Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field. –Dwight D. Eisenhower

Although drought has wreaked havoc in the Midwest with growers trying as best as they can to salvage produce for their customers, here’s a real incentive to pack the kids in the car and come to the Fort as soon as possible: Hardy’s Farm Market’s wonderful corn!

This popular venue is the largest privately-owned farm stand in Allen County and is operated by the fifth-generation of Hardys who own farms in both Allen and Huntington counties – and their biggest seller each year is their corn. Not just any corn, but the absolutely delicious bi-colored Obsession, a supersweet variety that is, “very sweet and tender,” according to Lori Hardy, owner of the southwest farm stand now in its 23rd year of business.

Longtime Hardy’s Farm Market visitors are understandably addicted to these elegant kernels – folks on their lunch hour, after work and on weekends get into hair-pulling fights and mob stampedes when the freshly-picked corn is brought up from the fields. (Well, ok, maybe they don’t go quite that far, but you’ve been warned – add Hardy’s to your speed-dial: 260 747 4644; 4525 Knoll Road, Fort Wayne, IN 46809)

The farm market also has WIC and SNAP designations, said Hardy. Hardy’s Farm Market, which also runs a booth all season at the Barr Street Market, sells a variety of produce, including outstanding tomatoes (their corn’s biggest rival!), potatoes, honey, gladiolas, sunflowers, peaches, melons, fruit butters and a plethora of other farm-fresh goodies, and super-friendly service, to boot. All Lori and Terry Hardy’s four kids have been lifelong involved in farming and three of them have their agriculture degrees; the fourth will do likewise after high school graduation, so there’s a real family, hands-on effort here. So, if a major part of the season is treating your taste buds to awesome summer produce from fresh field to delicious fork, make a beeline to Hardy’s Farm Market . . . before their wonderful corn is all gone.