Lynd Fruit Farm in Pataskala in Licking County announced Friday that it had purchased a 74-acre property in Utica. However, the purchase is not meant to expand the farm's apple orchards or pumpkin patches.
Instead, the $1.8 million purchase is set to be restored into a native plant meadow and wetland.
Alex Patton, vice president and U-Pick manager, said he had probably driven by the property hundreds of times. One time, after some heavy rainfall, Patton said he noticed standing water and had the thought that it could be a good site for a wetland.
“About two months later, there were signs all over the place that it was up for auction. So I tried figuring out a way that me and my wife could get in and that just wasn't going to happen,” Patton said. “I was able to talk the co-owners of the fruit farm into going and bidding on it.”
The co-owners of the farm weren’t difficult to convince. Patton said they share his love of nature and truly believe in the project.
Patton said his interest in nature and wildlife comes from his grandfather.
“After I graduated high school, my Grandpa Lynd started teaching me about birds and plants and butterflies and all that stuff, and I've been at it ever since. So it's been, I guess, 15 years of looking at wildlife,” Patton said. “Me and my wife actually, the day after the auction, we boarded a plane and went to Columbia for 10 days to look at birds.”
However, Patton and Lynd Fruit Farm’s passion for nature and conservation was only part of the motivation for the purchase. It was also to prevent data centers from moving in.
“I just would hate to see it turned into a data center or anything like that,” he said.
Patton said he doesn’t know if any data center developers bid on the property at the auction. He said while there was a physical space for the auction, bidding took place online and most of the bidders were not there in person.
Currently, the property is mostly farmland. Patton said the restoration to a native plant meadow will take years, in part due to the property’s size.
“To get that much seed to cover that big of an area is going to take multiple years of collecting. This year we're going to start off with restoring 10 acres in the back and then every year restore a bigger and bigger chunk of it until it's finished,” Patton said. “I've currently got a list of 170 plant species that we're actively collecting to seed down as much as we can.”
Patton said the farm also plans to create walking paths and use a small part of the property for a greenhouse for its native plant nursery, Monarch Meadows.
“We will probably have a little sales greenhouse there so that we can have the site open to the public where people can walk the trails and see all the wildflowers in bloom, and then they come back and they have a chance to bring some of those plants home with them to help restore other areas,” Patton said.
Patton also hopes the property can host educational programs and salamander tours in the future.
