Category: Feature Articles

By GEORGE FREEMAN
Editor of GREENE Magazine

For the past several issues, we have guided readers to the four corners of the Ozarks to explore destinations well off the beaten path in Missouri, Arkansas, with stops in Kansas and northeast Oklahoma. Our notion was that there is much to see on a budget and a tank of gas, for the entire family or just you and your Main Squeeze.

In Springfield, which ranked third in per capita spending on lawn and garden products in a recent study, a new plant variety can be rewarding. And disappointing if you are at all familiar with cloning, plant regression, heat-induced pollination failure, killing frosts and pestilence.

By GEORGE FREEMAN
Editor of GREENE MAGAZINE

Ever wonder how the seed of an idea takes root? How one variety of plant transcends its origins to become the next big seller that growers can’t get enough of year after year? Several thousand variations on a hosta leaf and way too many shades of tea roses come to mind. And yet the quest for a black petunia, a blue rose, a better begonia or a re-blooming daylily, azalea or crapemyrtle dates back to colonial times.

Baby Sprouts Baby Food Co.

Hail to the Chefs Series

She doesn’t live on a farm, but Ginger Robinson knows how green beans should taste. When it came time to introduce solid foods to her infant daughter, Robinson concluded that jar green beans don’t have the same color, smell or taste as vegetables fresh from the farm. "So, looking at that baby food, I decided this was not going to work," recalls Robinson. That’s when she started making her own

When most people look at a large kettle gourd, they see, well, a gourd. But others see potential in the odd shape and imperfections of the fruit, and artfully transform that gourd into a birdhouse, or carve out a bowl and paint it with stunning detail and color.

Nationally recognized artists will be showing and selling their gourd art at the 14th Annual Gourd Festival on April 28 and 29 in the E-Plex Building of the Ozarks Empire Fairgrounds in Springfield, Missouri.

The festival is put on by the Show-Me Gourd Society, made up of more than 180 members statewide who share their knowledge and appreciation of gourds.

As is so often true where there is history to be appreciated, you could drive right by Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, Mo., just off Interstate 44, and miss your chance entirely. Cackle is a third generation business, and among the top "hobby" hatcheries in the country, founded in 1936.

The same with Estes Hatchery in Springfield, just north of Chestnut Expressway, founded 90 years ago in Everton, Mo. when Charles Marion Estes began raising turkeys. Estes moved its operations to Springfield when train service to Everton ceased. His son, Marvin, and his wife, Rowena, come in most days, but their daughter Judy and grandson, Sean Richardson, handle much of the heavy lifting.

Venture on to the information highway, where you can order chicks one day and you can expect delivery within a couple of days by U.S. Mail – and by long-standing federal law.

Both family businesses have a strong presence, as well as taking orders by phone.

These are friendly rivals, each one cut from the cloth of hard times when the promise of "a chicken in every pot" could win you some votes.