By Chris Aldridge
Kentucky Ag News

Jerry Wyatt’s first roadside produce stand was a far cry from today’s tidy small farm market at the corner of U.S. 68 and Moors Camp Highway near Benton, Ky.

“My first stand was two sawhorses and a couple of planks,” Wyatt recalled.

The produce business has undergone much change in the half-century since Wyatt began selling his fresh vegetables. Wyatt Farms and Greenhouse, which changed its name to Kentucky Hydro Farm in 2008, will celebrate 50 years in business July 6. All current and past employees will be invited to a celebratory barbecue lunch at the farm.

Though the company will celebrate a half-century in business, it all started 67 years ago, the summer before Wyatt’s junior year at North Marshall High School, when he broke ground on his first vegetable crop.

“In 1957, I grew three or four acres of sweet corn as an FFA project,” said Wyatt, who remembered spraying the crop for worms using a backpack sprayer filled with linseed oil. He delivered his corn to a wholesale cooperative in nearby Princeton, Ky.

“The next year, I grew tomatoes and sold them,” he added.

After graduating from high school in the spring of 1959, there was no question what Wyatt was going to do for a living. The small sixth-generation livestock farm where he grew up dates to the first recorded deeds of the Jackson Purchase area. But Wyatt preferred growing vegetables, allowing him to stay inside during the winter.

“We had cows and pigs for a while,” Wyatt said. “I quit doing livestock because you had to get up and feed those animals during wintertime.” Winter used to be idle time for a vegetable farm, but a 1-acre hydroponic greenhouse changed that. Hydroponic produce is grown without soil using water-based nutrients. It also led to changing the name of the farm.

“The reason we went to hydroponics is we can grow inside in wintertime and the plants produce year-round,” Wyatt said.

Hydroponics allowed the farm to secure its biggest customer, Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington.

“They buy 100 cases of lettuce, and we deliver them to all five high schools,” Wyatt said proudly. The farm’s slogan is “the salad specialists.” Kentucky Hydro Farm sells produce year-round at the indoor Community Farmers’ Market in Bowling Green. During the summer, the farm also sells produce grown on its other 15-20 acres at a farmers’ market in Clarksville, Tenn., and occasionally at markets in Paducah and Murray.

Beef Steak and cherry tomatoes are Kentucky Hydro Farm’s biggest sellers. You can order hydroponic tomatoes and several varieties of lettuce year-round on the farm’s Facebook page.

Peaches and Cream corn on the cob has also grown popular with customers.

“You can’t hardly beat our sweet corn,” Wyatt said of the bi-color variety. “It’s really good.”

Wyatt, 82, has no plans of retiring right now.

“I hope to do this another four or five years,” Wyatt said. “I feel good.”

Two of Wyatt’s sons, including one who earned a horticulture degree from Murray State University, still help on the family farm. The farm also employs two H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers every summer.

“One of them has been coming here for five or six years,” Wyatt said. “He can look and see what needs to be done and do it. That’s really a benefit.”

One of Wyatt’s sons summed up the family business in a post on the farm’s Facebook page:

“A lot has changed in (67) years, but a farmer’s faith and dedication never stops – faith in a seed, faith in God, and dedication to always trying to raise the best crop no matter what.”