Crowds stood in heavy rain to get their choice of saplings. (Photo by Jeremy D. Wells, Carter County Times)
By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
The Carter County Soil Conservation District held their annual tree giveaway last week, handing out nearly 1,200 trees to almost 120 families and individuals. The Friday morning giveaway included fruit trees like persimmon, wild plum, and pawpaw, as well as mast crops like chestnut oak, white oak, and red oak. It also included native decorative trees like the Kentucky coffee tree and flowering dogwood. Each participant was limited to ten saplings, with two per bag, meaning they could choose up to five varieties.
The trees were distributed on a first come, first served basis, however, and folks began showing up more than an hour before the 10 am giveaway’s scheduled start time for their chance to get first choice.
For some, like Robert Craft, that meant fruit trees. Craft, who found out about the event through social media, said he was looking mainly for persimmons.
“I’ve got pawpaws out the yin-yang,” he said, noting that he sells around 50 pounds of the native fruit every fall.
But he’d like to establish some persimmons on his farm as well. He said the fact that these were native varieties was important to him too.
“I’d much rather have something that’s supposed to be in this area, versus something that’s been brought in or been cultivated,” he said, adding that he’s been battling non-native invasive plants like honeysuckle on his property.
Craft’s cousin, Larisa Biggs Tackett, said she was hoping to get some persimmon as well, but she wasn’t as particular.
“Oak if I have to,” she teased. “I’m pretty far back in this line.”
She said she just liked trees, and wanted to do her part to help “clean up the air.”
Kate and Jeff Hopewell said they were hoping to get fruit trees as well.
“Plums and persimmon,” Kate said.
“The persimmon, the wild plums, the coffee trees, and stuff like that,” Jeff added. “I already live on an established farm, so we have the oaks and stuff like that.”
He said he was looking for the fruit trees to “fill in” areas on the property where they didn’t have hardwood, and that he hoped they would limit the popular varieties, such as “the persimmons and the pawpaws and stuff like that to two per person.”
Unfortunately for the Hopewells, most of the fruit trees were gone by the time they reached the front of the line, but they left with some Kentucky coffee tree, and Jeff said they were able to offer suggestions to Conservation District board member Tracy Prichard about making the distribution of those popular varieties more fair in the future.
Those looking for nut trees were in luck though.
Lisa Swint went away with chestnut oak, because she didn’t have many on her land and said she wanted to contribute to propagating the species.
Meanwhile Raymond McGuire said he was getting oak “strictly for the deer.”
He said the acorns are a good food source for the deer and other wildlife, “and besides, they make good lumber.”
FFA volunteer Eric Barker, with the West Carter FFA, said that he and his fellow volunteers, West Carter’s Kelsey Wilson and Shelby Williams, and East Carter FFA’s Kendall Brammell, were helping, “because we’re FFA. Basically, that’s what we do. We run around the community, and do stuff like this.”
Andrew Buckwalter, who works as a forester with the National Wild Turkey Federation through the conservation office, said he’s “normally in the woods,” for his work, but added, “if I can do outreach programs like this, to help give landowners trees and maybe repopulate their years… it’s just a good thing to do.”
He said the fact that the trees also help feed wildlife, like turkeys, is also a plus.
“This is a big wildlife outreach,” he said. “Part of it too is that we’ve got a lot of nut producing plants here. We’ve got lots of fruit producing plants. So, it’s just nice to see the community wants to get involved in all that stuff too.”
He said he was also surprised by the response, with the line stretching all the way down the sidewalk and around the front of the Extension office.
“I didn’t anticipate such a turnout, so that was nice,” Buckwalter said. “That was really cool. I didn’t realize how popular this event was.”
Soil Conservation’s Courtney Bond said they had some oak saplings, and Kentucky coffee tree left, and they would have them available at the Soil Conservation office until they ran out or the trees were no longer viable.
“With it being the weekend, hopefully they survive,” Bond said.
She also thanked the FFA volunteers, the board members who showed up to help, and all the folks who braved the weather to claim trees.
“I appreciate everybody that helped out,” she said.
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com
