For some people, like Ken Burkhart, retirement is not an option.
Burkhart, 83, has been a truck driver, owned a wholesale produce company, served as an advisor for a wholesale tomato packing company, built a successful landscaping/handyman/lawn services business and managed large Florida properties. Today, you’ll find him picking berries or making jam in his home kitchen, greeting customers in his shop, or if it’s early enough, placing signs along Route 10/202 alerting passers-by to his homemade jams, local and tupelo honeys and pure Vermont maple syrup.
“I don’t take retirement well unless I have something to do,” says Burkhart, who in 2013 returned to the Granby home in which he grew up after spending several decades in Florida. At first, he grew garlic and sold it from tables in his driveway, but after four years, nematodes attacked his crop, destroying it. Disappointed but determined, Burkhart hatched a new plan after acquiring a few raspberry runners from a friend.
“I came home and built a little bed for them,” says Burkhart, whose parents planted blueberry bushes on the property back in the 1960s. Today, the large blueberry patch yields many pounds of berries each summer as does the raspberry patch, which has spread to include hundreds of plants.
“So now I’m picking all these berries, but what do I do with them all? So, I asked my former mother-in-law for her jam recipe and started a new business,” says Burkhart, now a die-hard jam maker who has expanded from berries to Granville peaches, nectarines and plums. “But why stop there?” he asks. “What about blackberry, strawberry, strawberry-pineapple, mango, pineapple mango? I use a basic recipe, and the possibilities are endless.”
Where, one may ask, did this entrepreneurial spirit come from?
When he was a youngster, Burkhart’s family lived in veterans’ housing in East Hartford, and money was tight. At age eight, he dreamed of entering the Soap Box Derby but did not have the $25 needed to purchase the derby’s official wheels, axle and steering mechanism. Undaunted, he approached Roger Sherman, a local construction company owner. “He said yes, and for sponsoring me, he got his name on the car that my dad Carl helped me build,” Burkhart says. “The week before the race, all the boys’ race cars were put on parade throughout East Hartford, and Roger Sherman put me on a 40-foot trailer. I had the biggest float in the whole place! After the parade, he paid for all the boys and their families to have ice cream. A week later, I came in third against about 60 boys. I think that experience set the stage for who I am today.”
At about the same time, Burkhart’s father bought a piece of land in North Granby where he intended to grow potatoes to sell out of the trunk of his car in Hartford. “Every weekend my brother and I would help our dad in the potato field, from spring to fall, weeding, hoeing, hauling water from a stream. It was hard work, but dad meant to improve things for our family.”
But when potatoes did not bring in the money that Burkhart’s father expected, he turned to making cement blocks in a rented garage on North Granby Road. “The business was good, so Dad decided to buy this property, several acres on 10/202, build a house, and have a business close to the Massachusetts line. We cleared this land with axes. Dad worked 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Hartford. After school we’d drive to Granby to clear the land, and on weekends, Dad made cement blocks. A lot of houses around here have my father’s concrete blocks in their foundations.”
Carl Burkhart and his sons built the home where Burkhart still lives. “We moved to Granby in 1952 when I was 12 and lived in the basement until the house was finished,” Burkhart says. This house is built like a rock. It’s here to stay.”
So is Carl’s son Ken, who sells his jams, honeys and maple syrups at Florida flea markets during the winter, but returns to Granby each spring to pick berries, make jam and sell his products through November.
In addition to local honeys from hives in East Hartland and Granville, Burkhart offers the acclaimed and highly sought tupelo honey as well as avocado blossom honey.
Tupelo honey is only produced in the U.S. in the Okefenokee Swamp and the Apalachicola River Basin, where tupelo trees grow. Burkhart buys his in Florida. “It’s creamy, has a peachy, buttery taste and a five-year shelf life,” Burkhart says. “It’s among the top three honeys in the world, and it’s hard to get. I have to beg to buy it, pay cash, and there’s no receipt. The tupelo tree grows in swamps owned by the federal government, and several big companies have expensive, heavy equipment placed in the swamp to harvest the honey. They do not part with it easily.”
Avocado blossom honey, which is dark, rich and buttery with notes of molasses, is sought by people who suffer from allergies or who are sensitive to other kinds of sweeteners. “They come, and I teach them to use avocado blossom honey as a medicine,” Burkhart says. “It relieves their symptoms, and they always come back to buy more.”
When he’s not busy making jams, Burkhart creates hand-rolled beeswax candles on his kitchen table. “They’re a luxury item, and you have to learn how to burn them properly,” he says. “When you burn a beeswax candle, you get the scent of warm honey. I teach everyone who buys something from me how to use it to get the most value for their money.”
At 83, does Burkhart plan to slow down anytime soon?
“I plan to do this as long as I can,” he says with a wink and a smile. “Come get free samples, and try my products. I spread the sweetness!”
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