The Minges Family has been in farming and the greenhouse business for 5 generations. Primarily we raised all types of produce (including pumpkins) which we sold at our roadside market.
Over the years we have been a farm family host, at the request of the agricultural department of Ohio State University, allowing the public to see different types of farming and to also learn about where our food comes from. The tours were always a great success. During those tours we had many requests from teachers interested in bringing their students to the farm. So we began giving the children hayrides to our pumpkin patch to pick out their own pumpkins. It was overwhelming and fun!
At that time we started discussing the possibility of a weekend fall festival with hayrides, old fashion games, and contests like pumpkin pie eating. Also we talked about having early American crafts including: furniture making, broom making, weaving, blacksmiths and much more. We were very fortunate to find excellent people still involved with those lost arts.
That first year we had 13 crafters and one food booth. The next year we invited our community churches, schools and civic organizations to participate in the festival to raise money for their groups. We have many organizations that are involved with the festival and have been for several years including our area boy scouts. The boy scouts camp at the farm that weekend; they help with parking and keeping the grounds clean. They do an excellent job and we could not manage without them.
The festival has grown considerably over the years and we are very proud of the high quality of crafters (over 150) that participate each year. The festival requires a lot of planning and physical labor to bring it all together.
We are blessed to have so many wonderful friends and neighbors who have supported and worked with us all these years (and seem to have a good time doing it). We feel we have achieved a great family fun filled weekend every October that makes people want to come back again; especially when we hear from adults that came to the farm as children and now bringing their own children to enjoy the festival.
