Visiting Fordhook Farm, Doylestown, PA

Hi everyone!

I am not sure if I am allowed to toot my horn about visiting the Fordhook Farm today in Doylestown, PA which is owned by Burpee co. I had purchased some tomato and pepper vegetables this spring. Anyway they had an event there yesterday and today regarding their perennial flower gardens and their trial vegetable gardens. The fee was only $5.00 which I received a $5.00 coupon off of one item that I purchase.

I will stop explaining the rest later if I am allowed to. If not, so sorry and then just delete this.

You must tell us all about the visit! Did you see anything that we should try in SFG?

Jo

Hi Littlejo!

Fordhook Farm is the original home built in the 1800's by the owners of Burpee and expanded through the years. It is a beautiful farm house with numerous beautiful perennial gardens throughout their property along with the original seed house, barn, etc. There is a separate location where they grow their veg/flowers to sell.

The event was from 9:30am - 5:00pm. They had tours throughout the day for the perennial flower gardens - Happy Garden (full sun), Shade Garden, Woodland Gardens, Pond Garden, Veranda Garden, etc. I was able to attend the 1st tour of the day which was led by the CEO of Burpee, Mr. George Ball (to my surprise) which lasted alittle over an hour. He was very informative and answered any questions we had. Next I went to a free lecture on how flowers effect our emotions by Dr. Jeanette Hailand-Jones from Rutgers University which was based on various studies. Mr. Ball gave everyone that attended the free lecture 2 packets of flower seeds. Next, I trapsed around all the gardens on my own. I was surprised how down-to-earth Mr. Ball is along with his employees.

When I visited their trial vegetable gardens, I spoke to one of his employees and she was sweet and answered all of my questions. I had noticed that all their tomato plants had their suckers on and there was no trimming. She stated that they do not nip off the suckers but leave them on so the tomatoes received more sugar and they prefer to leave all their veg plants as a natural state. They do raised garden beds which consist of many composts (mushroom for example that they get from the college across the street from them), they do not use their own soil and do not use vermiculite. They do get weeds so they also top the beds with salted hay from the college.

I noticed they had the stuffed mini pepper plants that I had ordered and put in my garden. She stated that they previously had them but only as a hot pepper so she suggested they try growing a stuffed pepper that wasn't hot which was the one I bought. They also donate most of their harvested veg's to the local food bank.

I spent most of the day there taking notes on flowers and veg's. I was truly amazed at the helpful staff and Mr. Ball's devotion. I did purchase three perennial plants for my flower garden!

He stated that they will be doing a Tomato Event in August 2012. If anyone is interested let me know and I will pass on the information before the event.

Very interesting! Especially the comment regarding leaving suckers on tomatoes. Think it confirms my thoughts that when I pruned heavily last year the tomatoes were good tasting but not super outstanding which I expected. None were heirlooms either..so this year I have both kinds and pruning less. Thanks for the neat report!