Harvest hauls found at roadside market

HANCOCK COUNTY — Metzger's Farm Market never entirely went away. Similar to Rip Van Winkle, it just took a 20-some-year nap. And since its re-establishment in 2013, it has had a summertime presence at 23633 U.S. Route 224 near Alvada, selling produce raised by brothers Adam and Seth Kirian, as well as other items originated on their farmland or supplied by others. After opening in early July of this year, as it typically, does, the market has transitioned to fall hours of noon to 6 p.m., on weekdays and 10 a.m., to 4 p.m., on Saturdays. The market will remain open into October. It's a somewhat different business than it was under the Kirians' grandparents' command, but the name remains intact and the business continues to offer a variety of fruits, vegetables and other items. "Our grandparents were John and Virginia Metzger and they started farming after they'd gotten married," Adam Kirian said. "My grandpa grew up on a farm. He served in the Navy and got married when he got out. They actually had a store up in West Independence that they started in the late 1950s. "They ran that through about the end of the '80s, and then they quit doing that because their kids were all grown up and gone and they didn't have that cheap labor force anymore," he said with a laugh. "So, in 2013, my brother and I decided that we wanted to try this kind of stuff, too, so we started this little stand here. In the meantime, prior to that, I took over the grain crops and things like that from my grandpa when I got out of high school in 2006. He still helped me until about 2013 or '14, and my brother started working with me in 2011." The brothers admitted that the business wasn't an immediate success, but it's picked up steam as time has passed. "To be honest with you, when we started doing it, my grandpa asked us if we thought we knew what we were doing because, he said, 'It's a terrible amount of work.' And he was right; it is a lot of work to do it. But we just thought that during the summer is when we had more free time and we decided we wanted to give this a shot. The first couple of years were kind of tough, but we've figured it out, I guess. We started from scratch, more or less. We just got to keep the name. "It's been neat to see some of the people who used to buy from them in West Independence come by and talk about their memories of it." Those folks who patronized the original Metzger's market see a somewhat different business now. "I don't know that we're able to do it quite the way they did it back then," Adam Kirian said. "The customer bases may be a little bit different. They had some more things in their store that we don't have. They had, like, deli meat and things like that. But we offer home-raised beef, from cattle on our farm — steaks and roasts and ground beef. We've got eggs off of our farm, from our chickens. We've got about 500 laying hens. "We have some featured things from people in the area. We've got popcorn that's raised by some friends in Arcadia and we've got baked goods from a girl in New Riegel who brings some by every Thursday. She makes jams, also. Then we have local honey from a guy up here in West Independence. "By and large, we raise all of the produce and buy a few things that aren't necessarily grown in this area, like some of the potatoes and peaches. But we have home-raised sweet corn and cantaloupe, watermelons, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, stuff like that."Seth Kirian said fall will yield pumpkins and other gourds, as well as apples. "People usually want three main things: They want sweet corn, they want cantaloupe, they want tomatoes," he said. "And we just try to have all the other stuff. If there are other things that they like — a lot of people come in with suggestions: 'Would you raise this? Would you raise that?' If there's enough demand, we'll try anything." Online reviews have credited Metzger's with selling outstanding sweet corn, which is a summer favorite everywhere. "I think that we just try to be consistent, so it's always fresh, every day," Adam Kirian said. "... When you raise sweet corn, if you pick in one patch too long, then it starts to get tough. So, we always make sure that we're onto the next stuff before we get anything that starts to lose its flavor. We kind of want to stagger the plants so that whatever we're selling is as top quality as we can bring up here."That slow restart to Metzger's Farm Market has evolved to "I'd say, in the last six years, seven years, it's really kind of taken off," Adam Kirian said. "We would get a lot of people who, it was their first time here," Seth Kirian said. "And they would say, 'I drive by here every day, twice a day, and I've never stopped.' Then they'd come in and they'd say, 'Oh, now I know that you have all of this.' ... That's our chance to give our little spiel about who we are and what we do and give them all the information and a business card. And most of the time, those people come back and then become our regular customer." Like anyone, the Kirians never want to go through anything like the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. But they cite that time as having been key for their business. "During COVID is when a lot of people really found us because there wasn't anything else to do," Adam Kirian said. "We followed all the guidelines up here. But it was a different place to go and get out of the house. We met a lot of people that year. There was no other activity going on, so you might as well go buy some sweet corn." Said Seth Kirian: "All of the grocery stores were cleaned out of a lot of stuff that people wanted, so they'd come here for their fresh produce." Added Adam Kirian: "A lot of people during that time kind of got reacquainted with the idea of freezing and canning and putting up their own corn, tomatoes, that kind of thing. And those people come back now."