What: Tomato Festival (sponsored by Darnell Farms, Cochran Farms, and Shelton Farms), with help from the Swain County Tourist Development Authority
Where: Governors Island on U.S. 19 just east of Bryson City. Call 828.488.2376 for more info
When: Sunday, Sept. 2
How Much: Tix available at the farm (488.2376) are $10 for adults, $5 for children, and include admission to the Corn Maze.

Darnell Farms Tomato Festival Performance Schedule:
11 a.m. - Karen Barnes (blues)
Noon - The Darnells with Clint Hurley, guitar, and Lois Hornbostel, mountain dulcimer
1 p.m. - Tsali Senior Singers (gospel music from Cherokee elders)
2 p.m. - Cody Shuler and Friends (mandolin virtuoso/bluegrass)
3 p.m. - Wendy Star (Bryson City country singer/songwriter)
4 p.m. - The Tuck Family (old-time, bluegrass)
5 p.m. - The Wohlmans (The kids are back and grown up, playing superb bluegrass, gospel and classical music)
6 p.m. - The Magill Family (Celtic music featuring 14-year-old fiddle champ Andrew Magill)
7 p.m. - Doug Rorrer & the Town Creek Pickers (Champion flatpicker and his band from Reidsville play lively old-time music)
8 p.m. - Sheila Adams (nationally acclaimed mountain storyteller, humorist, clawhammer banjoist, balladeer)
9 p.m. - Ian Moore & the Ribtips (fasten your seatbelts and buckle up your dancing shoes!)
10 p.m. - The Sons of Ralph (world-class bluegrass/eclectic)



It’s tough for a proud parent to let go. Those elongated days of attentiveness, delicate handling, feeding and nurturing seem like wisps in the wind when a child departs from home. Jeff Darnell must cut this umbilical cord on a daily basis, sending his prodigies all the way to New York City. However, unlike most hopefuls in New York, Jeff’s kids start at the top. Five-star palate massagers like the Waldorf Astoria demand these Swain County natives, and Jeff (who’s never even been in the vicinity of the Big Apple) sends them with a grin.

So, why would a loving parent send their little ones to a place that eats the weak for brunch? Easy. Jeff attends to their needs every day. He gives them plenty of food and water, with lots of space for his kids to branch out. There’s fervent checks for any sign of sickness since youngsters can catch diseases quite readily and most importantly, their home environment is restricted to a vine. That ensures a bouncy, healthy, juicy, red ... tomato.

Jeff’s tykes are in high demand, their rambunctious nature desired by millions of metropolites. His middleman ensures that these crimson tots will find a new home in the digestive district.

“We usually sell to distributors, primarily Lucky Tomato out of Brooklyn,” said Darnell from his homebase in Bryson City. “We supply them fully in the summer. Most of the top restaurants in NYC carry Lucky Real Tomatoes of Brooklyn (like the Palm Restaurant and the Waldorf).

“These places feature Lucky tomatoes and everybody knows they come from the mountains,” Darnell said.

Darnell is so proud of his “extended family” that he and other local growers (Cochran Farms and Shelton Farms) are putting on the first annual Tomato Festival on breath-pilfering Governor’s Island in Bryson City. The event will celebrate both mountain agriculture and music in the mountains.

“This is the first tomato festival and the only celebration of tomatoes in WNC. I’m not positive, but it may be the only one anywhere,” said Darnell

Jeff, who owns the independently-run Darnell Farms (as well as being a musician and humorist), sees this festival as a way to pay homage to the small farms that self-sustain despite the impeding presence of corporate interests and development.

It’s also fitting that Darnell Farms is paying tribute to two men who Frankensteined the mild-mannered tomato into a Darwin wet dream.

“The reason these tomatoes are so good is places like [N.C. State University and the North Carolina Tomato Grower’s Association] spent valuable resources back in the 70s researching the development of agriculture,” said Darnell. “They hired some great people like a plant breeder (and Cornell graduate) named Randy Gardner.”

While at the Mountain Horticultural Research Center in Fletcher, Randy started developing tomato varieties that could acclimate themselves ideally to the mountain’s warm days and cool nights. Gardner was so successful with his endeavor that he created whole new breeds to arouse the taste buds.

“Randy developed a lot of the mountain varieties that people have come to know — like the Mountain Pride, which has became world recognized as a premium tomato,” said Darnell.

If Gardner was the creator, then Paul Shoemaker was the healer.

“Paul will be retiring this year, and we want to celebrate him at the festival,” Darnell affirmed. “Paul (who also got his degree from Cornell and worked alongside Randy) is another one we hired in the 70s under the Fletcher Research center. He was a plant pathologist and spent many a long day trying to help farmers fight plant diseases like the Late Blight, the same disease that destroyed the Irish potato across Ireland.”

Darnell also understands that tomatoes could be the red saviors of a green world. The celebration of the fruit in the middle of the Smokies should educate many on the importance of preservation and sustainability.

“Tomatoes are an important industry for the mountains because what farmland we have we can make it productive and arable,” explained Darnell. “We can do this in harmony and allow ourselves to have products we can grow and keep this land in agriculture and keep it from being overdeveloped. Any great area in this land (like Napa Valley) that’s not overdeveloped is usually tied to agriculture.”

It’s also another reason to support your local farms and not some monolith that puts taste at the bottom of the food hierarchy.

“Of course we’re small compared to the thousand-acre farms, but they mainly grow for green tomatoes that you eat at a lot of restaurants,” continued Darnell. “Corporate farms pick them dead green. They’re picked green so they’ll last a long time and not rot. But [with a laugh] they won’t digest either.”

Jeff hopes people will come to this event and gain a better understanding of how a small farm works. The interested can gain valuable insight on landscaping as well as how to become a model parent to a young tomato. There will also be classes (i.e. demonstrations of tomato cuisine by chefs) for the “cultural endowment” of your crimson fruit.

Of course, not everybody will want to immerse fully into all things tomato. For the tomtatoed out, there are crafts, food and horse-drawn wagon rides all day long. Of course, those in dire need of a gray matter workout should head to the “fiber labyrinth.” The Darnells have put up a Corn Maze (minus the inconvenience of a Minotaur or Jack Nicholson) for those who like their brain twisters with a food theme. Viewed from the mountaintop, the 8-acre designed cornfield is in the shape of the Darnell Farms logo — a fiddler and a small girl with basket of fruit.

Besides his ripe protagonists, Jeff communes on a daily basis with string and voice. He understands the relevance of agriculture, but he also realizes the compelling majesty of heritage music. Festival-goers will have exposure to 12 hours of continuous and ever-morphing music.

“Picking in the Smokies is a celebration of picking vegetables, picking tomatoes, and then picking a banjo or a guitar on the front porch,” said Darnell. “I loved music all my life and my family (along with a lot of other mountain families) always been into music. (The festival will have) a little bit of old time, little bit of bluegrass, a touch Celtic, classical, and blues. If you don’t like something you hear, just hold it out. If you leave, you might miss something good.”

Daytime performances will be at the tree-canopied River Stage, and evening acts will take place at the large Main Stage. The headliner will be The Sons of Ralph — a band of bluegrass deviants (Daddy Ralph used to perform with Bill Monroe) who were voted best local band by the Mountain Xpress for 2001. Also check out nationally acclaimed storyteller/ballad singer Sheila Kay Adams and Celtic music from the Magill Family (featuring 14-year-old fiddle phenomenon Andrew Magill).

Early attendees (12 p.m. sharp) will even get to see Mr. Darnell do some stage time. The Darnell Family, with special guests Clint Hurley and Lois Hornbostel, will help Jeff with some “devilish pluckings”.

“Yeah, I’ll be playing a little bit,” Jeff confirmed. “My mother was a classical musician, but I rebelled and picked up the banjo.”

Jeff also rebelled when someone told him to leave the farming to the big boys.

“My whole life (to some extent) has been fighting over development since I was a kid. A long time ago I was told I couldn’t make a living farming in these mountains, and I spent my whole life trying to prove them wrong.”

What better way to say “nyah, nyah”, then having a festival celebrating the Davids among the mass produced sensibilities of corporate Goliaths. Tourists have recently become fascinated with local mountain agriculture and it helps that WNC has one of the biggest playgrounds in the world.

“One of the big keys here is tourism, and agriculture can go right along with it because we have the most visited national park in the world right next to us,” said Darnell. “People can come through here and stop on the side of the road to buy these high-return, high-valued crops.”

Jeff also sees the festival as a huge wake up call to anyone who would rather see concrete lots tham ones of the green variety.

“We live in the best place in the world, and we want to preserve this thing, and still make a living here. We don’t want to export our great children. I’ve got kids, nieces and nephews. They’re smart and we need to find something for them to produce without selling grandma’s home place.”

In the meantime, Darnell will continue to send his “children of the soil” to that little island of gluttony. He’s quite proud of his little travelers, but has no plans of his own to travel upstate.

“I’m afraid if we go up there with our tomatoes,” Darnell said, chuckling, “they’ll take one look at us and not want anymore.”

 

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The Smoky Mountain News