Martinek, a 2007 Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School graduate who grew up in Centerville, studied international relations at Tulane University in New Orleans. He lived in South Korea for just more than two years, teaching English to children, before returning to the Dayton region in 2014 to work at his family’s grain operation.
“We had about 500 acres in corn, beans and hay,” Martinek said. “We did that for a couple years with my old man.”
Credit: Natalie Jones
Credit: Natalie Jones
Martinek didn’t farm as a kid, but his father grew up on a farm in Indiana and always wanted to get back into it. When he could, Martinek took a liking to that lifestyle as well.
Instead of expanding the farm, Martinek said he and his wife asked themselves, “What can we do out here that we can support a family on small acreage?”
They experimented with gooseberries, black currants, red currants, catnip and spicebush before settling on cider apples.
“The apple trees is just what really stuck, because the doing of the thing brings us great pleasure,” Martinek said.
He recalled going to the cider mills in town as a kid and getting gallon jugs of cider.
“You would bring them home and after two weeks in the fridge, they would start to taste fizzy,” Martinek said. “I kind of fell in love with that.”
As he got older, he and his wife would get local cider in the fall and ferment it in their kitchen — leading them to growing their own trees under Swigart Farms.
Credit: Natalie Jones
Credit: Natalie Jones
Creating life from sticks
Two of the six trees Martinek planted in 2015 remain. He calls these the “mother trees” and uses them to start the growth of additional trees.
“You’re just creating life from sticks,” Martinek said.
To make a new tree, Martinek splices together rootstock and scion wood. The rootstock determines the vigor of the tree, disease resistance and how big it will grow. The scion wood determines the variety of the apple.
“The root stock will set roots and the scion wood will create your wood,” Martinek said.
Year 2 through 5 are all about growing and pruning the tree into the desired shape. This is followed by the first harvest in year 6.
“Your harvest is going to peak around year 10 because the tree is still growing,” Martinek said.
He knew the farm on South Alpha-Bellbrook Road had potential of being successful because there was aerial footage showing orchards throughout the township back in the 1940s and ’50s.
“Back in the day, after World War II, they started taking aerial-footed photographs of the entire state,” Martinek said. “Every 10 years, they would fly a reconnaissance plane over and they would take photographs, and you can go look at that old aerial footage.”
Making cider
To make cider, Martinek picks the apples, washes them, smashes them into a pulp and presses them to extract the juice.
Martinek currently uses a homemade press that he built in his shed, but a new one is on the way.
The juice goes into a “settling tank” where any bacteria is killed and then moves to a “fermentation tank” where yeast is added.
The fermentation process takes two to three months, followed by an aging process that takes another two to six months.
“A mentor of mine used to say, he doesn’t make cider. The cider makes itself and your job is to just clean everything constantly and that’s pretty much how it is,” Martinek said.
The couple is in the midst of an experimental phase to figure out what yeast works best with each variety. Some varieties are meant to be blended, he said.
“We’re in year 6 now and it’s still trying to find that combination of varieties and yeasts, and temperature and nutrient levels, that produce something that we can put our name on and be proud of,” Martinek said.
Martinek believes in minimum intervention — where the fewer times it’s touched, the better off it’s going to be.
“You should be able to taste the earth that it came out of,” Martinek said. “That’s what we’re going for.”
What’s on the farm?
Swigart Farms is comprised of nearly 10 acres of land with about 200 trees on 2 acres and 1,500 trees inside a nursery on an additional acre in Sugarcreek Twp.
The nursery trees will be planted on 6 acres of land in Spring Valley this March and should be ready to harvest in three years.
The 200 trees on the property were planted in 2019. Their first harvest is expected this year.
Martinek is expecting one to two bushels of apples per mature tree, resulting in a couple hundred gallons of cider.
The long-term vision
“If I can sell two or three dozen cases, trial has proven, and then we can expand from there,” Martinek said.
He has submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. If approved, he will then need to get state approval and a zoning permit from the township.
Martinek hopes to have licensing and zoning done in September, so he can begin selling cider to restaurants and shops throughout the Dayton region under Lammes Creek Cider.
If successful, the next step would be to open a commercial ciderworks with a tasting room in late spring 2027.
“I think fine cider is sort of the natural drink for discriminating booze lovers in Ohio,” Martinek said. “I think Ohioans are natural cider people and it’s just an aspect of us that we haven’t really explored very much.”
The region has a lot of great orchardists along the Little Miami River, Martinek said. He thinks there is a great opportunity to create a culture around it.
“I think really good, high-end expensive ciders is part of our soul, and I hope that people get a chance to enjoy it and that they like it,” Martinek said.
MORE DETAILS
Additional details on the public pour are to be announced.
Martinek plans to pour a 2023 Harrison vintage, which was awarded a silver medal in the 2024 Great Lakes International, in addition to a sparkling and still Gold Rush vintage.
For more information, visit swigartfarms.com or the farm’s Instagram page (@swigartfarms).
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Credit: Knack Video + Photo
Credit: Knack Video + Photo
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