This Friday and Saturday, October 8th and 9th, enjoy an oldtime favorite regional harvest – buckwheat cakes at the annual Ohiopyle Buckwheat Festival. The festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Ohiopyle Stewart Volunteer Fire Department and the Ohiopyle Stewart Community Center, which are located in the middle of Ohiopyle.  There are signs on Rt 381 in Ohiopyle directing you to those locations. You can find directions to Ohiopyle State Park on the DCNR web site.

Buckwheat (Fagopyrum sagittatum Gilib) once grew on more than one million acres of farmland in the northeastern and northcentral United States. Its grain was a common livestock-feed and was in demand for making flour. Buckwheat was also one of beekeepers' greatest sources of nectar, making buckwheat honey a commonly available sweetener.

Buckwheat grows best where the climate is moist and cool. It can be grown rather far north and at high altitudes. It produces a better crop than other grains on infertile, poorly drained soils because its growing period is short (10 to 12 weeks) and its heat requirements for development are low.

Buckwheat was a commonly grown crop in the Laurel Highlands near Fallingwater, Fayette County, Pa. In an historic report on the area, the late Ruth Rugg McVay recalled how important buckwheat was to the farming families who lived near Bear Run:

“They grew buckwheat and made buckwheat flour and it made buckwheat cakes. People used to live on buckwheat cakes and pork in the wintertime.”   

Today buckwheat is a relatively minor crop, but Pennsylvania ranks as one of the nation's leading producers. Most buckwheat is milled into flour, and most of that flour is used in …pancakes!

Today's photos of a buckwheat field and a farmer in Garret County, Maryland in 1935 are from the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection.

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