their beekeepers hats on, at the booth next to ours. The molded beeswax items attracted a few interested bees and many curious people. Nice work Clay and Julie.
An item that remains open for MNFGA is a possible recipient for a research donation or investment. We voted at the Spring Meeting to put money into the Fremont Area Community Foundation. However, upon getting further into the details of this foundation, it has been decided not to proceed. If you know of a research project that would benefit from a donation from MNFGA, please contact a Board member.
We would like to have a Fall Meeting. Where will it be? We are still looking for a farm to visit for the Fall Meeting. Anyone willing to share their farm with us? Let me know. Our backup plan is solid in that we have a standing invitation to visit Rogers Reserve in Jackson. It is a great location for our meeting, but we have been there before so seeing a new farm would be interesting too. If you have questions about being our Fall Farm hosts, please ask.
I hope that your trees, vines and plants are as fruitful as ours here in Eagle. Wow, 2022 is going to be a bumper crop for us, barring attacks of insects, bad weather or bears (yes, a wild black bear was seen less than 2-miles from our home two weeks ago).
And, speaking of our home here in Eagle, MI, I cannot let my gratitude for my wonderful wife, Julie, go without being thanked. She tolerates a lot of time I spend on MNFGA things and is the picker and processor for a lot of the fruits. Without her tolerance and hard work, the aforementioned lunch of goodness would not have happened. That would be a bummer.
Best regards to you and to the many to whom I should also have thanked for contributing to make MNFGA the great organization it is! Looking forward to seeing you in July.
Dennis Strahle
MNFGA President
Eagle, MI
517-204-8600
Spring 2020 President’s Letter
Please note: the Spring 2020 Letter was written prior to the full power of COVID-19’s attack on our ability to gather in large groups. Five of the events noted below are CANCELLED. Please see the “Event” tab of this website for the current list of events NOT cancelled due to COVID-19. The good news is that the work you do in your yards and orchards, by yourself or with your family, is not being stopped by the virus. Go outside, where you can, get some fresh air, spend time with family, give your trees and plants some well-deserved attention, stay safe, stay smart and stay 6-feet apart.
Spring 2020 MNFGA President’s Letter
18 February 2020
Hi MNFGA Members!
Here we are at the dawn of another growing season in Michigan. I can say that because I was in the woods last week and noticed tiny, red spots on the forest floor’s blanket of snow. Puzzled at first by what animal was losing so much blood, I figured out that it was pieces of red, maple buds that were blowing off from the tree canopy 100 feet up. It is early, but the maples are getting underway for 2020. Your Michigan Nut & Fruit Growers Association Board has also been busy getting underway for 2020.
CANCELLED The first event of the year is being worked on by Marc Boone and you! Maybe you are not fully involved yet, or maybe you are: have you been to SignUp.com to sign up for the March 12 – 15 Lansing Home & Garden Show? We need volunteers to staff the booth to sell memberships. The sign-up is online at https://signup.com/go/oGrHedE or you can contact me to set up a time. The shifts are Thursday from 3 pm – 6 pm and 6 pm – 9 pm, Friday noon – 4:30 pm and 4:30 pm – 9 pm, Saturday 10 am – 1:30 pm, 1:30 pm – 5:00 pm and 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm and Sunday 11 am – 2:00 pm and 2:00 pm – 5 pm. Please know that you do NOT need to be an expert to staff the booth. You just need to present a friendly smile and a willingness to explain a little bit about MNFGA and possibly why you joined. We can record the rare, tough questions to be answered later! …a good way to get potential new member’s contact information.
CANCELLED The second event of the year was set up by Clay Ottoni: the Pruning Workshop to be held at the MSU Tollgate Farm in Novi, MI on March 21. Please see information about it elsewhere in the MNFGA News. You can sign up online at http://tinyurl.com/tcvr3go Note that MNFGA members get $10 off from the public’s $30 cost of the class. Pizza lunch is included in the price.
CANCELLED The third event is the April 18, 2020 Spring Meeting. This is something we all work on to make it successful. Marc Boone is coordinating the scion swap. We plan to have the scions displayed in a separate classroom this year. Please plan to individually label ALL scions you might be bringing. Also, if you are in need of a specific scion, send me an email and I will send out an email to the entire group with your request. Marc Boone is doing double duty in that Marc is our featured morning speaker: pawpaws! Marc has an excellent pawpaw orchard and lots of experience that he can share. We will definitely save time for Q & A. The Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development (MDARD) is going to provide a speaker to talk about home use of pesticides and herbicides. Jim Fydroski is coordinating this as our afternoon speaker, also with a good amount of Q & A time. The business meeting will include officer elections: most critical this spring will be to elect a new secretary: Dan Foster’s term is up and he cannot continue an additional term. Please consider volunteering to be our secretary and please thank Dan for serving as our secretary these past two years. You are also free to volunteer for any of the other positions on the inside front cover of the MNFGA News…some have been in place for MANY years and could use a break. We will have our business meeting starting at 10:00 and then the fundraising auction in the afternoon. Special this year is a large tree order that Mike Dority coordinated with Grimo Nut. Linda Grimo spoke to us last June about hazelnuts. Ordering is closed. Mike will have the trees ready for pick up at the meeting. Thanks Mike! The Nut Evaluation will be reported at the meeting: you can still send me samples for evaluation or bring them to the Garden Show or Pruning Workshop to hand to me in person. Spring Meeting agenda and directions are elsewhere here in the MNFGA News.
CANCELLED: The fourth event is a Grafting Class for the Lowell area homeschoolers. This event is planned for April 2, a Thursday. If you are willing to help instruct, please let me know WELL in advance: do NOT just show up. The adults need to be background checked ahead of the event. This event has kind of done the modern thing and gone “viral!” We opened it to 25 students and it overshot that within 24-hours! We are presently planning two sessions on April 2. This is good news toward getting some young people inspired about growing trees. Yay! This is NOT open to the MNFGA general membership.
CANCELLED The fifth event is the MNFGA Grafting Class on May 2, 2020. This is to be held at the MSU Ag Engineering Building…same as our Spring Meeting. The charge is $10.00. You can sign up with Cecelia or me and then pay at the door. Per the Fall Meeting discussion, we will be grafting apples, pears AND persimmons and pawpaws. You should be seeking your scions now! There will be scions at the Spring Meeting and a few at the grafting class.
The sixth and seventh events for the year are not yet defined: we do not have any farm or nursery tours set up for 2020. Maybe you are willing to offer your farm or nursery? MNFGA will pay up to $500 for tent, potty and supplies as needed for you to host the group.
Wow! We will probably have 7 events in 2020. I wish that Gordon Barlow was here to see this. As a Board Director, he suggested that we have more than 3 events in a year. If you were not aware, Gordon was honored posthumously for his and his wife’s (Jane Barlow) work in support of MNFGA. Jane received the traveling “MNFGA Distinguished Service Award” late last year with her and Gordon’s name on a new plaque on the award. Thank you Gordon, Jane and all who work to make our organization a great organization!
I am looking forward to seeing as many of you who can attend the events noted above!
Dennis Strahle
12833 W. Clark Road
Eagle, MI 48822
517-204-8600
Email: MichiganNutGrower@gmail.com
PS: most of you already know a little about the events above from an email I sent out in December 2019. If you are not on the email distribution and have an email address, please email me so that I can add you to the distribution. If you do not have an email address, maybe a family member does? Emails are so handy and efficient!
President’s Letter Fall 2019
Dear Members of Michigan Nut & Fruit Growers Association,
I hope that this finds you well and excited to attend the fall meeting of MNFGA on Saturday, October 5, 2019 at Tom and Kathleen Wilmoth’s farm at 7891 Wiggins Road, Howell, MI 48855. We will start with a noon potluck, have a business meeting, a SHORT auction fundraiser (please limit donated items to a nut & fruit-related theme) and then a tour of the greenhouses and some very interesting growing techniques Tom has been developing in the greenhouses. Thank you, Wilmoth’s, for sharing your farm with MNFGA!
We will have a tent so please come rain or shine. Please bring your own table service, a dish to pass and a chair. We will be renting a limited number of chairs, so we hope you can bring your own.
In other business, we are about 450 followers on the MNFGA Facebook page. The MNFGA website (MichiganNut.org) gets typically 10 to 20 views per day. Many people are looking for fruit and nut information. If anyone is good at working on a website, the Board would enjoy hearing your ideas and even better having you help make/keep the website inviting, informative and enjoyable.
The final highway clean-up for the Adopt-A-Highway program is September 14 – 22. Please contact me if you are interested in a walk along the I-96 freeway between M-100 and Grange Roads east of Eagle, MI anytime during that week.
If you have a nut tree (any variety) in Michigan and would like to know how the nuts compare to other nuts around the state, please plan to provide 10 nuts to me by the end of January, 2020 for the annual Nut Evaluation. You can bring them to the October 5 meeting or mail/deliver to me in Eagle.
We did not get enough volunteers to sign up for a booth at the Michigan State Fair in Novi over Labor Day Weekend. Can we get enough volunteers to staff a booth at the Lansing Home & Garden Show on March 12 – 15, 2020? I am hoping we can. It was a good show and generated a number of new memberships and general interest. Please let me know if you would be willing to help.
We tentatively are planning for a homeschooler’s grafting day on Thursday, April 2, 2020 at the MSU Clarksville Research Station. A group of homeschoolers from Lowell has requested the event. This will take some careful planning and attentive assistants!
There are not any farms set up for a tour in 2020…we are looking for hosts. Could it be your farm?
MNFGA would be non-existent without the work of many hands and minds. MNFGA is grateful to the Board and active members who keep MNFGA going. If you are not presently involved with the growth and maintenance of our organization, please consider volunteering to help. There is so much more we could be doing. Elections for new officers are in the Spring of 2020. Maybe it will be time for you to share some of your time and talent as a Board member with the organization?
I look forward to seeing as many of you as can attend the October 5 meeting.
Dennis Strahle
MNFGA President
517-204-8600
This was written prior to the July 13, 2019 Summer Meeting:
Hi MNFGA!
Welcome to the growing season!
Did you do some grafting this spring…or still planning to do some in the case of walnuts? I am happy to report that some my Sault Saint Marie crabapple scions are growing. This was a test of a pre-dormant harvest of scions. My wife and I were in Sault Ste. Marie in October when the leaves were still green. With the owner’s permission, we cut some living scions. They were put in water and stayed in water until December. The scions seemed to undergo normal, fall leaf drop and then were cut to scion storage length, ends dipped in wax and put into the refrigerator with a damp paper towel in a plastic bag. They survived the ordeal and are now growing on my rootstock this summer. Yay!
The summer meeting is Saturday, July 13, 2019 at the Charles and Wilma Leik (rhymes with like) Farm at 9339 S. Keefer Highway, Portland, MI 48875. If you drive west of Portland via I-96 or Grand River Avenue, you know that there is a large John Deere dealership west of town. Charles’ farm is about 1 ¼ mile south of the dealership. Charles has spent considerable time and energy restoring this historic family farm and has been planting fruit and nut trees as well. It is a beautiful farm and MNFGA is grateful to have the summer meeting there. Please plan to bring a dish to pass for the noon potluck start. It will also be helpful if you can bring your own chair and table service. Coffee and water will be on tap. We already have several items for the auction and you are encouraged to bring additional items. After the potluck, we will have a short business meeting, the auction and then the farm tour. What a great time to see your MNFGA friends, historic buildings and some interesting tree plantings.
Regarding the auction items we already have: you are probably aware that long time MNFGA member, MNFGA Director and auctioneer Gordon Barlow passed away on March 12, 2019. Gordon died with thoughts of planting more nut trees and he had requested that he be buried with a black walnut in one hand and an English walnut in the other hand…and so he laid in the casket at the funeral home with a walnut in each hand. It made me smile despite my sadness at seeing him pass. When we get there, God willing, I believe Gordon will have expanded (or started?!) the walnut grove in heaven! Toward his earthly goals, his wife, Jane, has donated Gordon’s nut growing and processing equipment to MNFGA for the auction. We have a black walnut husker (this is a large, electric-powered unit and will require transport in a pick-up or trailer…I can send you photos if you wish or you can see it on the MNFGA Facebook page), various Rootmaker© pots and air rooting containers, hand-powered nut crackers, 7 pairs of drying screens, some books and grafting glue and a homemade chestnut slicer (made by Gordon’s son-in-law). Thank you, Gordon and Jane, for all of your contributions to MNFGA, both recently and through the years.
Auctions are a fun and beneficial way for MNFGA to raise funds and thereby keep our membership fees low. Where else can you get all of this for $8.00 per year?! We learned about mushrooms in the spring, we had a grafting class in April and now we have two farm tours coming up. Tell your friends about us. They can get to know us on Facebook: Michigan Nut & Fruit Growers Association or at MichiganNut.org.
The fall meeting will be on Saturday, October 5, 2019 at the Tom and Kathleen Wilmoth Farm in Howell, MI. Tom has been working on some very interesting growing projects in his controlled environment greenhouses at 7891 Wiggins Road, Howell, MI 48855. We will see some new twists on growing, compliments of a guy who is willing to try new things. Another great thing about the fall meeting is that so many of you are very creative and generous with the Michigan nut and fruit dishes that you bring for the potluck. If only we could bottle some of that deliciousness to share with anyone who is on the fence about growing their own fruits and nuts…our membership would grow like crazy. However, I do admit that I like the current size where we can meet in small venues and chat and have fun. Potluck starts at noon and the meeting, auction and tour follows.
Thank you, Charles and Tom, for volunteering your farms for our 2019 farm tours. The farm tours are a treasured part of MNFGA. If you would be willing to host MNFGA in 2020 or beyond, please contact a Board member.
There were a couple of volunteers for the Adopt-A-Highway cleanup this spring, but the cold, rainy weather made it difficult to coordinate. The summer and fall pick-ups (July 13-21 and September 21-29) will hopefully have better weather and make it easier to coordinate volunteers. Please let me know if you can help. There were 79 bags of trash for the spring clean-up after the long winter. The summer and fall pick-ups will be much lighter duty. This will be our last year of this endeavor.
Hank Frechtling will bring the Roger Miller Memorial Library collection to the summer meeting. You are most welcome to check books out of the library to read until the next meeting. If you have one/some on lone presently, please plan to return them to the July meeting if you can.
As it has been a challenge for our secretary, Dan Foster, to keep up with his very busy career AND MNFGA secretary duties, Dan has asked that this be his last year as secretary. So, if you would like to nominate someone for the spring 2020 elections as secretary (you can self-nominate!), please contact a Board member. Dan would relinquish his duties sooner if someone offered!
MNFGA has displayed at the Michigan State Fair for the last 4 years. It has been a challenge to gather enough volunteers for this Labor Day weekend event. Consequently, coordinator Marc Boone has been at the Fair from 10 am to 10 pm most all of the days of the fair and has been there to set it up the day before the fair as well. If we are going to continue the Michigan State Fair display, we must have more volunteers. Please look at your calendars prior to the July 13 meeting and be prepared to sign up for some blocks of booth staffing. If we cannot get enough staffing, we will not be at the Michigan State Fair. If you cannot be at the July 13 meeting but are available to volunteer, please let me know via phone or email (MichiganNutGrower@gmail.com). It is not mandatory that MNFGA has a booth at the Fair. If we cannot staff it sufficiently, we will not have a booth. If you are a member because of Marc’s generosity of time spent on the Michigan State Fair, please let me know. We curious to know if the Fair is a good event for getting new members. The Fair is August 28 to September 2, 2019.
I look forward to seeing you all at the Leik Farm on July 13, 2019 for the noon potluck and more!
Happy growing.
Dennis Strahle
MNFGA President
Eagle, MI
MichiganNutGrower@gmail.com
Michigan Nut and Fruit Growers Association (MNFGA) 