from the good earth
A Man Among the Flowers Ohio bittersweet and macabre plants at Anderson Orchard By nicole rasul
S
tepping onto Steve Anderson’s farm near Pickerington, Ohio, turns the senses upside down. Farm fields covered in tall, green weeds lie in non-uniform patterns across the landscape. Greenhouses sit empty. An orchard where apple trees once flourished is covered in invasive vines. Bamboo and quince trees dot the scenery. Steve’s farm is the antithesis of conventional American farming. A renegade farmer, a self-declared “plant geek” who grows any plant as long as he finds it interesting, Steve does not fit the mold of today’s American farmer. In fact, he boldly shatters that mold. Steve operates as a mad scientist of sorts on his nearly 30-year-old farm. He is known for his quirky farmers market offerings like figs, quince, and bittersweet. Though he grows and sells many common Midwestern staples, such as asparagus, tomatoes, and green beans, in addition to sunflowers, peonies, and nearly 20 other flower varieties, Steve finds great satisfaction in selling the abnormal.
“I originally started selling some of the uncommon plants just to supplement our asparagus harvest in the spring. There are a million people selling petunias and marigolds. I enjoy selling different things, like this year I had figs and goji berries, as well as banana trees started from seed. There’s not a huge demand for these unusual varieties but it’s enough to make it worthwhile for me,” he notes. Anderson Orchard opened in 1985 with the planting of 2,000 apple trees. “I was very naïve, I had never been a farmer before. I thought we could farm organically, but due to the nature of the crop we couldn’t and not farming organically wasn’t something that I was interested in pursuing.”
Opposite: Steve Anderson of Anderson Orchard among his field of flowers and weeds Right: Bittersweet is a climbing vine that has both a native “American” variety and a non-native “Oriental” variety that was introduced to the United States from East Asia in the late 1800s.
edible COLUMBUS.com
FALL 2014
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