AROUND THE PARK AGAIN by Sharon Lee Tegler
These late summer days are busy as ever for Diehl’s Produce at the corner of B&A Boulevard and McKinsey Road in Severna Park with customers streaming in and out all day long. But then, the stand has been just as busy every summer since founded by Doug Diehl five decades ago.
For more than 40 years, Diehl was the face of the produce business while his partner, Elliott Anderkin, Sr. was the supply end manager. However, he always encouraged his family to be involved. Daughter Jennifer Diehl remembers helping out at the stand as a child along with her sister Abby and learning everything there was to know about produce and running a business. Later, Jennifer’s daughters Maddy and Ella grew up working at the stand as did Anderkin’s son, Elliott, Jr.
By the stand’s 40th Anniversary in 2011, the “family feel” was in full flower as the Diehls’ welcoming embrace included the many students who worked at the stand each summer to earn money for college.
Today, as Doug had hoped, his daughter Jennifer has taken over as the face of the business along with her daughter Maddy. Abby has carried on the family legacy by opening her own Diehl’s Produce of Annapolis. Diehl and Anderkin are still at the Severna Park stand daily but are usually running the back end of the business unseen by the public.
With summer employees back in school, Jennifer and Maddy are spending so much time running the stand they’ve barely had time to consider the fact that their business is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. Jennifer vividly remembers when and how her father started the business, however.
Though briefly a teacher, Doug Diehl followed his heart and left the profession in 1970 to explore other ventures. That summer, he sold snow cones from a truck in Severna Park and was so successful he turned to selling candy apples in the fall.
“In quest of really good fruit, I hooked up with an orchard in Thurmont and made a deal to purchase some remarkably delicious but mid-sized apples cheap. Then I candied them myself,” Diehl said. “But the apples were so delicious on their own that my friends started bugging me to supply them.”
Thus encouraged, he made twice weekly trips to the orchard in his van and selected seasonal varieties of apples like Stayman Winesaps or Red Delicious to sell door-to-door to individuals and businesses. He recalls walking into The Department of Motor Vehicles in Glen Burnie and selling large quantities of apples to the secretaries and administrative personnel.
By offering them at a low price, he built a great customer base that season, but it was tough going door-to-door.
The following summer, Diehl sold Eastern Shore sweet corn, tomatoes and peaches from a truck beneath a tree on Ritchie Highway. Mornings he’d pick corn, sell out by day’s end and earn a tidy profit. The next morning, he’d begin the 5-hour round-trip to the Eastern Shore and back all over again.
The fledgling business got a significant boost in 1971 when Diehl arranged with owner Cliff Dawson to set up on the parking lot behind Dawson’s Country Store along McKinsey Road.
“I set up by myself under a 100-year-old white oak that provided shade,” he said. “Cliff, who was the salt of the earth, allowed me to stay there for six years rent free and told me I could stay as long as people said good things about me.”
Obviously, people were complimentary. The stand is still at the same spot today despite a few ups and downs.
Jennifer recalled when the oak was struck by lightning. According to Doug, only a moment earlier, he had closed the stand , hopped in his truck and was waiting at the traffic light at B&A Boulevard when the strike exploded behind him.
“When we sold our produce from the truck, which was shaded by the tree, we’d had a small makeshift tent or two to protect it,” Jennifer said. “Several attempts were made to patch up and save the white oak but it was dying so they eventually cut it down in 1985. That was when my dad came up with the red and white tents because there was no longer any shade to protect the fruits and vegetables.”
Abby recalled how her father cleverly arranged the four tents in a square pattern and linked them together for maximum stability.
Interestingly, a few years later, a second white oak near the bank building behind the stand was hit by high winds during a storm a few years bringing a branch down on one of the tents that Doug happened to be working under. Knocked down and in the dark, he heard his employees yelling “Doug, Doug are you all right?” before crawling out and affirming that he was okay.
The only other substantial problem encountered by Diehl’s Produce has been the COVID pandemic. But, with their usual professionalism, the business found ways to serve customers safely. At the same time, they started a program Rounding Off customer sales slips and using the extra change to fund gift cards enabling clients of SPAN, Inc.’s food pantry to purchase produce from the stand.
Every day this summer, surrounded by fresh vegetables and fruits every color of the rainbow, Jennifer or Maddy, or both, have been on hand running the stand. Filling in where necessary, as most of the summer workers are now in school , they’re putting in some long days.
“It’s a banner year for us celebrating our 50th Anniversary, it’s absolutely exciting,” Jennifer said. “We’ve been so busy but we’ll be organizing a guest book for our customers to sign. Some of them have been customers for, literally, the whole time. A few still come in with their 30th Anniversary tote bags. We hope have some tote bags too.”
Jennifer added that she’s personally pleased that many of the customers have watched her daughters grow up working in the business.
“Maddy was here when she was eight years old and Ella, who’s here off and on while doing other things, was my cashier in the fall when she was 11,” she said. “Being here is such a family tradition. We all learned all those common sense seasonal produce things we take for granted but have to school new employees on.”
Diehl’s Produce is proud of maintaining its standards of quality all these years. Between them, Doug Diehl and Elliott Anderkin, Sr. have upheld their policy of picking up produce from farms daily and trucking it back to Severna Park….. with help from Nick Wright who is now their main driver. Transitions continue with Jennifer now helping with the ordering but Doug and Elliott continue managing the supply end and deal with the farmers.
Diehl’s Produce opens each year in April and remains open through Halloween in October; then closes briefly and reopens on Black Friday to sell Christmas trees. They daily bring in corn from the Eastern Shore through July or from Carroll County after August 1. Vegetables come from both the Eastern Shore and Carroll County. Their much sought after peaches, apples and orchard fruits come from Adams County, Pennsylvania.
Orchard fruits are at their peak……. 
as are tomatoes and late season vegetables.
Moving on into autumn Diehl’s Produce will have their normal selection of pumpkins to choose from.
Meantime, just miles away, Abby’s Diehl’s Produce of Annapolis is in full swing at 921 Chesapeake Avenue in the Eastport Shopping Center.
Independent by nature, Abby opened Diehl’s Produce of Annapolis in 2012, first on Chinquapin Round Road and then in Eastport. Wanting to carry on the family brand, she retained the Diehl name. She is quick to point out that she owes much of her success to her father.
“My father is the smartest man I know and he taught me everything I know,” she said. “Everything I do in my business is based on what I learned from him. I even copied his four-tent-square design, tying my stands together for stability like he did.”
Doug is supportive of his daughter.
“Abby wanted to stand on her own two feet and that was fine. I admire her independence, ambition and confidence,” he said.
The residents of Eastport most definitely enjoy having Abby’s stand in the community with its fresh-from-the-field fruits and vegetables. At the end of every summer, customers are overheard saying how much they will miss the business during the winter months.
Having heard positive feedback for years from her customers, Abby is looking into buying an indoor/outdoor property from which she can also sell other products – particularly the homemade yogurts and fresh fruit smoothies she favors. She thinks both products would be good sellers.
Depending on the season, both produce stands post on Facebook what’s fresh. You can follow Diehl’s Produce in Severna Park at Diehl’s Produce | Facebook or Diehl’s Produce of Annapolis at Diehl’s Produce of Annapolis | Facebook.
Two concerts remain in the 2021 Summer Concert Series at Hatton Regester Green
Diane Evans, Vice President of the Friends of Anne Arundel County Trails shared the news that there are two more concerts to be held in the lovely pavilion at Severna Park’s Hatton Regester Green off Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard.
The first is to be held this coming Sunday, September 19th, features a group called Guava Jelly. Guava Jelly is a Carrbean-infused acoustic duo/trio that plays a great mix of reggae, pop, rock and country music. The concert begins at 4 pm and lasts for two hours. Feel free to bring a blanket or chairs though there are a limited number of benches.
The final concert of the season, to be held September 26, features Bowers and Stramella, an acoustic duo that plays guitar, bass, lap steel guitar ukulele and harmonica. The play a blend of classics, folk, county and soft rock from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Their concert also begins at 4 pm and lasts for two hours.
For more information, contact David Greene at 443-994-8074.
