Ray Bawol

Ray Bawol, who many in Clinton know for his delicious homegrown vegetables and his strawberry sign on Centre Road, comes from a farming family near Utica, New York. Growing up with chores, especially morning milking before school, ingrained a strong work ethic in Ray that has remained throughout his life. After gaining his associate's degree at SUNY Morrisville, he worked for GLF, a forerunner of today's Agway. He served in Korea and used the GI bill to attend St. Lawrence University, majoring in Botany. He then attended Cornell where he received his Masters degree in entomology, with minors in plant pathology and biochemistry.

Three years into his Ph.D. studies he realized that the technology wasn't there to do the work he wanted. With a wife and three kids to support, he returned to work with Agway helping commercial fruit growers to use appropriate pest management. He was subsequently hired by the chemical manufacturer Stauffer's to develop applications for their agricultural division. In his own farming, he practices integrated pest management and advises common sense: "Don't do things automatically. Scout your crops, see if there is a problem. See what works." He is against the misuse of pesticides and strongly advises to "follow the instructions on the package."

In 1963 he bought the acreage he farms today, good land that he describes as being "stony on top with silt loam underneath." He farmed it while living in Hyde Park and then with his late wife, built a house on the property in 1980. Of his five grown children, he has two daughters living in houses on either side of him and all his kids live in the area. Ray feels that for one man growing concentrated crops, five acres is about the maximum you can contemplate. Fit and lean from his toil in the soil, these days he's growing tomatoes, summer squash, peppers, eggplants, beets, and cucumbers. He says he "goes from year to year. In winter you say you've got to cut back. Then the seed catalogues come..."

For many years the Bawol name was synonymous with "Pick Your Own" for families and cooks in the area. Starting in 1980 with strawberries and sugar snap peas, he expanded to snap beans, raspberries, gooseberries, currants, and plum tomatoes. Gourds and pumpkins he wholesaled to Adams. He enjoyed the "Pick your Own" visitors, describing them as "a happy crowd." Despite tall electric fencing, however, the ravages of deer and the increase in liability insurance caused him to regretfully curtail that business. He reminisced, "The deer chewed the strawberries plants down to the ground!"

Ray has been active in community affairs, including chairing and serving on the CAC for 6 years, and has delved into zoning in some detail. He is conscious of the balance required between property rights and zoning laws and feels that the Town of Clinton has done pretty well, especially compared with towns to the south. In his neat house and well cared for land, Ray Bawol is a contented and positive man. He takes his engagement in farming "one year at a time" but says that he does it for "health reasons, mental and physical." As his crops come in you'll know from his sign, under the big strawberry on Centre Road.

 

written by Phillippa Ewing

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