By DENISE R. FREELAND
News Leader Staff Writer
In 1934, Wendell Snode was looking for a way to finance his education at The Ohio State University, and decided he would raise and sell his favorite fruit -- muskmelons.
He was told melons would not grow in Carroll County due to the clay soil, said Sue Snode, Wendell's daughter in law; however, she said, "He was determined, because he was just foolish about eating them."
Soon, he had not only succeeded in growing melons, but was delivering them throughout Malvern, eventually raising enough money to finance a two-year agriculture degree.
In 1962, Wendell's son, Gary, married Sue Haynam, and they continued the Snode tradition of growing melons. As their family grew, children George, Beth and Mark worked alongside their parents and the operation expanded. At their busiest, Sue said, the family was growing as much as six acres of melons and selling them to stores as far away as Youngstown and Canton.
"A melon patch doesn't have to be very big to be a lot of work," Sue said. "You have to hand weed, hand plant it; there's nothing very mechanical about it."
Carroll County's growing season is actually "way too short" to grow melons, Sue noted, explaining that the process gets under way around the end of April when seeds are planted in a greenhouse. Around the end of May, black plastic is laid down in the fields and the seedlings are planted through it.
The plastic serves to warm the soil in the spring and helps to moderate moisture levels in the soil as the plants grow, Sue said, noting, "They like to be babied."
The Snodes still use tools designed by Wendell specifically for growing melons, including a digger that removes a "doughnut" of soil for planting seedlings, a planting cart, and a tractor attachment that lays down the black plastic.
As the melons grow, all types of critters enjoy eating them as much as Wendell did.
Crows like them, Sue said, deer eat the blossoms, and groundhogs, rabbits, and raccoons all feel entitled to share in the harvest. Cucumber beetles will also attack the vines, but the Snodes spray only minimally.
"We kind of let nature take its course, because we want to eat them," Sue said. "We're not certified organic, but we're very, very natural."
A different kind of pest was once getting into Wendell's melon patch, Sue said. To catch the thief, he attached bells to a string, and, at night, ran the string out his bedroom window and around the melon patch, and tied the end to his big toe. He awoke to discover a neighbor boy in the patch.
Sue remembers Wendell saying, "I just slapped him on the back and said, 'I didn't suppose you'd do that to me.'"
The Snodes harvest melons every day as they begin to ripen, sorting them by size and selling the biggest and smallest ones at their farm stand at Snodes' Restored Country Barn, 6052 Arrow Road. The middle sizes are delivered to stores in Minerva, Malvern and Carrollton.
Since 1994, the Snode family has invited the community to celebrate the melon harvest at Snodes' Melon Fest, set this year for Sunday, Sept. 5, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
The free event takes place at the restored barn and features hayrides with a hay-maze stop and visits with Edna and Austin the chickens, Miriam the donkey, Martha the goat, and Genevieve the tortoise. This year the craft show is back, in addition to tiny tots tractor rides, face painting, and a car show.
Games get under way at noon with a horseshoe tournament, wife-carrying, seed-spitting and melon-eating contests, corn hole tournament, pedal-tractor pull, tug of war, and fishing derby.
Entertainment during the day includes music by the Old Timers at 11 a.m., and performances by the Carrollton Showstoppers at 1:30 p.m., and Richard Henderson at 3 p.m.
Food is available, including soup, sandwiches, breads, drinks, homemade pie, and, of course, bowls of melon. Parking is $5.
Snodes' Restored Country Barn will also host the Eastern Primitive Rendezvous Sept. 25-26, offers a pumpkin patch in October, and is available to rent for receptions, reunions, weddings, retreats, and parties of all types.
A fourth generation of Snodes is currently helping to grow melons, as grandchildren Emily and Ben Zbasnik, and Logan, Madison and Parker Snode all work in the fields.
"They work hard, but they don't complain," Sue said of the grandchildren, noting that Mark and Beth still help with the farm, as well.
Mark, who lives with his wife, Mandy, in Gary's childhood home on Arrow Road, inherited Wendell's mechanical ingenuity, Sue said, and Beth, who lives with husband Phil Zbasnik in Minerva, is the family's "driving force."
Gary and Sue's oldest son, George, lives in southern California.
"Family is the most important asset any successful business can have," Sue said.
For more information about the melon festival or Snodes' Restored Country Barn, call toll free 1-877-733-0074.
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