A Walk down memory lane

Special thanks to longtime customer Dwayne Fairbank who brought us this wonderful piece of Pete’s story.

“It’s A Good Year For Peppers, A Bad Year For Tomatoes” by Sally Anderson

Area gardeners and the traditional farm market producers are finding this year’s tomato crop to be living up to less than expected. Many have been admiring their good looking green tomatoes that are growing nicely but are refusing to turn red.

Veteran vegetable grower, Pete Janiszyn, owner of Pete’s Stand between Walpole and North Walpole in the “Cold River area” says, “It’s a bad year for tomatoes, and a good year for peppers”. According to Pete, the early hot humid spell coupled with the now early cool nights have created problems for the tomato plants.

But- the pepper plants have really been producing. “We had one plant that had 19 big peppers ready for picking all at once. These weren’t counting any little tiny peppers, they were all big, and the plant was only this tall,” Pete said, indicating a height of about 1- 1 ½ feet tall.

Pete and his brother, Jake, started a roadside stand 35 years ago in Westminster. Before that they were raised gardening- developing the primary “green thumb,” in South Deerfield, Mass. When his brother, Jake, retired, they sold the stand in Westminster and Pete opened his own stand in front of his house in Walpole, across from the Homestead, then down the road a little further, then last year down the road a little further to its present location. 

In the intervening years, Pete Janiszyn served his country in the army for 11 years, studied agriculture for two years, and worked for Hubbard Farms for 10 years. During the latter, he worked nights and weekends to produce vegetables for area residents, with seeming unending energy.

His army years were from 1934-1945. As his sister noted, “We could write a book about where you’ve been and what you’ve done!” Pete’s armed forces duty began with an assignment to Panama during peacetime in 1934. He then served in Ft. Amadore in Balboa, and Fort Toten in Bayside, N.Y.

He was there when World War II was declared. At that junction of time in Pete’s service, he was two weeks from his second discharge- he had no alternative but to fight for his country. He was one of those men included in the “first load to go over to Europe.”

Seeing the world through the armed services for Pete meant participating in various theatres of war, 42 months of E.T.O. (European Theatres of Operation) that took him to Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. He participated in four invasions and survived, bringing home five Battle Stars, and a yearning to go back to vegetable farming.

After returning to the United States, he realized that there probably had been plenty of new agricultural developments that had taken place in his “lost 11 years.” He wanted to make up for those lost years, so under the G.I. Bill he attended agricultural courses in Bellows Falls, and learned all of the new developmentsso that he could go back into farming.

He and Jake, his brother, both well-known figures in the area farm stand market world, began their stand in 1946. Carrying on the family tradition, Pete is still delivering produce now from 15 to 20-acre parcels of land. His operation is geared to the local and transient buyers of his produce- the vacationers taking back fresh new Hampshire produce to their homes in the various city areas or to their vacation cottages, and the local homemakers who don’t have time or space enough to have their own gardens but still want to can and freeze produce.

When we first came up here, we fell into the latter category. Pete’s Stand was “on the way home,” so when we could spend time and effort, we picked up a few bushels of one thing or another. After the kids and I had shucked several bushels of corn and canned numerous quarts of tomatoes from Pete’s Stand I had this awful thought: “this produce is too perfect for him not to be using all kinds of chemical fertilizers.” “Oh no!”

The next trip down, I asked Pete (very apologetically) if he perhaps did use chemical fertilizers. At this point in his life, he was working for Hubbard Farms all day, tending the stand and the gardens until after dark, and was probably exhausted. He really need a question like that like “a hole in the head.” This was in a period of “chemical awareness,”- “you are what you eat,” and all that. 

His sparkling blue eyes looked at me aghast. And he said calmly, “Come with me, I want to show you something.” So over the hill we went. Pausing at the crest, he waved his arm to the east and said, “Do you see that? That is the finest chicken manure you’ll ever see, and it’s been  aging for two years.” (Boy, was I relieved.)

“That is what grows those vegetables, healthy soil doesn’t need any kinds of chemicals. Nature takes care of it,” he added.

Pete’s son, Michael, is a partner in the business now, and they have two “crackerjack clerks” that are taking care of the stand, so I was lucky to catch up with Pete at all. After asking for him for about the fifth time, he pulled up to the stand, and so I asked if he had a couple of minutes to post for a picture and relate his life history. I knew from one of his “crackerjacks” that he had a big order of 8-10 bushels of carrots to pull, but he whirled around and grabbed a squash and a tomato and said “shoot,” “keep talking….” then, “you must have enough to write a book; I’ve got work to do!” all said with a good-natured grin.

Unfortunately, the only “war stories” he related, “were not for print,” but I did get his feel for the soil. He said that after the land has been run down, it takes about two years to bring it back up. The chicken manure puts back about 40 percent of the nitrogen required the first year, but there are residual percentages that take effect afterwards. He plants rye in the fall on his garden lands, then plows it under in the spring to further the nitrogen content of the soil. Meanwhile the residual content of the chicken manure fertilizer builds up with successive spreadings.

Last year I was still picking tomatoes at the end of September but this year Pete doesn’t foresee that happening. He also said the corn is good this year; now is the time to freeze or can it. By the way, he verified what we’ve all suspected, “This is the worst year for bugs I’ve ever seen!” he exclaimed.

Image as donated by Dwayne Fairbanks and originally published in The Shopper, September 9th, 1981. I took the liberty of typing the article up for ease of reading.