Open your ears, Douglas County’s popular sweet corn stand to close after 35 years in business

From left to right, Aidan Manning, Wyatt Sutton and Evan Sutton clean fresh sweet corn at Bismarck Gardens.

As any farm kid can tell you, a corn field can be great fun — as long as you aren’t in it picking corn.

The fun is about done in one of Douglas County’s most visited corn fields. After 35 years in business, the owners of Bismarck Gardens have announced this season will be their last of selling sweet corn to the hungry public.

The folks at Bismarck — located just outside of North Lawrence at 1616 N. 1700 Road — have an automated corn picker, but the business still requires a ton of hands-on attention.

“We are out here close to 80 hours a week during the season,” said Lowell Neitzel, one of the family members who runs the business, which has been part of the Nunemaker and Ross families for decades.

From left to right, Aidan Manning, Wyatt Sutton and Evan Sutton clean fresh sweet corn at Bismarck Gardens.

At any given time there are six to eight people standing around a couple of wagons full of sweet corn. Every ear gets opened and inspected to make sure it is of the proper quality. Young hands, old hands and every type of hand in between have held a paring knife around those wagons opening thousands of ears of corn. The farm’s 25-acre sweet corn field can pretty easily produce 60,000 ears of corn during an average year, Debbie Nunemaker said.

“It gets tough to find good help, people who want to work hard but really only for a month out of the year,” Neitzel said, referring to the relatively short selling season for sweet corn. “It is a lot of family and friends. People you can guilt into it.”

Nunemaker said the families involved in the corn stand, which also sells some other homegrown produce, decided that it would be best to close the stand and focus more on their traditional agriculture business, which involves farming about 5,000 acres of ground in the Kaw River valley.

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“I think we kind of figured that we either needed to quit farming as much as we do and make this corn business bigger, or we needed to close it down,” Neitzel.

The traditional row crop farm business has been tough the last few years as commodity prices have been low. But Neitzel said the families remain committed to traditional farming operations, and to the many landlords who allow them to farm their properties.

“They are counting on us to do a good job for them too,” he said.

Lowell Neitzel checks on some sweet corn Thursday, June 19, 2014, at Bismarck Gardens, 1616 North 1700 Road.

Customers have been learning of the pending closure of Bismarck as they make their trips to the little tin building. Nunemaker said the customers have been sad but understanding.

Undoubtedly, many of them already have begun plotting where they will get next year’s batch of the sweet and juicy product that almost is too good to be called a vegetable. (I prefer to think of it as a butter delivery device.)

Fresh sweet corn is a near obsession in some households, and occasionally a point of contention. My city-bred wife continues to stay with me despite her revulsion at how I eat sweet corn. She cuts her kernels off the cob with a butter knife. I remove mine with teeth that would make a beaver blush.

Lots of people have corn stories — or perhaps just corny stories — and Bismarck employees have heard so many of them.

“We are going to really miss seeing the people,” Nunemaker said.

The families understand the trip to the corn stand has become about more than just food. That has made the decision to close a bit tough, Neitzel said.

“Grandma and grandpa bring the grandkids out here because the kids have been in the city their entire lives,” Neitzel said. “This gives them a chance to come to the farm and see where food comes from. There is a part of me that is sad about losing that.

“The average person is three generations removed from the farm. Food doesn’t come from the grocery store. It doesn’t come from the farmers market. There are people behind every piece of food.”

For a bit longer, you can see a bunch of them working around the wagons. Sweet corn season likely will be done by the end of July.