Grown on the Range Profile 40: Wegner's Tree Farm, originally published in Hometown Focus

Carl Wegner in front of a Siberian pine.

I took off on a winter Saturday in search of an Iron Range Christmas tree farm in tiny Blackberry Minnesota.  My GPS took me down 169 and then on to a maze of country roads before I turned in at the sign for Wegner’s Tree Farm.  It’s way out in the woods about 10 miles from Grand Rapids.  Seventy acres of beautiful evergreens spread out from the house, barn, and storage buildings.  At 1,000 trees per acre, that’s alot of trees!  There used to be many more growers in Itasca County, around 40, but there are only 4 left, I learn from Carl Wegner, the man who started this farm in 1979.  The whole state of Minnesota has only 65 christmas tree operations with 1,241,000 trees planted according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture.

Carl is 78 now, retired in 1997 from the University of Minnesota Extension’s Forestry Service where he taught, among other things, Christmas tree growing.  At the time he hadn’t grown any, and one of his students challenged him on that.  So he and a college buddy bought some land and planted Christmas trees.  A few years later, he and his wife bought this farm and began with 5,000 Norways.  By the time they were mature enough to sell, though, folks weren’t buying Norways for Christmas trees anymore.  So Carl’s buddy came with logging equipment and took them all down.  Quite a risk for a newcomer!  These days the farm grows mostly Balsam (the most popular) along with White Pine, White Spruce, and a Frazier Fir from N. Carolina.

Carl’s son runs the day-to-day operation now, but Carl still works on the crew.  It’s a year-round job.  They plant new trees each year for 3-4 weeks starting April 20, walking the rows and planting by hand wherever there’s a tree missing.  They plant half the farm each year.  The trees being planted have been raised right here from seeds harvested from cones on the farm.  They pick cones very selectively, choosing cones from the best trees, extract the seeds, and plant them in a raised-bed nursery area in mid-October.  And there they grow in batches by year until they are about 5 years old and move to the transplant bed.  From there, the bigger ones go to the field in the spring. 

The tree nursery. New trees in various stages of growth, from youngest to oldest, left to right.

Once the trees are planted, fertilizer is applied from a tractor running between the rows.  As you can imagine, it takes several tons to feed this crop.  And the trees can grow as much as 12 inches in June!  On June 20, the shearing begins, cutting off the tips.  All shearing is done by hand with a very sharp knife.  It has an 18 inch handle and a 16 inch blade.  The trees are sheared early so that they set new buds from which the cones are picked for seed.  Shearing 70,000 trees takes time, but each tree is sheared once each year.  The quest for an “improved tree” takes many forms beyond shearing.

Carl and his crew graft different varieties onto small native Balsams.  There are some 30-foot trees here that were grafted with varieties from Maine, Vermont, and Hew Hampshire in 1990.  They still yield cones that are harvest for seed.  In 1988, Carl attended the National Christmas Tree Growers conference in Maine and stopped at a blue balsam farm on the way back and bought a pound of seed to experiment with.  There are 4 research plots here, testing different types of fir.  They’ve found that Siberian and Korean fir grow well here.  Carl is standing in front of a Siberian fir in this photo.  The Canaan fir does well, too—it’s a natural cross between a Balsam and a Frazier.  Trees are graded based on the number of buds in the top whorl, the needle length and color, and branch angle.  The goal is a fast growing tree with a blue tint—that sells best.

During the late summer, Wegner’s Tree Farm sends out price lists to customers and customers send in their orders with a downpayment.  This farm has about 25 wholesale customers, including Kunnari’s in Virginia, in addition to its choose and cut operation.  Then the trees are marked in the field for cutting.    The White Pine and White Spruce are tinted green, and in the fall, the cutting and baling begins.  The automated baler can do 100 trees an hour with two operators.  And then they’re off, by truck, to the retailers in Minnesota and North Dakota.

Baled trees, ready to ship.

I ask about weeds and pests—they don’t use herbicides here as they build up in the soil and kill trees.  They don’t spray, either, as they don’t have many insect pests.  But the deer do love to eat the sides of certain Frazier firs.  Not all of them, only certain ones…apparently deer are choosy.  We walk out to the field to see several examples.  A tree that’s been eaten near the bottom eventually will grow to 9 feet and can be cut as a 6 foot tree to avoid the damage.  Nothing is wasted at Wegner’s, it’s all salvaged.  Carl says he was taught never to waste anything.  He has a sawmill made by Woodmizer and sells pine boards and also cuts oak with a live edge.  The farm has 6 acres of red pine for lumber.

Examples of deer damage.

As I’m leaving I ask about some old cars near the barn.  Carl asks if I want to see his collection, and of course I do!  I used to date a guy who collected and restored vintage British cars and I know what a passion this can be.  Carl has a large pole building and a barn full of beautifully restored vintage Chryslers, some of which he has owned since they were new.  I notice a gray Plymouth from the late 40’s and it looks almost exactly like the gray 1949 Plymouth my parents had when I was very young.  Carl tells me the exact name of the gray color.  It brought back memories.  He loves restoring these beauties!  He and his wife go to national car club events during the summer…driving their prize vehicles around the country--or at least they hope to again this coming summer when Covid will be behind us.

Ready to hit the road when Covid subsides and summer comes again!

By the time you read this, the holidays will be winding down.  But put Wegner’s Tree Farm on your list for next year and head on out to Blackberry for the real thing!

Grown on the Range Profile 39: Lions and Tigers and Bears Grown on the Range: Smokey Hollow Farms, originally published in Hometown Focus

The BIG cats’ turn for Christmas at Smokey Hollow Farms

‘Tis the season of holidays in many faith traditions.  I love the words to the Indigo Girls Holiday Song: “It’s your holiday song, no one more true or right or wrong.  When our faith calls our name, someone else’s does the same.  Hallelujah, thank you.”  No matter your tradition, I wish you happy holidays.  My story this time is about a Christmas tradition at a very unusual Iron Range farm.  Beginning in the late 1960’s, the Christmas tree at Smokey Hollow Farms in Balkan Township had to be bolted to the floor and anchored to the ceiling.  Christmas gifts of popcorn balls, meatballs, raw chicken, spaghetti, stew meat….and some toys were wrapped and ready for the seventy or so recipients who came in to gather ‘round the tree in small groups.  First, the bears, then the wolves, and on and on through the whole day.  Some could celebrate together, but the big cats (cougars, bobcats, even a lion) who lived in the basement for the winter came upstairs and had the tree to themselves while the human family took turns guarding the smaller animals like otters and skunks and raccoons who regularly lived in the house.

Wrapping paper flew everywhere and gifts of food were immediately devoured.  The skunks and raccoons loved popcorn balls.  The bears were fond of meatballs and spaghetti.  The big cats got raw chicken and the wolves, stew meat.  Sidney John, a chimpanzee who dressed in kids clothes, ate at the table with the family using a fork and spoon, and used the bathroom just like the humans got a red fire hat one year—it was his favorite toy.  Sidney was raised like a child, with Ruth and Lyle’s two daughters calling him their baby brother.

Tammy with Sidney John, the little brother

It all started when Lyle and Ruth LaBarge got married.  Ruth had always been an animal lover so Lyle bought Ruth a black bear as a wedding present--she named him Smokey.  Over the years, they adopted many animals as infants, bottle-feeding and raising them in their home.   At the peak, they had about 78 four-leggeds according to their daughter Tammy Hofsommer.  I met Tammy about a year ago when I wrote a story about the Hofsommer farm’s grass-fed beef and pastured pork operation.  Her husband mentioned to me that she was a “LaBarge girl” and grew up in a family that raised and trained animals for movies and television.  Right here on the Range.  I had to know more!

Ruth and one of her beloved bears training

Ruth LaBarge could train any animal to do absolutely anything according to Tammy.  When Tammy’s grandmother sent in a postcard to the television show “You Asked For It,” Ruth and her animals were featured.  Then a film company representative came looking for a tame bear.  That started a long career of training “Hollywood animal actors,” as Ruth calls them, for the film industry.  Though the farm has no animals today, Ruth is still actively training bears at a new location.  Her website http://www.bearwithus.xyz/bearwithus/about-us.html provides links to the many commercials and movies (Like The Jungle Book!) featuring her bears.  She has the largest selection of working Kodiak and Black bears in North America.  Lynn Rogers used to visit their farm often.  He later opened the North American Bear Center in Ely.  Ruth helped to design the bear enclosures there.  There’s a short video of some of her bears’ trained behavior on the Bear Center website at https://bear.org/training-bears/

I asked Tammy what it was like growing up in such an unusual environment.  She told me they were a fairly private family and seldom had people over because of concern about liability.  They constructed a 10 foot barrier fence all around their 80 acres.  Within that, each group of animals had separate accommodations.  For example, the Black bears had a large pasture with electric fencing.  Lyle built them hibernating dens out of cinder block, insulated and lined with rubber and bedded with straw, complete with a door.  Kodiaks had a separate pasture and the grizzlies yet another.  And the family trained horses who had their own pastures.  The wolves and other animals who were kept in large enclosures were regularly walked for exercise. 

As you can imagine, this whole operation was labor-intensive.  Ruth and Lyle both worked in the mines and spent all of their other time with the animals.  Tammy’s grandparents helped too and were there almost every day.  Tammy and her sister had long lists of chores.  Just cleaning up the poop and pee was a huge job.  The animals were tame, which allowed the girls to go right into the cages or enclosures to clean up.  There were litter boxes for the house animals.  I asked if Ruth considered any of their many animals to be pets.  “They were ALL pets to her” Tammy said emphatically.  Ruth could kiss and hug each of them.  Lyle liked big cats and had several at Smokey Hollow Farms but none of the cats were trained.  They were tame, but didn’t perform.  (If you’ve had cats as pets like I have, you’ll understand that completely.)

Big kitty in the snow

Keeping exotic animals is a state- and federally-regulated activity and Tammy remembers the inspectors popping in often to check on things.  Ruth would demonstrate her latest trained animal behavior for them.  Occasionally law enforcement called Ruth and Lyle for help in capturing a wild animal.  Farmers gave them dead animals to use for food and the DNR allowed them to collect roadkill deer.  Local grocery stores would allow the family to come pick up scrap and expired meat and breads and produce for feed.  And Tammy recalls regular trips to Central Mink Foods in Medford Wisconsin (animal feed and supplies for zoo and circus) to haul back truckloads of feed.

They bought animals from zoos and dealers including the Exotic Animal Auction in Macon, Missouri.  There was a magazine (no longer in print) called “Animal Finders Guide” (https://www.animalfindersguide.com/) available then.  It always stressed getting appropriate permits.  Early on, they purchased adult animals but soon learned that raising an animal from infancy, bottle feeding it in the house with the family yielded the best results.  Ruth’s current website says “All of Ruth’s bears and dogs have been with her since their eyes opened and will be with her for the rest of their lives.”  Tammy helped out at the farm well into her thirties and today she trains horses at Diamond Willow Corral, the farm she shares with her husband Chad.

Ruth LaBarge riding Ursula in the early days

Tammy remembers going on film shoots with Ruth and being gone for weeks at a time.  They had animals in Anchor Man, a history channel series on the Vikings, The Sopranos, and many many commercials for Ethan Allan Furniture, Hostess Twinkies, Farmers Insurance, even a Chobani yogurt commercial for the 2014 Super Bowl.  You can view some of the commercials on Ruth’s website (above) and learn more about her current work.  She is very involved in bear education—providing regular bear safety and awareness trainings and even simulations to help the public learn how to act if they encounter a wild bear.  She believes passionately in sharing our environment with “these magnificent creatures.”  So there you have it, lions and tigers and bears grown on the Range!

Holiday greetings!!!

Grown on the Range Profile 38: Thinking About Rations, originally published in Hometown Focus

My partner recently came across her mother’s World War II ration book and shared it with me.  Wow, it listed her full name, height, weight, eye color, hair color, address…and there were a few coupons/stamps left in it.  I had heard my mother talk of sugar and meat rations and not being able to get nylon stockings, but I hadn’t ever read up on the massive government effort that lasted four full years.  Rationing impacted folks’ lives enormously, but there was near complete compliance.  There must have been something that made rationing work, and I wanted to know what it was given our current situation of significant resistance to Covid-19 restrictions.

After the U.S. joined the war, it took the U.S. government just a month to establish the Office of Price Administration (OPA) to set price limits and to implement a nationwide effort to ration food, gasoline, rubber, nylon, sugar, coffee, and eventually meat, cheese, fats, canned fish, automobiles, coal, firewood, tires and many other items.  The goal was to insure that the troops and our allies were adequately supplied while discouraging hoarding and providing equitable distribution of scarce resources at home.  Sacrificing for the common good became the patriotic thing to do on the homefront.  The first ration books, allotted one to each citizen including infants, were issued in May 1942.

Within weeks of that first book’s issue, 91 percent of the population registered to receive the books.  Thousands of local “ration boards” staffed by volunteers, recruited by local officials, set up shop.  Amazing, right?  Well, war is quite a motivator.  But there was something else going on.  The U.S. government and American media took this on full force.  Hollywood and the broadcasting industry, radio at the time, played an enormous role as did print advertising.  The federal Office of War Information was created in 1942 and produced posters, pamphlets, newsreels, and radio pieces to support the war and encourage rationing at home.  You’ve probably seen some of the poster images.

“Rationing Means a Fair Share for All,” “Food—Don’t Waste It!,” “Grow Your Own—Can Your Own,” “Do with Less so They’ll Have Enough,” “Plant a Victory Garden—Our Food is Fighting,” and “Save Waste Fats for Explosives!” were common food rationing slogans.  And there’s the ever-popular Rosie the Riveter “We Can Do It!” poster.  But the most hard-hitting poster I came across while browsing was about conserving gasoline and tires by car sharing.  The poster shows a male driver with an outline of Hitler in the passenger seat and says “When you ride ALONE, you ride with Hitler!!!  Join a Car-Sharing Club.”  And the Victory Speed Limit was 35mph nationwide!

The U.S. War Advertising Council brought together advertising and government to spread a carefully crafted and unified message.  The Office of War Information’s Radio Division provided every national radio advertiser and broadcaster with propaganda themes to incorporate on a predetermined schedule.  Radio was a powerful tool.  Ninety percent of Americans owned at least one radio and families listened for an average of three to four hours a day.  President Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” drew half of the population to the radio!  And his leadership and encouragement were critical to public support.  Celebrities like Bob Hope, Jack Benny and the fictional Fibber McGee and Molly spread the conserve/ration messages using entertainment and humor.

We did our share here on the Range.  We had Victory Gardens in Virginia on the west side of Silver Lake, and probably in every small town. Folks with space planted them at home and folks on farms were in a good position to grow much of what they ate.  Victory Gardens provided an astonishing 60 percent of all produce consumed in the U.S. during the war.  Canned, frozen and dehydrated vegetables and fruits were rationed—from applesauce and asparagus to tomatoes and spinach, everything was assigned ration points.  One purchased rationed goods, if they were available at all, for cash and points.  A can of peaches, for example, required 24 points (coupons) in addition to the price.  In 1944, ration coins were introduced so that merchants could give change back for items bought with ration coupons/stamps.  Potlucks originated during the 1940’s food rationing too, with neighbors pooling their rationing points to contribute a dish.

Elder Iron Rangers have told me about putting their names on a list with the local dry-goods store for a pair of shoes.  Individuals were allotted two pairs of shoes.  When shoes, in short supply, became available, the store would let them know and they bought them with cash and points.  My mother told me of collecting old paper and pieces of metal and scraps of coal in a wagon---everything was reused, recycled, and conserved.  When women couldn’t buy nylon stockings for years, they drew lines up the backs of their legs to look like the seams.  (Remember seamed stockings??)  Even the size of hems and belts on garments were restricted to save yardage.  And people made do with less for the benefit of the war.     

Besides demanding an enormous portion of available food and other resources, the war cost money—more than $300 Billion ($4 Trillion in today’s dollars).  Patriotic citizens bought $25 War Bonds for $18.75, and waited ten years to redeem them at $25.  Children could buy war stamps at 25 cents, and paste them into War Bond booklets.  The War Finance Committee supervised all sales.  Advertisers donated an enormous effort, and, after only one month, 90 percent of respondents surveyed were aware of War Bonds.  Bond Rallies were held around the country with famous movie stars like Bette Davis and Rita Hayworth promoting bond sales.  Norman Rockwell’s 1941 illustrations aided the war bonds effort, and Irving Berlin’s song “Any Bonds Today” became the theme song of the campaign.  More than 85 million Americans (out of a population of 130 million) purchased $185.7 billion worth of bonds.  Now that’s fundraising!

Yes, there was a black market where things like $12 tires went for $60.  And there was other crime where trucks of high-demand goods were hijacked.  And there was illegal manufacturing of rationed goods.  But there was also widespread compliance and support for a massive effort at limiting America’s consumption for the war cause.  Rationing of nearly everything except sugar ended in August of 1945, and the post-war era of relative abundance was ushered in.  Government campaigns for compliance ended---until we faced Covid-19.  We know what works.

Grown on the Range Profile 37: Winter Gardening... Indoors! originally published in Hometown Focus

Sunflower microgreens in our basement grow room.

Winter is here, but don’t give up on gardening!  It’s time to plant an indoor winter garden!  It’s amazing what you can grow inside with a little light and TLC.  You can grow herbs like basil, mint, thyme and rosemary in a sunny windowsill.  Lettuces, arugula and spinach will grow in a sunny south-facing window too.  You can even grow cherry tomatoes or chili peppers or root vegetables like carrots or beets if you’re willing to provide a grow light for about 16 hours each day.  You don’t need fancy pots or special tools, so indoor winter gardening doesn’t have to break your piggy bank.

Lettuces in the grow room in December.

Place your garden in a room that stays above sixty degrees at night for optimal results.  You’ll need some high-quality gardening soil, and planters, trays, or pots.  You can even make yourself a growing tray out of a used aluminum foil container, or re-purpose a jar or can as a pot.  Be sure to provide some drainage.  You can use all of that nonrecyclable plastic packaging for drainage trays under your growing containers.   If you’re trying root vegetables, get a bigger pot at least six inches deep, and an even bigger pot or bucket for cherry tomatoes.  Winter gardening will be easier if your growing room also has a water source, and, if you’re going to use grow lights, electricity. 

You might, if you’re brave, want to try growing mushrooms indoors.  The best source I’ve found for kits is www.fungiperfecti.com.  They’re fascinating to grow, but take a bit of attention with misting requirements.  You won’t need artificial lights for these.  I tried oyster and shiitake successfully a couple of years ago.  You can purchase a sawdust medium that’s already inoculated with spores, then just follow the directions on the package.  And mushrooms boost the human immune system, something we should all be paying attention to this winter.  Fungi Perfecti has a short article on mushroom varieties and immunity at  https://fungi.com/blogs/articles/mushrooms-and-the-immune-system

One of the most popular indoor garden crops these days is microgreens.  Microgreens are baby greens, grown in soil, often with artificial light, and harvested young, in 1-3 weeks, just after they leaf out.  They’re a brilliant green—a welcome sight in the dead of winter!  And they pack a nutritional punch.  The University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources in conjunction with the USDA found that microgreens contain from four to forty times more nutrients than their mature counterparts.  My favorite microgreens are sunflowers and pea shoots, but we grow about eight different kinds.  We use grow lights and keep the lights about two inches above the plants, moving them up as the plants grow.  You can harvest microgreens when they’re about three inches high, using a scissors.  Some, like pea shoots, will re-grow after harvesting.

Microgreens are different than sprouts, although they’re often called “soil sprouts” because they grow in soil.  Traditional sprouts, like alfalfa sprouts, are grown in the dark and rinsed regularly until they just start to open.  When you eat a sprout, you eat only the sprouted part of the plant.  With microgreens, you’re eating the earliest leaves and stem.  Traditional sprouts are very nutritious, too, and if you don’t have any south windows and don’t want to get grow lights, you can grow them easily in a cupboard.  Here’s a website with directions https://www.darngoodveggies.com/plant-basics-how-to-grow-sprouts-in-a-jar/

In our house, we have a basement room that used to house a hot tub.  It’s warm and has no windows, but does have a shower, sink, and toilet—how convenient, eh?  We use a small fan to circulate the air.  Fungus gnats have been a regular problem for us—and I just found a solution at https://indoorgardening.com/eliminate-fungus-gnats-once-and-for-all/!  Be careful to buy good potting soil, organic preferably.  We don’t use any artificial chemicals.  Diluted fish emulsion works well for fertilizer if you can stand the smell.  We invested in shelves with attached grow lights several years ago.  A little pricey, but they have served us well for a long time.  (https://www.gardeners.com/buy/sunlite-3-tier-led-grow-light/8595554.html )  There are lots of You Tube videos on making your own grow shelves with lights, too.  We don’t have large windowsills in our house, but if you do, a south-facing window will do just fine.

Kale in the grow room in January.

We grow kale and chard to full size for soups and sautés, mizuna, arugula and mesclun lettuce mix for salads, basil for some of our favorite dishes, and lots of microgreens.  I shouldn’t really say “we,” because my partner Ellen is the real gardener.  She already has our first crop of microgreens planted this year and is starting on the lettuce, kale, chard and basil.  And we grow cat grass—our felines delight in winter edibles.  Wheat grass is also pretty easy to grow, and some folks use that for juicing—it’s also packed with vitamins, minerals, and enzymes.  You can get wheat berries for planting at a natural foods store.

Winter gardening allows us to have fresh greens all winter, no matter how cold and snowy it is outside.  If you just aren’t into this at all, you can buy both sprouts and microgreens at the store.  Natural Harvest Food Coop has Minnesota-grown microgreens for sale and they usually have sprouts too.  My favorite winter microgreen dish is to cook up some spicy ramen soup and pour it over sunflower shoots.  You can add your favorite herbs and feel proud of yourself for eating your fresh greens in January!

Grown on the Range Profile 36: Iron Range Root Cellars, originally published in Hometown Focus

Entrance to the Lehtonen root cellar.

If you were fortunate enough to buy one of the pasties from the second annual Iron Range Pasty Festival this year, you might be interested to know that the vegetables in that pasty were harvested locally and stored in a root cellar at an area farm.  Root cellars used to be common as folks without electricity preserved and stored food to last through our long winters.  According to local root cellar user Becky Gawboy, the Ojibwe inhabitants of this land stored food in underground “pit root cellars” dug into the soil in the shape of a large jar with a narrow opening at the top.  Sometimes they were lined with grass as a moisture barrier.  Produce was covered with birch bark, then wood ash to keep the vermin out, then dirt and leaves.  In a similar fashion, the Kikuyus of central Kenya mixed maize and beans with ash to keep insects away during long storage periods.  

A large cellar for food fermentation and storage dated 9,200 years ago was discovered in Sweden as construction crews prepared an area for a new road.  They fermented fish.  Native Australians are known to have buried food to insulate and protect it.  Underground and innovative food preservation shows up all over the world.  But the kind of walk-in food storage cellars that we now call root cellars were probably invented in the 1600’s in England.  Settlers to what is now the U.S. brought the idea with them and built many.  In fact, the tiny town of Elliston, Newfoundland, population 308, has 130 documented root cellars!  It’s known as the “Root Cellar Capital of the World.” (https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/trip-ideas/travel-stories/elliston-the-root-cellar-capital-of-the-world )  Here in Minnesota, Fort Snelling’s 1820 buildings include seven intact root cellars.

Entering through the double door system.

The local root cellar in these first photos is on the Lehtonen farm outside Virginia.  That’s where the pasty vegetables were stored this fall.  Arlene Wiermaa was a child when her father and brother built this root cellar, probably in 1945-6.  They built the forms and brought in concrete to pour a roof and four walls with a double entry to maintain the temperature and humidity.  When the concrete had set, they covered it with dirt which today stands about 25 feet tall.  There was no electricity on the farm, and Arlene remembers that they kept all of their milk and meat in the cellar in addition to the traditionally stored vegetables.  It is still in excellent condition.

Inside the Lehtonen root cellar.

The second photo (below) is of the root cellar that Mike Maleska’s grandfather Frank built about 1920 on the family property near Fish Lake.  They dug back a “seam” in the soil and threw the dirt off to the sides, then poured concrete walls and a ceiling and replaced the dirt.  They managed somehow to drain tile the cellar so it never leaked water, though it was below the surface about five feet.  Frank build two very heavy wooden doors at either end of a double-walled entrance.  The doors were wrapped in burlap for insulation.  He was a potato farmer and stored his potatoes plus rutabagas, onions, carrots in the cool humid cellar.  They didn’t have rodent problems but did have occasional mold.  When the Rural Electrification Administration came through, they wired a single bulb into the ceiling near the vent.  

Entrance to the Maleska root cellar.

The Finland Food Chain, a local food organization based on the North Shore, is exploring the idea of community root cellars as well as earthbag above-grade cellars.  Their goal is to see how root cellars might allow producers to continue to distribute their crops later into the year.  They recently visited Sugarloaf Cove Nature Center in Schroeder, formerly a staging area for the logging industry.  There’s a very large root cellar there, the last remaining structure from that era.  It sits at the base of a hill and is about ten feet wide and twenty feet deep.  The vent on top is still intact and there were even mushrooms growing in the soil over the cellar.  The cellar is sealed right now, and they are hoping to have it opened to evaluate its future use.

If you’re interested in root cellaring, there’s a set of great online resources detailing which kinds of produce can be stored in a root cellar, which ones need higher humidity and/or temperature, and various cellar designs.  You can find them here https://www.canr.msu.edu/hrt/uploads/535/78622/Root-Cellar-Handout-Diagram-6pgs.pdf  and here https://www.canr.msu.edu/hrt/uploads/535/78622/RootCellars-PowerPoint-6-per-page-14pgHandout.pdf  The root cellar takes advantage of the year round cool temperature of the earth at depths of 6-12 feet and uses that in place of electrical cooling to store crops such as root vegetables, seeds and fruits.  Some folks store canned goods, too, and fermented food.  Temperature, humidity, and ventilation are the key variables to control.

So, if you want to store beets, carrots, kohlrabi, leeks, rutabagas and parsnips you’ll need a very cold (just above freezing) and very damp (90-95% humidity) environment.  But if you grow mostly winter squash, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes, you’ll need a warmer (50-60 degrees) and a drier (60-70% humidity) environment.  You might be like me and have onions and garlic, too, and they like cool but dry.  You could experiment with venting to create different environments within one root cellar divided into several areas, or you could make use of unused basement space for two storage areas.  I use an insulated, home-built root cellar that is cold and moister, with controllable venting to the outside.  And a basement room without windows that is cool and a bit dryer.  According to all the sources I consulted, the best book out there to help you plan a root cellar is “Root Cellaring” by Mike & Nancy Bubel. 

Maybe you don’t personally want to root cellar, but you find the stories fascinating like I do.  Ask around, you’ll be surprised how many folks remember their parents’ or grandparents’ root cellars and the sights and smells, the local food memories that go with them.  They’re coming back and there might just be one near you.

Grown on the Range Profile 35: Finnegan's Farm, originally published in Hometown Focus

When Covid hit and the bottom fell out of the specialty herbs and microgreens market for restaurants, farmers Patrick Finnegan and Eric Pollard were more than ready.  Friends for decades, they have formed and transformed Finnegan’s Farm several times since it started in 2006.  Outside of Two Harbors, not far from the shores of Lake Superior, this 31-acre farm sits nestled in the woods.  Just over five of the acres are planted, all in sturdy and weatherproof raised beds made from recycled garage doors, thanks to Patrick’s father.  Last year there were six beautiful greenhouses but three were destroyed in a storm and are now being rebuilt. 

Instead of bursting with Thai Basil, Sweet basil, Cuban basil, Cilantro, Purple sage, English Thyme and French Thyme, they now overflow with craft hemp plants, “the girls” as they call them.  In the hemp world, it’s the unfertilized female plants that produce the buds and flowers that are the focus here these days for their oil.  And the processing building that used to package herbs and microgreens like Rock Chive, Arugula, Red Russian Kale, Sunflower Shoots, and Pea Shoots now handles hemp processing—resulting in CBD gummies.  Patrick and Eric planted their first craft hemp in the spring of 2019 and packaged their first gummies in February 2020. It’s been a booming business ever since.

Who would have thought that far northern Minnesota would be a place where all this could flourish?  Well, that’s part of the reason for writing this column.  I’m telling the story of the amazing things that grow here, even in our short growing season.  We have sunshine, long days, and water, a very scarce resource in many other places.  Patrick and Eric are cheerleaders for locally grown food, locally-raised animals, and local farming in general.  They’re also experimenting with Manitoba dwarf white sweet corn—and the results look good for our climate!  Patrick grew up in a mining community, played professional hockey abroad and spent his off-time working in greenhouses in the Netherlands, developing his love of growing.  When he retired back to the U.S., he had saved up enough to buy this farm and pursue his dream.Growing craft hemp for CBD oil is a booming business.  Even in northern Minnesota, it’s possible to get two outdoor crops per year.  It takes a special state permit to do this, and a fair amount of experimentation to get just the crop you want.  Patrick and Eric grew some 16-foot hemp last year and learned about the north shore’s wind capabilities.  This year’s plants are much more stout, and full of flowers on the September day when I visit.  All of the hemp products sold by Finnegan’s Farm are grown, harvested, extracted, formulated and packaged on the farm.  They are third-party tested and yield full-spectrum CBD oil complete with the essential oils.  This type of hemp has a legally-required and inspected low level of THC and is related to the “industrial” hemp grown for fiber. 

This farm takes pride in using all natural methods: soil amendments, excellent compost, and supplements like glacial rock dust.  They know that soil health is where it all begins.  They’ve experimented enough to climatize a number of varieties to this northern Minnesota temperature range.  They buy all of their supplies as locally as possible, and they plant, harvest, and extract by hand.  Finnegan’s Farm uses ice water extraction to yield the CBD oil.  It’s considered a more pure method of extraction than extraction using butane or CO2.  The only thing used is water—and the well water at the farm is cold enough that they don’t even have to add much ice. 

Finnegan’s Farm works with Oregon CBD, a hemp seed research and development company affiliated with Oregon State University.  Founded in 2015, they operate with a federal permit in compliance with the 2018 Farm Bill.  They specialize in research and in providing non-GMO hemp seeds for production.  They also produce CBG seeds—CBG stands for cannabigerol, which is a non-intoxicating cannabinoid found in cannabis plants, including the hemp plants used to produce hemp oil.  It is thought to offer many of the same benefits as CBD (cannabidiol) and perhaps more.  Stay tuned, Finnegan’s Farm is experimenting with this!

Patrick’s brother helped them clear an area of dead wood for more raised beds in June 2019.  That wood may now provide heat for the three replacement greenhouses being constructed now.  The three still-standing greenhouses aren’t heated but are well-ventilated to deal with mold challenges.  And they play classical music for the girls.  Patrick tells me that the plant closest to the speaker in the largest greenhouse was stunted and bedraggled looking when they started experimenting with music by playing “bad rock.”  She recovered completely with classical music, so that’s what the girls get now.

Consumers buy CBD products for a variety of reasons, mostly related to relief from chronic pain, anxiety, PTSD and sleep challenges.  If you want to explore the potential health benefits, Harvard Medical School has a good review of current research on CBD for a variety of conditions at  https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/cannabidiol-cbd-what-we-know-and-what-we-dont-2018082414476   Finnegan’s Farm customers give their gummies a thumbs up!

You can find Finnegan’s Farm CBD Gummies at the main Super One in Virginia, the Super One stores in the Duluth area (at the service counter, if you’re 18 or older), and Dan’s Feed Bin in Superior, or you can order them online at https://finnegans-farm.myshopify.com/  Follow Finnegan’s Farm on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/finnegansfarmtwoharbors

Grown on the Range Profile 34: The Eclectic Carton Farm & Garden, originally published in Hometown Focus

Kate remembers when she got her first baby chick—she was two years old, riding in a cart at a grocery store.  And she has loved them ever since.  She was 14 when she got her first Spanish Mustang, another passion that she has carried with her through her thirties.  At the farm where she has established the “Eclectic Carton Farm & Garden” Spanish Mustangs graze in a large pasture and, farther down the winding road, Kate’s focal project emerges: the “Quack Shack” for the pair of Anacona ducks, is almost ready for winter.  There is a new very large coop attached to a super long run and many other portable “chicken tractors” that move about the farm.  And 50 rare birds are all around—a Lavender Wyandotte, for example, and some beautiful Silver Double-Laced Barnevelders.

Kate is a fanatic about keeping their quarters clean and giving them as much free range as possible.  She cleans up chicken poop three times each day, scrubs out the water dishes each morning, moves the chicken tractors, and opens and closes alternate pens and runs so that the birds can drink from the nearby artesian well and snack on all the bugs and worms they can find.  This farm is way out in the country, though, so at night, compatible groups of chickens are housed in large dog kennels inside the large coop to prevent predator casualties.  Kate really loves chickens and they apparently love her back.  She even paints their portraits in acrylics.

Most of the young chickens I meet on my visit were hatched right here from special-order eggs or mail-ordered at 1 day old from reputable national sources who are certified under the National Poultry Improvement Plan program.  White Bresse are a French breed that matures to have white feathers, blue legs and a red comb (suitable for both French and U.S. national colors!).  The Silver Double-Laced Barnevelders are a Dutch breed with dark feathers that look like they’re covered in antique lace.  And every chicken here has a name—some are kind of crazy—representing whatever Kate was thinking about at the time they were hatched.  That naming thing makes having meat birds hard, Kate tells me.  But she names them nonetheless.  On her Facebook page, Kate shares her philosophy: “Even roosters who may be bound for the table should still get to live their best life!”

Kate’s new “homegrown breed” chicks are a Barbezieux x Mosaic cross called Black Pearls and Colored Pearls.  Mosaic is a breed not yet recognized, created at Gold Feather Farms in Louisiana.  They are the culmination of years of selective breeding and have a distinctive rich blue skin color and iridescent turquoise earlobes.  Kate has sold a few of this cross to new homes on the Iron Range this summer.  In the summer of 2021, The Eclectic Carton Farm & Garden will offer rare breed White Bresse, Double Silver Laced Barnevelders, and Mosaic chicks and started birds for sale.

The chickens aren’t the only eclectic element at this farm.  In addition to the Spanish Mustang horses Kate grew up riding (she was an avid 4-H member!), she collects vintage camper trailers.  I see one that she has just purchased, soon to be converted to an art studio for her painting.  She also makes and sells hand-stamped metal work.  “Adventure Pendants” with sayings like “Glamp Tastic” and an image of a tiny camper, or “Get Out” (outside, that is) are for sale.  (Glamping, I learned, is a combination of glamourous and camping, referring to camping in style…..in a vintage camper, perhaps.)  I also learn that her Ancona ducks are a rare breed with very hardy feet and legs and they love snow.  So their “Quack Shack” will be placed to allow them to access the white fluffy stuff this winter.

I ask Kate where she would like to be with her business in five years.  She wants to not work outside her home and become self-sufficient.  She has a 9-month-old son who will grow up loving chickens and the outdoor life too.  Kate has a degree in marketing and public relations and has worked traditional jobs.  This new “gig,”though, is anything but traditional.  She loves what she’s doing.  It’s fun to get to know the birds.  She even has a chicken-watching chair that she bought at a rummage sale positioned at the end of one of the runs.  She loves watching the rooster find a treat and call “the girls” to come get some.  Or the ducks playing in the snow.  She wants to teach folks how to care for backyard chickens (sorry Virginia folks, your city council nixed that one).  And to barter—check her Facebook page for occasional bartering opportunities.  In fact, The Eclectic Carton Farm & Garden on Facebook is a great place to learn more.  Look her up!  And tell her I sent you.

Grown on the Range Profile 33: The Second Annual Iron Range Pasty Festival, originally published in Hometown Focus

Pasties from the first annual Iron Range Pasty Festival

This column is normally about a farm or a grower or food business on the Range.  But this time it’s about a particular food with a long Iron Range tradition and a new twist: the pasty.  Pasties came to the Iron Range with miners from Cornwall, England and caught on quickly.  They stayed warm in a miner’s lunchbox until noon and satisfied their hunger after a long morning’s hard work.  They represent the Range much like sarmas and potica and porketta do.  These days one can find breakfast pasties, dessert pasties, vegetarian pasties and probably some I haven’t yet heard of.  Served warm with ketchup, butter, or gravy, they make a perfect autumn dinner. 

Last year, the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability (IRPS) held the first annual Iron Range Pasty Festival.  We hand-made each of the 834 pasties with all locally grown/produced ingredients—that’s the new twist.  And they were delicious!  Hundreds of us gathered to eat pasties and slaw at the Mt. Iron Community Center.  Some of us tried rutabaga bowling, some designed winning Mrs. Rutabaga Heads, children made Play-Doh pasties, and we all tried our hand at some Iron Range trivia.  This year, the second annual Iron Range Pasty Festival will look a bit different in order to comply with Covid guidelines and keep us all safe.  The festival will be virtual and drive-through, with trivia and Rutabaga Head contests happening on the IRPS Facebook page all day on October 10.  Pre-ordered frozen pasties can be picked up at Messiah Lutheran Church from 12-3 from your car in the parking lot where Sara Softich and Friends will be playing live.  And the pasty (we have a great pasty costume) and her ketchup bottle companion will be greeting folks in their cars.  We’ll be livestreaming some of the music to Facebook too.  Stay safely in your car and IRPS Board members will bring your frozen pasty order to you.

So what’s in these pasties and who are the local growers and producers who supply the ingredients?  Rutabagas are a signature ingredient, of course, and our rutabagas come from Sherry Erickson’s Elm Creek Farm near Orr (https://www.elmcreekfarmsmn.com/).  She also supplies some of the carrots and onions.  Janna Goerdt of Fat Chicken Farm near Embarrass grows some of the onions too, in addition to being our head chef (www.fatchickenfarm.com).  And Craig Turnboom grows the potatoes and the rest of the carrots and onions on his Skunk Creek Farm near Meadowlands (https://www.skunkcreekfarm.net/ ).  The fresh thyme that gives our pasties their superb taste is grown by the students at the Mesabi East Environmental Education Center in Aurora (https://www.facebook.com/mesabieastgardening/ ).

The meat for our pasties is grass-fed pastured beef from Jane Jewett’s Willow Sedge Farm outside of Palisade (http://www.janesfarm.com/ ).  And the pork comes from Fox Farm near Browerville, where pigs are housed in open-air hoop barns with lots of fresh air and sunshine and fed non-GMO grains grown right there on the farm.  Lard for the tender crust comes from Shannon and Mary Ann Wycoff’s Bear Creek Acres farm near Embarrass where animals have plenty of outside space to root, romp and roam (http://www.bearcreekacres.com/ ).  No antibiotics or animal by-product feed at these farms. 

The pat of butter that goes into each pasty just before it is baked comes from Dahl’s Sunrise Dairy in Babbitt where the butter wins prizes at the State Fair (https://www.dahlssunrisedairy.com/ ).  And the flour comes from Homestead Mills in Cook (https://www.homesteadmills.com/ ).  The secret to the excellent flavor of these pasties is more than just local ingredients.  It comes from the energy of the IRPS Board members who volunteer for 8-hour shifts to chop, peel, and mix the hundreds of pounds of ingredients and roll out the dough as they talk and laugh and dream about the Iron Range of the future.  This year, we’ll be masked and distanced, of course, but it will still be fun!  We have a temporary food stand license from the Minnesota Department of Health for our preparation and plenty of hair nets, gloves, and aprons to go around.  When the pasties finish baking and cooling, they’re bagged and taken to F&D Meats’ walk-in cooler for storage until the day of the festival.  Thank you F&D for your generosity!  (https://www.fanddmeats.com/ ).

Why go to all the trouble to source these ingredients locally?  First, because buying local food supports our local economy.  Every dollar we spend on the ingredients goes into the pocket of a farmer or producer in Orr, Embarrass, Meadowlands, Palisade, Babbitt, Aurora or Cook.  Second, it makes these pasties unique and we think a pasty festival deserves unique pasties.  And third, because this is the only fundraiser for the  Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability and we want to use this fundraiser to illustrate our values—we believe in local!  IRPS doesn’t have an office or a phone; we have only one very part time paid staff person, and we depend on this fundraiser to do the work that we carry out.  Learn more about us at www.irpsmn.org

Grown on the Range Profile 32: The Lavaliers Berry Patch, originally published in Hometown Focus

Lavaliers Berry Patch southeast of Grand Rapids has changed dramatically since 2000 when Stuart Lavalier added 15 apple trees.  It started when he asked the DNR for help protecting his delicious berries from the wide variety of Northwoods wild critters who love berries.  They cooperated in putting up a fence and, as they left, the DNR staff person remarked “Now you can grow apples.”  That piqued Stuart’s interest and he added 15 trees.  Today there are 1,200!  But it doesn’t look like the orchards of my childhood in the 1950’s at all.  I remember large trees forming a huge canopy and tall ladders for picking.  Lavalier employs the “slender spindle” system where dwarf trees grow on trellis systems.  It’s a low-flying orchard with thick rows of trees and very wide grassy aisles between them. 

At this orchard, they maintain trees three feet apart and take out 2-3 of the largest branches when they are young.  Stuart grows apples because it’s FUN, he says.  They are so challenging to grow, especially up here in northern Minnesota, and there are so many rootstocks and varieties to try.  Stuart has a degree in Horticulture from the University of Minnesota, and he keeps in regular touch with their Horticultural Research Center and grows many of their apples.  The public’s favorite right now seems to be Sweet Tango, a cross between the Zestar and Honeycrisp.  But back to rootstocks, a concept I knew nothing about.  I love how these farm visits are so educational for me—a big perk of writing this column!

According to the Minnesota Historical Society, early experts in the state warned against the use of dwarfing rootstocks.  In 1928, Dr. William H. Alderman, professor at the U of M and the state’s most influential horticulturalist, warned against dwarf apples.  But in the 1950’s a British expert, Gordon Yates, imported dwarfing rootstocks from England and Holland and started a flourishing orchard near LaCrescent, Minnesota.  The idea spread quickly, and the U of M began testing various dwarf rootstocks.  Now, they are the norm.  Stuart grafts buds into rootstocks with names like M26 and Geneva41.  Grafting involves inserting a bud in a slit on the tree and wrapping in plastic.  He has a whole field of rootstock to work with.

A grower can’t propagate licensed apples without a contract with the University of Minnesota.  So, Stuart pays a flat fee per tree each year for the privilege of growing varieties like Sweet Tango and First Kiss and Kindercrisp.  He tries new varieties all the time from one of the four breeding programs in the nation.  Every tree is an experiment.  And he adds 50 trees each year.  Because the trees are close together, attached to a trellis and only 11-12 feet tall with wide aisles between rows, harvesting is a different animal than it used to be.  The trees are loaded with apples within easy reach.  And the spacing of the rows means that each tree gets plenty of sun.  The week I visit they are beautiful shades of orange turning to red.  Soon he’ll be selling them at the Grand Rapids Farmers Market.

The apples are only one part of Lavaliers Berry Patch, though.  Of this 20-acre farm, 12 acres are fenced and inside that fence are the apples, but also the strawberries, blueberries, honeyberries, bush cherries, squash, Brussels sprouts and pumpkins that defined this berry patch prior to 2000.  It’s a u-pick or we-pick operation.  It started with strawberries, and Stuart’s parents helped to plant and weed and pick in the early hears.  The whole family has been involved in the farm over the years.  They added blueberries, lingonberries and sour cherries as the years went along.  Stuart was visiting a grower who had cherries and decided to try them.  He explored varieties of cherries and contacted the University of Saskatchewan which had a hardy cherry rated for zone 2!  He drove up to Canada, got a USDA permit to bring some back, and started growing the “Romance” series of bush cherries: Juliet, Romeo, Cupid, Crimson Passion and Carmine Jewel.  Cherries have just ended the week I visit, with a sold-out season.

We walk the rows of crops so that I can see the layout.  The berries are rotated every year and fallow patches are planted with cover crops like sorghum, black eyed peas, rye, vetch, oats, crimson clover, and facelia.  Two years of picking then two years of cover crops.  There’s not much tilling here—new berries are planted into the cover crop.  This process of rotation and cover cropping feeds the soil and interrupts the disease cycle naturally.  The farm uses organic practices such as integrated pest management, too.  They trap insects in order to keep track of which ones are where and use exclusion netting to protect the plants.  That means almost no spraying.  Straw mulch helps preserve moisture from the “triple irrigation” system of drip tapes in the middle of each row.  And the pigs down the road get all the windfalls and waste—a perfect recycling system.

All in all, it’s a very tidy-looking operation, complete with a shelter and picnic tables and a small shop for selling.  You can find this gem of a place at 28056 County Road 91 Grand Rapids and online at https://www.lavaliersberrypatch.com/ where you can sign up for a newsletter telling you what is ripe when and the hours they’re open for picking.  Customers are encouraged to call the berry hotline at 218-327-9199 to verify what’s ripe and the hours for picking.  I’d suggest setting aside a couple of hours to walk the beautiful grounds, pick your own, and enjoy a snack in the picnic shelter.  By the time this column runs, it will be close to pumpkin season—what fun to go and pick your own!

Grown on the Range Guest Column

Cultivating a sustainable local food system across Northeast Minnesota

Executive Director David Abazs of the University of Minnesota Extension Northeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnership (Northeast RSDP) is no stranger to exploring  – and applying – models for sustainable agriculture. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Abazs has spent more time working from his farmstead in Finland along Lake Superior’s North Shore.

“I was up late, tilling cover crops into the soil. We only had a 48-hour window on our eight acres in intensive vegetable, fruit, nuts and small livestock production this year,” Abazs prefaced before digging into details and history of sustainable agriculture and local food systems efforts in northeastern Minnesota. In addition to his leadership role with RSDP, Abazs is a longtime farmer. 

In recent years, interest and work on these topics has expanded across the Iron Range and North Shore with participation, support and additional capacity from Northeast RSDP.

“The reemergence and importance of local food and food security has provided a platform for our work and efforts moving forward,” said Abazs. He credited community member and AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer Sarah Verke, based in the Extension Grand Rapids regional office, with helping connect and integrate a variety of community-based efforts happening across the region. Verke has supported Northeast RSDP’s sustainable agriculture and food systems work through a year-long appointment that concludes in August.

“Sarah has been living here and is invested. It’s nice to have someone local who knows the area, who can help keep our food systems work spread throughout the region,” Abazs said. “Having support from Sarah has greatly improved our capacity in building a broader program.”

Rooted in community

Cultivating RSDP presence and relationships across the region’s diverse landscape and food system has not necessarily been simple, but Verke has not shied away from the challenge. She contributed to a broad coalition of local partners working on related topics and helped educate community members and deepen local connections to farm-to-school programs.

A community member, parent and self-described “noble workaholic,” Verke believes strongly in community organizing, public service and a food system effort led by volunteers and consumers to increase access to local food. For the last five years, Verke has served on the board of the start-up Free Range Food Co-op, which she credited as her “entry into local food.” She also helped convene a local food conference and community conversation in the region, organized around the 2018 report, Local food as an economic driver: A study of the potential impact of local foods in the Taconite Assistance Area.

“This work is about community members talking to community members and about how and why we have to support local farmers — building ownership and that understanding,” Verke explained.

“Having that presence, someone who knows the community, I could see how my connections in the community mattered, how I knew people and recognized people,” Verke said. “I had already built many of these connections, so reinforcing those this year has made my service work even more valuable to RSDP and memorable for me.”

Not starting from scratch

Verke is adamant about the importance of not “starting from scratch” in creating a more sustainable food system in the region, but instead learning from existing networks, resources and community efforts. Drawing on lessons learned from different geographies and existing partnerships has been critical to moving work forward.

“I’ve brought learning from the statewide Minnesota Food Charter Network. Even though it’s no longer active, I’ve used their final letter as a guide to our work — understanding how to support regional efforts and the importance of telling stories of food organizations and stories of food,” Verke explained, referencing statewide efforts with a track record of promoting a healthier, more sustainable food system in Minnesota.

In addition to statewide efforts, Verke and Abazs noted how local models and project success stories can resonate even more with community members throughout the region.

One of these local models, The Rutabaga Project, which received initial funding from an Extension SNAP-Ed Community Partnerships grant and is jointly administered by the Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency and the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability, has been working to “craft community-based solutions to make produce more accessible and affordable.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farmers Market Promotion Program recently awarded the project a three-year grant to expand its efforts, which will allow even greater regional collaboration.

Over the years, Northeast RSDP has supported a variety of ways for community members to participate in food systems work throughout the region. Funded projects have included joint research, outreach and education on the topic of Deep Winter Greenhouses through a prototype in Finland, “Farm-2-Family” events in Aitkin to connect local farmers to consumers in their communities, farmer’s market aggregation projects in Grand Rapids that help leverage existing market infrastructure to connect vendors to larger buyers such as area schools and hospitals, and an ongoing Grown on the Range blog and newspaper column that engages readers in local food topics.

Digging in and sharing farm-to-school resources

This year, Northeast RSDP expanded its farm-to-school work, helping schools increase access to healthy, local food grown or raised by Minnesota farmers. Local and regional programming helped area partners learn about this topic and strengthen connections between school districts and farms.

“One of the most notable things I worked on was an event in February that centered on the topic of farm-to-school,” Verke noted of a collaborative workshop that Northeast RSDP helped coordinate and convene with local partners and sponsors including Renewing the Countryside, the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA), Grand Rapids Farmers Market Aggregation Project, and the Minnesota Farmers Market Association. Financial support for the workshop came from Compeer Financial and a USDA Farm to School grant.

A total of 47 people participated in the event. Attendees included representatives from nine school districts ranging from school administrators and district superintendents to school board members and food nutrition staff. Community members and representatives from area hospitals and state and county agencies also attended.

The day’s programming posed questions about what makes farm-to-school programs successful, what barriers exist that make it challenging for local districts to implement and maintain these programs, and what roles existing resources such as the Farmers Market Aggregation Program and Grand Rapids Farmers Market can play in regional farm-to-school efforts.

“One of the biggest things a superintendent who attended told me was that he learned and took to heart that farm-to-school programs aren’t ‘all or nothing.’ They can be different from school to school and built upon to tailor to their needs,” Verke said.

In addition to this winter workshop, Northeast RSDP recently provided resources to support ongoing farm-to-school work in Grand Rapids through a project entitled, “Let’s Get Growing.” Rachel Newman, a local teacher, farmer and volunteer who helped lead the project, described how Grand Rapids High School students successfully grew microgreens, created kits to share with students and families at home, and incorporated related activities into other programming.

Microgreen-growing kits.

“We worked with partners to create clear microgreen growing and harvesting safety guidelines. Students grew microgreens at home with their families during distance learning this May, and we planted three apple trees near our outdoor classroom area,” explained Newman. “A student from the class works with me at the Grand Rapids Farmers Market to sell microgreens, with all proceeds donated back to the high school program for growing more food for the cafeteria during the school year.”

“I have been working constantly to adapt to current conditions, and get as many people as possible, especially youth, in our community to eat microgreens,” Newman said.

In addition to these recent regional efforts, RSDP staff and leadership were instrumental in early efforts to synthesize the needs of farm-to-school pilot programs and institutionalize such programming in the state over a decade ago. These efforts ultimately helped Extension increase its capacity and support for local communities working on this topic.

Today, farm-to-school programming in Minnesota has continued to expand. Numerous farm-to-school resources available from Extension provide entry points for communities interested in this work. They also illustrate the breadth and diversity of farm-to-school programming in the state — from coordinating and promoting the state’s annual Farm to School Month in October to building relationships with local farmers, supporting food skills development, cultivating school gardens and providing coordination and facilitation for local and statewide efforts.

While the COVID-19 pandemic may complicate ongoing farm-to-school efforts, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture released a Farm-to-School Rapid Response grant opportunity that can provide assistance to schools and farmers needing additional support to improve market access in summer and fall 2020.

Looking forward

Even as Northeast RSDP has adjusted its programming this spring and summer to ensure the public health and safety of community members, Verke and Abazs remain optimistic about the future of farm-to-school, sustainable agriculture, food systems and food justice work in the region.

While her formal work with Northeast RSDP will conclude this summer, Verke stressed her commitment to stay engaged and serve as a resource on these topics and as partners develop more “shovel ready” local food projects. “I do plan to continue to participate, even [if] on a volunteer basis,” she said. “We’re a team and still in this trust-building stage, and I know I have perspective to lend as we keep talking about the needs of our region.”

Abazs will be looking more closely at how social, environmental and economic issues intersect throughout local food system projects and the importance of bringing a lens of justice to RSDP work in the region.

"There are a lot of equity issues in our region. Communities are varied and diverse, some ethnically, some economically. We really can’t build sustainability without justice; we can’t have one without the other," he said.

With this in mind, Northeast RSDP is prioritizing projects and partnerships that more explicitly address historic injustices embedded in agriculture and illustrate models for transforming inequities in the food system. Existing relationships with partners in the region that include Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and 40 Acre Co-op will help inform and co-create such efforts.

“We need to keep building these relationships, connect with and listen to communities most harmed, and not blow it,” Abazs said.

Learn more about sustainable agriculture and food systems projects supported by the Northeast RSDP. For an example of sustainable agriculture modeling in Northeast Minnesota, see 

“The miracle of Finland: What a tiny northern Minnesota town can teach America,” featuring David Abazs in his role as a farmer prior to his position with RSDP.

Marie Donahue, July 2020

Marie Donahue works as a statewide sustainability storyteller with the University of Minnesota Extension Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships (RSDP) and Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs).

Grown on the Range Profile 31: The Murray Family Farm, originally published in Hometown Focus

They were city folks, working in Minneapolis, owning a duplex and renting out the other half, but dreaming of a farm.  It started with a long wait in city traffic one day, and it ended about ten years later in Angora on 30 acres with a house and a large pen where the previous owner had raised pigs.  Along the way, Jessica and Andrew met some amazing folks.  They had read Jean-Martin Fortier’s book The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower’s Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming, and decided to head up to British Columbia to meet him and take one of his classes.  (https://www.themarketgardener.com/about-jean-martin-fortier)  They needed a vacation, and this turned out to be a life-changing trip.

Jessica found an Airbnb on a nearby farm called Foxglove Farm.  Little did she know that Foxglove Farm was part of Michael Ableman’s famous efforts.  From Foxglove Farm’s website: “A farmer, writer, photographer, and public speaker, Michael has been farming organically since the 1970’s and is considered among the pioneers of the organic farming and urban agriculture movements. Ableman is the founder of the Center For Urban Agriculture, and co-founder and director of Sole Food Street Farms one of North America’s largest urban agriculture social enterprises.”  Andrew and Jessica were immersed in one of the epicenters of ecological, human-scale and economically viable sustainable agriculture.

That was in 2018.  By November of 2019, they had purchased their 30-acre dream in northern Minnesota.  And by the time I visited in July 2020, only eight short months later, they had hatched their own chicks, bought three pigs, built a huge geothermal greenhouse with automated irrigation, planted an enormous garden, and started a microgreen-growing operation.  All while caring for a 5 year old and a 2 year old with another on the way.  These are ambitious folks building a dream.  And The Murray Family Farm had been born.  Visit them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/The-Murray-Family-Farm-102726458086980/

The greenhouse was a major undertaking.  They dug four feet down into sand and installed 8 rows of perforated drain tile which connect to a manifold and will eventually circulate underground air into the greenhouse.  Right now the greenhouse is home to rows of grow bags planted with hemp.  Andrew is interested in industrial hemp farming and is experimenting with flowers initially.  The plants are thriving in this huge greenhouse.  The farm has only about an acre and a half cleared, but there is abundant forest for growing on the 30 acres, and they have plans to expand.

Andrew still runs his own carpentry business full time (Murray’s Quality Services LLC) and Jessica is just ending a job in finance to tend to the growing farm and family.  They have connected with the local Natural Harvest Food Coop and with Virginia Market Square farmers market where Jessica sells her microgreens.  And they buy feed locally from Homestead Mills.  Jessica would like to sell microgreens to local restaurants.  She is using innovative flats from Curtis Stone of the Paper Pot Company.  You can learn more about the system here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSKd030QoV0

Andrew also built a large chicken tractor for their newly-hatched flock who overnight in the tractor (a moveable chicken coop) and free-range during the day.  I ask about predators, then realize that the two exceptionally large puppies I met when I drove up are probably the best guards possible.  They also fend off area deer which plague many farmers here.  As an additional precaution, Jessica and Andrew fenced in the large garden.  They are working on soil health and I see a huge container of Purple Cow compost nearby.  They did soil testing in order to decide where to locate the garden.  Unlike the greenhouse which sits on sand, the garden, farther down the hill, has good soil.  The previous farmer raised pigs and they likely did what pigs do best—root with their snouts and cultivate with their hooves and leave behind their fertilizer. 

I can see carrots, tomatoes, peppers, chard, all the vegetables you might imagine in this garden.  And the seeds all came from Seed Treasures, neighbors Jackie and Will Atkinson’s Angora seed company (www.SeedTreasures.com)  When I first met Jessica, I suggested that they connect with Jackie and Will who are off-grid homesteaders nearby.  They did and not only made some new friends but also got some valuable advice for starting up their new farm, and local seeds.  (I wrote about Jackie and Will’s farm in an earlier column.)  Eventually, I think we’ll see Jessica at Virginia Market Square with all kinds of locally-grown produce and I hope we’ll see some local restaurants serving up microgreen creations that will tickle our taste buds and bring us back for more.  All the best, Murray Family Farm!

Grown on the Range Profile 30: Karl's Bread, originally published in Hometown Focus

There’s something about Karl’s Bread that keeps customers lining up outside his booth at area farmers markets.  It might be the chocolate croissants which, I can attest, are divine.  Or the biscotti, or the focaccia, or the Asiago bagels, or maybe it’s the more than fourteen flavors, from sun-dried tomato & thyme to wild rice craisin to cardamom bread that brings folks back.  Sally, Karl’s mom, and Karl and a crew of family and friends bake daily during the farmers market season.  Karl starts at 2am mixing dough, others come to form it into loaves and refrigerate it.  It comes out in the afternoon while the ovens heat up and has to “jiggle” just perfectly before it’s put in to bake.

It’s been a round-the-clock all-family members on board effort every summer for eleven years now.  When Karl’s father moved his wood shop out of a large pole building on their rural Mt. Iron property, Karl moved in and started acquiring baking equipment.  Sally shows me antique mixers that came from abandoned bakeries and a huge croissant dough roller that explains the flakiness of Karl’s croissants.  One by one, ovens and refrigerators and huge stainless steel work tables and mixers as tall as me were added to the two-room work area.  A massive fan provides ventilation—no air conditioning here.

They bake under the Cottage Food Law in Minnesota, which allows the sale of non-potentially hazardous baked goods without a retail license, but would eventually like to upgrade to be able to sell to grocery stores and bakeries.  That requires a new septic system and some remodeling to meet commercial kitchen standards.  But Karl’s father died unexpectedly last Valentine’s Day and those plans are on hold for a bit.  He was the expert on bagels and a key part of the baking effort.  Other family members have stepped up to help the endeavor.  (Rest in peace, Vince Jonas.)  It was another relative, Uncle Charlie Jonas, who was a sculptor and also baked artisan breads, who really inspired Karl.  It was Charlie who got the sourdough starter going that Karl still uses today, twenty years later.

Sally says “we call it the Beast because it demands to be fed so often.”  They have a white and a wheat flour starter.  Most of Karl’s Bread is sourdough and that makes it a bit unique.  Sally talks about folks coming to buy the bread for their wheat-sensitive children who can’t eat regular bread.  Sourdough is pretty amazing in that way.  It depends on wild yeasts and lactic acid as it ferments.  A wide variety of beneficial bacteria species thrive in the starter as well, generating acids that yeast can tolerate but that undesirable growths, like mold, cannot.  So “starter” uses biological leavening to produce light, airy bread.  And, in the process, it modifies the elements of wheat flour that are toxic to celiac and wheat-sensitive folks, which is why Sally’s customers buy it for their wheat-sensitive children to enjoy.

If’ you want to pursue the fascinating topic of sourdough starters, check out the Global Sourdough Project, where they’ve studied hundreds of existing starters from all over the world.  (http://robdunnlab.com/projects/sourdough/)  It turns out that wild yeasts, which exist abundantly in all atmospheres, are harvested by the flour and water “slurry” and give you access to all of the characteristics and the flavors and the aromas that come with those different yeasts.  So sourdough will vary from place to place, depending on the wild yeasts that are floating around in the air. A way to use nature’s abundance that I hadn’t really thought about.

Back to the Jonas baking building set out in acres and acres of gorgeous northern Minnesota woods, a cool respite when the building heats up with all the ovens going.  Everyone has a different job here, and it operates around the clock during the farmers market season.  One of the crew specializes in bagging and tagging the baked goods, packing them in Buhl Water boxes, and getting them ready for the Tower, Ely, Hibbing, Grand Rapids, and Virginia farmers markets each week.  Each sale supports the Iron Range economy.  And Karl and Sally buy almost all of the ingredients locally too: flour from Homestead Mills in Cook, flavorings, herbs and seeds from Natural Harvest Food Coop in Virginia, wild rice from Grand Rapids, even the parchment on which each loaf is baked comes from Range Paper.

I asked about “secrets” to how good this bread tastes.  Karl pulls out a stainless steel steamer—the loaves get a shot of steam during the baking process that does something good to the crust.  Sally and Karl also take tips from their customers.  One woman was looking to reproduce a bread she remembered from her childhood.  Each week at the market she would taste and suggest a modification until the bread finally matched her memory of a Swedish multigrain rye with caraway.  That bread is named for her.  Another Finnish rye suggested by a customer uses a buttermilk starter that ferments from Tuesday until Friday before it leavens the loaves.

So visit one of the local farmers markets (you can find their locations and hours at www.arrowheadgrown.org) and sample some Asiago Basil or Jalapeno Cheddar or Apple Bread from Karl’s Bread.  And, if you’re lucky, they might have biscotti or croissants or focaccia or ‘everything” savory bagels that day too.  Yum!

Grown on the Range Profile 29: Farm 53, originally published in Hometown Focus

Asa, age 7, considers his mom to be his business partner, at least as far as the farmers market is concerned.  They participated in the Cottage Food training online together and filled out all the forms together to get their permit as “Farm 53.”  They walk their huge gardens each morning to “pick bugs” and monitor the progress of the raspberries and vegetables.  Sasha Maninga has a food service background and Asa is an aspiring food truck entrepreneur.  He even owns a chef’s hat.  And all this is part of his home schooling at a small farm that Sasha’s parents started in the early 70’s.  They still live there in a large multigenerational house that three related families share, so Asa has many teachers.

The day I visit is sunny and warm and the large fields of clover smell wonderful.  They trade the product of the fields with a nearby farmer for beef.  Towering white pines arch over us as we walk to the garden—one is home to an osprey, another learning opportunity for Asa.  Sasha’s parents never “farmed” the land, so there are no barns or John Deere implements here.  Just many trees, many fields of clover and a very large garden, fenced in to protect from the deer who love this place too.  The garden holds a large raspberry patch that dates back many years, potatoes, beets, onions, tomatoes, savoy cabbage, horseradish and peppers.  There’s also a “tree farm” where the family has started many white pines which are free for the taking to relatives.

They’ve had the soil tested regularly, using the University of Minnesota’s soil testing program (which you can also use, see http://soiltest.cfans.umn.edu/ for forms and instructions).  The soil quality is good and they don’t have to use many amendments except pine needles to acidify the soil for the raspberries.  I see compost bins and rain barrels all around.  But this summer has been terribly dry, and they’ve had to water from their well.  Asa and his mom make jams and jellies, some with hot peppers for additional flavor.  And they bring snacks to the farmers market too—Asa’s favorite is the rocky road bars—I would have to agree with that choice!

According to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, the Cottage Food Law “allows for individuals to make and sell certain non-potentially hazardous food and canned goods in Minnesota without a license.”  The MDA does require registration and training, though.  “All individuals who want to make and sell foods described in the Cottage Food Law need to register with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) before selling food….There are two types of training, one for each sales category: Tier 1 for less than $5,000 annual sales, and Tier 2 for annual sales $5,000 to $18,000. Each training is good for three (3) years, but you must take Tier 2 training prior to selling above $5,000 even if you took Tier 1 training within the past three years.” 

So what is “non-potentially hazardous food”?  That’s a question worth looking into.  The Minnesota Farmers Market Association has a very helpful fact sheet listing what “counts” and what doesn’t, available for download at https://www.mfma.org/resources/Documents/MFMA%20Fact%20Sheet%20NPH%20Foods%20List%20%202019-02-26.pdf.  Examples include fruits and vegetables such as home-canned applesauce and rhubarb and tomatoes.  Pickled and fermented items such as sauerkraut, pickled asparagus and beets and, of course, pickled cucumbers.  And condiments such as vinegar, ketchup, chutney, and salsa.  Cottage Food permits also include baked items such as bars, breads, cookies and pies.  Jams and jellies are permitted as long as the final produce has a Ph more than 4.6.  That’s what Farm 53 specializes in.  You can also make candies and frostings as well as dehydrated and roasted products such as seeds, nuts, coffee beans and granola.  Foods that are never allowed under the Cottage Food permit are meat, eggs, dairy, fish, poultry, and seafood.

Folks who make these things in their home kitchens and sell them at farmers markets throughout the state are required to have a permit.  And the farmers market should have a copy of the vendor’s permit on file.  When a grower begins to add off-farm ingredients to a product, a whole different level of licensing is required.  To begin navigating this, start here:  https://www.mda.state.mn.us/food-feed/food-licenses  All of the area farmers markets (Cook, Tower, Ely, Hibbing, Virginia and Aurora) are looking for more vendors.  Maybe that’s you!

Grown on the Range Profile 28: Covid-19 Sparks Interest in Local Food Sourcing, originally published in Hometown Focus

Being a retired sociologist, I get excited when I see new and innovative research.  When I ran across “Google searches reveal changing consumer food sourcing in the COVID-19 pandemic” last week, I was intrigued.  It turns out this was the first piece of research to use Google Trends analysis to track changing consumer behavior related to food sourcing.  The study showed an upsurge in searches for local, direct options for buying food starting March 1 this spring and continuing to today.  Bringing this closer to home, I’ve had many inquiries via the Local Foods Project Facebook page from folks looking for local meat, eggs, dairy, and produce.

The usual way in which folks access local food is through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program, a farmers market, or a farm stand.  We have several CSAs, a number of farmers markets, and a few farm stands on the Range.  But still, the percentage of total food purchases that is local produced for the average consumer is less than 2%.  In states like Vermont with an active Vermont Farm to Plate initiative, it’s about 7%, significantly higher than 2% but still relatively small.  Compare that to the Victory Gardens initiatives during World Wars I and II.  “In 1942, roughly 15 million families planted victory gardens; by 1944, an estimated 20 million victory gardens produced roughly 8 million tons of food—which was the equivalent of more than 40 percent of all the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States.” (https://www.history.com/news/americas-patriotic-victory-gardens)  Even with the increased interest in home and community gardening, we would have a long way to go to match that proportion.

But there’s another option that has historical precedent, too, and may be the most practical idea yet.  Last year when I interviewed Mark Peterson (Peterson’s Berry Farm) for this column, he told me about working in the fields on his grandpa’s farm near Hwy 53 and transporting all of the produce to Eveleth to be sold at his Uncle’s grocery store.  That was true everywhere—several years ago I met the granddaughter of a Melrude-area rutabaga farmer who told me that her grandparents’ farm supplied rutabagas for all of the Iron Range grocery stores.  That direct grower-to-grocer link deteriorated as it became easier for grocers to order fresh produce from just one or two large distributors, which is a lot simpler than individually contracting with a bunch of local producers.  And those local producers became part of the disappearing family farm statistics. “The United States had between six and seven million farms from 1910 to 1940…. A sharp decline in the number of farms occurred from the 1940s to the 1980s. At the same time, the average farm size more than doubled, from about 150 acres to around 450 acres.”  (Jason Lusk, The Evolution of American Agriculture, 2016)

Today, just a few large distributors provide almost all the needs of our local grocery retailers.  Recently, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Research Program supported the University of Minnesota’s Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships (RSDP) and the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA) in an effort to start building connections among farmers and small, independent grocers.  They produced the Farm to Grocery Toolkit and released it this spring.                 

I attended a Webinar introducing the Toolkit.  Here’s the stated goal: “This Farm to Grocery Toolkit is a resource for farmers and grocers to help facilitate the sale of farm-grown products to grocery stores, particularly those stores in rural Minnesota.”  That’s us—rural Minnesota.  In the U of MN Extension’s 2019 Rural Grocery Survey, the majority of rural grocers said that they want to purchase more local food.  But there are perceived barriers and uncertainties, both on the part of grocers and farmers.  The Toolkit aims to clarify how a farm to rural grocery system can work, within current Minnesota State laws.

For example, lots of folks don’t think that a grocer can buy directly from a farmer, and most of us aren’t clear about related rules from the Mn Department of Agriculture.  Actually, farmers ARE an approved source for sale to grocery stores of produce grown on their own or rented land.  The technical term for this is “product of the farm.”  As long as no off-farm ingredients are added, no license is required.  Farmers who add off-farm ingredients or source some products from other farmers can work with an MDA inspector to get the appropriate license.  The Finland (MN) Food Chain is providing a free Zoominar on “product of the farm” on Saturday July 25, 4-5pm.  You can register soon through their website www.finlandfoodchain.org

Of course, grocers will want to know that the farmers use sanitary facilities and drinkable water when they are washing, trimming or packaging produce.  Farmers often voluntarily take produce safety training and many complete an on-farm food safety plan to summarize their practices and reassure grocers.  Grocery stores can request the farm’s policies about food safety, worker hygiene and other safety-related issues if they wish.  To help reassure grocers, the Minnesota Departments of Agriculture, Health, and the U of MN Extension have published a guide “Selling and Serving Locally Grown Produce in Food Facilities” (z.umn.edu/MDAlocalproduce).  And the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and the Minnesota Farmers Market Association have published Produce fact sheets for farmers to use in marketing their produce (z.umn.edu/sellinglocalproduceMN).

What about meat/poultry? Meat or poultry sold to a grocery retailer must be processed in a Minnesota Equal to processing plant or a USDA processing plant.  Again, adding off-farm ingredients requires an MDA Food Handler License.  Fact sheets are available about selling meat and poultry legally at z.umn.edu/localmeat and misadocuments.info/LFAC_local_poultry.pdf.  Selling eggs does not require a license if the eggs come from the farmer’s own farm with less than 3,000 hens.  Farmers are required to candle, grade, pack and label the eggs and refrigerate at 50F before processing and 45F after processing.

The Toolkit contains guidance on selling grains, dry beans, dairy, honey and maple syrup and bakery from the farm to a grocer as well.  There are templates for an on-farm Food Safety Plan and links to many FDA guidelines in addition to advice on pricing and purchasing.  There’s an analysis of different pathways for sales: store buys and resells vs. farmer rents shelf space in store vs. consignment arrangements.  There are even sample product labels and sample invoices.  It’s a very complete toolkit useful to both grocers and farmers.  The Toolkit is free and can be downloaded at http://misadocuments.info/Farm_to_Grocery_Toolkit.pdf.

Grown on the Range Profile 27: Fat Chicken Farm, originally published in Hometown Focus

When Janna Goerdt bought an old dairy farm near Embarrass in 2001, she didn’t realize that the huge flat piece down the hill by the Pike River had excellent soil.  It wasn’t until 2009 that she started to farm and named it Fat Chicken Farm.  She had all kinds of vegetables as well as chickens and bees.  In 2010, she started selling at the Tower Farmers Market and Natural Harvest Food Coop in Virginia.  Then she formed a CSA--community supported agriculture—where community members buy a share in a farm in exchange for a basket of produce each week for a season.  I bought a share from her in about 2012 before our gardens were bearing enough to feed us.  What I remember about Fat Chicken Farm CSA is the personal connection—Janna delivers her own shares every Monday and visits with each of her customers.  She knows which produce they like and which they don’t.  She meets them in their homes.  I looked forward to that brief Monday afternoon chat with a woman who clearly worked the land herself—Janna’s hands are a farmer’s hands for sure.  And her smile is a bright light.

She doesn’t make a living with farming, but she doesn’t lose, either.  Her inputs are low, she explains.  She is the only laborer for this huge expanse of hoop houses and gardens.  She has no tractor, no bank loan, just her own dedication and energy.  This year she is sold out at 20 CSA shares, a small operation by most standards.  She used to raise and sell chickens too, hence the farm’s name.  But when her 6-year old twins were born, that part ended.  She still has 25 laying hens and bees.  Early CSA share deliveries will include eggs.  And she makes jellies and jams and honey for the Tower Farmers Market.

I remember my friend Toni Nemanick reading me a tale of racoon predators from Janna’s newsletter last summer—it was apparently quite a challenge.  Toni loved that the newsletter told the story of the farm, too.  I asked Toni about being one of Janna’s CSA customers.  Here’s what she said: “After years of knowing about CSA, it wasn’t until 2019 that I bought my first share in one. Actually, I bought a half share, which meant a home delivery by Fat Chicken Farms every two weeks.  One of the best things about this is that Janna includes a newsletter in every basket: a personal story, what’s in the basket, and recipes!!! I was able to cook with new produce - which was great - and also use familiar vegetables in new ways. I am so looking forward to this year’s blue basket coming to my porch.”

This spring presented quite a challenge for planting.  Janna’s husband, Tim, is a science teacher and in March, he began, like all the other teachers, to work from home. The 6-year-old twins were home, too, and Janna’s time for concentrating on starting plants in the greenhouse and the eventual labor-intensive planting outside were was severely curtailed.  They day I visited the farm, she was planting tomatoes and most of the other crops were up, but there was still a week of school left.  I know that Janna’s CSA customers will understand if things are a bit slow to start.  The boys love to garden, though, and are learning to help, and you can imagine a 6—year old’s help.  Janna says that she “grew up in a garden” (in Iron, MN) and wants her boys to grow up in one, too.  I’d say they have a great start.

Fat Chicken Farm’s June 9 delivery will likely include lettuce, asparagus, kale, chard, spinach, eggs, and carrots overwintered in the amazing root cellar at Dawn Trexel-Kroll’s farm.  That’s a story for whole other column—a huge, above-ground root cellar built into a hill. We’ve lost two other CSA’s in our region these past 2 years—Owl Forest Farm and Northern Delicious, so I ask Janna why she keeps on?  “I love bringing a basket of beautiful food to people who love good food,” she says, and it’s about “connection—it’s so wonderful to give good food to good people.”  Janna delivers to customers in Eveleth, Virginia, Biwabik, Ely, Tower, Britt and south of Eveleth.

I ask what crops she doesn’t grow and which is her favorite.  She doesn’t grow sweet corn—it takes so much space and is widely available at stands in our area.  She doesn’t grow much fruit but barters with Mark Peterson’s Berry Farm to offer berries.  Her favorite crop is a sweet melon named “savor charantais.”  I ask her what her customers are most excited about—“sugar snap peas” wins the contest.  I learned how to use pea shoots and garlic scapes from Janna….there’s no end to what you can do with a fine CSA basket!  You can find Janna at the Tower Farmers Market which opens Friday, June 19, 4-6 in the Train Depot Parking lot and at www.fatchickenfarm.com   

Grown on the Range Profile 26: Rice River Holsteins, originally published in Hometown Focus

“It” ends up as delectable artisan cheese, handcrafted by cheesemakers at Burnett Dairy Cooperative in Grantsburg, Wisconsin.  “It” starts out as 220 acres of oats, barley, alfalfa and red clover with another 900 acres in hay--clover, grasses and native Minnesota birds foot trefoil.  Add a bit of corn, wheat, a soybean and canola meal vitamin and mineral supplement and water and you have the ingredients.  What is “it”?  Milk!  Now all you need is 70 registered Holstein milk cows, a very large red barn, 150 acres of pasture, and the Pearson family to tend them.  And tending them is way more than one full-time job.  Jeff Pearson, his wife Lisha, their three daughters and often Grandma Peggy and Grandpa Marvin can be found in the barn, twice a day, every single day.  And that’s in addition to growing their feed and caring for the 50 beef cows out on pasture.

Jeff’s great grandfather started this all, in Cook, Minnesota, on the site of what is now the Cook hospital.  His descendants carried it on, down through Marvin and Peggy Pearson, who started farming at this location when they married 50 years ago this summer.  The present barn is from the 1960’s, and the farm is Rice River Holsteins. It spans 1,300 acres in the Angora, Minnesota area.  Burnett Dairy Cooperative picks up 9,000 pounds of milk every other day from the milk house here.  The milk, from 70 cows, is secured through milking machines attached to each cow for about 7 minutes, twice a day, and piped through stainless steel tubing to the milk house where it is cooled from the 102 degree cow temperature, via compressor, to 38 degrees, then stored in a stainless steel tank.    

Each cow has a name, the first letter of which designates the family from which she originated.  And above her stall is a card with her name, her parentage, three generations back records on pedigree for each cow, and data about her milk.  The average age of the milk cows in this barn is 4 ½ years.  And each cow has a point score, with 97 being the highest, for milk quality.  Bernie, the cow behind which I’m standing, scores an 87.  When I visit, it’s milking time.  The milking machines can do 6 cows at a time, taking about 7 minutes per cow.  It takes almost two hours to milk all 70 cows and another 30 minutes to clean up.  Each cow yields about 70 pounds of milk per milking, or about 140 pound of milk per day.  On the day I visit, Jeff, his wife Lisha, their three daughters, and grandma are all working in the barn.

Two calves were born last night.  The oldest daughter feeds them bottles of colostrum.  All of the heifers stay here on the farm, they sell a few bull calves, and the rest go to pasture here as beef cattle.  So each of the 70 Holsteins being milked was born here. The younger girls take me on a tour.  Barn cats are everywhere and very friendly.  I climb the precarious ladder to the hayloft to follow the girls.  Above this enormous barn is a magical loft, a vast area, with tiny holes in the roofing that make it look like stars are shining through.  They love this part of the barn.  I ask how young they were when they started helping—about 3 is the answer I get.  They’re very much at home here in the barn, and they take these skills with them to 4-H, where they win prizes for their work.  They are worried about whether we will have a State Fair this year with the Covid 19 restrictions.  They will miss it very much if we don’t.

The cows have been in for the winter, 24/7, but they’ll be out on pasture soon.  Initially, they go out during the day, until the bugs get bad, then they go out at night.  A welcome relief, I’m sure, from the tethered stall they occupy the rest of the time. I wonder how 70 cows exit the barn and go out to pasture?  It’s a pretty orderly affair, I’m told.  They know their way out and come back, each to her own stall. They eat and drink at the head of their stall and pee and poop at the tail end, into a conveyor belt “barn cleaner” that moves the excrement out.  Being at the tail end observing, I’m advised to stand back.  I do!  They drink out of automatic waterers, two cows sharing a waterer.  And they consume and average of 28 pounds of corn, oats, wheat and a high protein and mineral supplement along with about 60 pounds of haylage every day.  Jeff Pearson grows almost all of what they consume, buying only corn and the protein and mineral supplement.  Silos connected to the barn and the huge hayloft store the summer’s harvest for winter feed.

The girls tell me about an annual event, every September, when the barn is emptied, power washed and whitewashed.  I can’t imagine what that would take.  This barn is huge!  They say it takes a whole day of work by the whole family.  Manure management, on the other hand, is an ongoing operation.  Most dairy farms manage the manure so that it can be used as fertilizer for the planted fields.  Rice River Holsteins does the same: the barn cleaner system pumps it into a nearby pit and then it’s spread on the tilled fields each year, feeding the crops that feed the cows.  The 220 tilled acres are rotated throughout the farm each year.  Every process forms a closed loop.

Back to that cheese that’s made from the milk of the cows I just met.  It’s made in Wisconsin, no surprise, as Minnesota isn’t known for its cheese making.  But, in 1885, there were 46 cheese factories in our state!  I wonder if we’ll come back around to that as the local food movement grows.  The Iron Range could broaden its production to artisanal cheeses.  I can see it now…..”Iron Cow Cheddar,” “Laurentian Gouda”…..  Until that happens, you can buy milk directly from Rice River Holsteins and make your own Iron Range cheese.  Or you can look for Burnett Dairy brand cheese at your local store.

Grown on the Range Profile 25: Beekeepers Battling Minnesota Winters, originally published in Hometown Focus

During these difficult months of Covid 19 caution and distancing, I wanted to write about something sweet—don’t we all need a little sweetness about now?  So I called a few local beekeepers about their work with bees.  Honeybees are just one type of bee.  There are over 20,000 bee species worldwide, and about 4,000 species in North America.  Most bees don’t live in hives or make honey—that’s the specialty of the honeybees.  But all bees do the critical work of pollinating as they gather nectar.  Bees pollinate 80 percent of all flowering plants, including about 75 percent of the fruits, nuts, and vegetables grown in the United States.  Honeybees pollinate just under half of that 75 percent.

Beekeepers in northern Minnesota share a common challenge: keeping their hives alive through the harsh winters.  Bees maintain a temperature of 92-93 degrees in their central nest regardless of the outside temperature.  Drones leave the hive before winter, but the queen and worker bees remain.  Worker bees born in the early spring live about 4 weeks and are constantly being replaced.  But worker bees born later in the season are called “winter bees” and live much longer because they have more fat in their bodies.  Bees don’t hibernate, so they’re active all winter, and they’re cold blooded, so they stay warm by clustering in a ball and feeding the larvae.  They must have enough to eat or they will die.  The preferred food is their own honey and the pollen they’ve gathered.  Some beekeepers overwinter their hives inside a building for protection from cold wind and snow.  Some leave the hives outside but cover portions of it in black paper to absorb the sun’s heat and transfer it to the hive.  The bees stay in the hive during the winter except for “cleansing flights” to excrete bodily waste.

Janna Goerdt of Fat Chicken Farm successfully overwinters her bees in neighbor Ed Kuehl’s Morton building.  She keeps 3 hives of “Minnesota Hygienic” bees, a strain developed at the University of Minnesota to be better at removing parasites.  Matt Pliml who tends bees at his parents’ Wild Winds Farm near Cook had to start over with new bees this spring—last year’s breed was too aggressive.  He’s trying Saskatraz bees this year, a new variety that’s supposed to be winter hardy and less aggressive.  He tends 12 hives in three locations.

A hive consists of one queen bee who can live 3-4 years, thousands of female worker bees who live 4 weeks in the spring but up to 6 months during the winter, and several hundred male drones whose only job is to mate with the a queen, for a total population of 20,000 to 60,000 bees at the hive’s busiest time during the summer.  The queen goes out on a mating flight and mates with drones from another hive, then comes home and stays put.  The queen can lay up to 2,500 eggs a day during the height of the season.  Worker bees feed her and care for her.  They are also the ones who forage for nectar and pollen by visiting 50 to 100 flowers during each trip from the hive.  They collect pollen on their legs and nectar in their stomachs and return to the hive to store the pollen, mixing it with honey to make “bee bread,” their summer food supply, and process the nectar into honey.  It takes nectar from two million flowers to produce one pound of honey.  Collectively, the worker bees fly 90,000 miles to make that pound of honey. 

Honeybees also make propolis by mixing saliva and beeswax with the sap of poplars and evergreens.  Propolis is an amazing substance—it is antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal—it keeps the hive sterile.  It’s also a sealant that bees use to cover unwanted openings in the hive. Some beekeepers gather it and make a medicinal propolis tincture.  When applied to wounds, it acts as an antibacterial bandage, sealing over the wound.  Honey itself has been used medicinally for centuries, particularly in wound care, in treating diarrhea, in preventing infections, and as an effective cough remedy.  And the world’s oldest known alcoholic beverage, mead, is made from fermented honey and water.

Bees seem like a miracle insect.   But there are problems too.  Bears, racoons, and skunks are predators.  And mites: the varroa mite is the bane of beekeepers.  All of the northern beekeepers I spoke with have dealt with mites.  One treatment consists of gently raising the temperature in the hive to 107.6 degrees Fahrenheit which will kill mites but not bees.  There are also chemical treatments using either synthetic or natural ingredients.  And an oxalic acid vaporizer used over several weeks can kill mites.  Some beekeepers suggest making the bottom of the hive out of screen so that when the bees groom the mites off, they fall down through the hive and out through the screen.  Besides mites, there is also colony collapse disorder, with no sure cause.  And then there are neonicotinoid insecticides, widely used residentially and in agriculture, which are suspected of harming bee populations. 

Healthy bees are fascinating to watch, and to listen to.  An average bee weighs 0.00025 pounds, or about 15 pounds for 60,000 bees.  Their wings beat 11,400 times per minute—that’s why we hear a buzz when they fly by.  They fly at about 15 miles per hour.  They make beeswax using special glands on the underside of their abdomens.  And they communicate with each other by dancing!  When a bee finds a good nectar source, she flies back to the hive and performs a dance showing the location of the nectar in relation to the sun and the hive.  A honey bee’s brain is about the size of a sesame seed, but it can learn and remember things, calculate distance and foraging efficiency.  And honeybees don’t naturally sting unless they’ve been threatened.

The beekeepers I talked with like honey, but it’s more than that.  Janna Goerdt told me “I like honey well enough, but I really keep bees because I like being around bees. The best thing about beekeeping, to me, is watching bees go about their business, and marveling at how wonderful they are. The honey and pollinating benefits they provide are just a little bonus.”  Matt Pliml maintains three locations of hives and notices how different the honey tastes depending on the flowers that are available.  He feels a sense of accomplishment at the end of the season when the colonies have thrived.  In 2019, he harvested 30 gallons of honey.

If you want to support beekeepers, you can often find their honey at farmers markets.  Matt’s parents sell his honey at the Cook Area Farmers Market and Janna sells hers at the Tower Farmers Market.  If you want to support all of those other wild bees that make our food possible, leave the dandelion blossoms for them—it’s one of the earliest foods they can find.

Grown on the Range Profile 24: Local Food Systems Through the Lens of Cataclysm, originally published in Hometown Focus

Sometimes it takes something cataclysmic to help us see how interdependent we all are, and how globally interconnected our economy is.  It seems that we’re in such a situation right now with Covid 19.  This column is about local food, about growers on the Iron Range who can provide many of our food needs and grow our local economy in the process.  So let’s take a moment to look at local food systems through the lens of cataclysm.

If you ate a banana for breakfast or tomatoes on your salad for lunch today, they might have come from outside the U.S., especially since it’s winter here.  Will the supply chains function when borders are closed?  Will production workers, either in California or Mexico or Honduras stay well enough to tend and harvest the produce?  We’ve seen severe international supply chain disruptions in personal protective equipment lately.  And we’ve read about how many of our critical drugs are manufactured in China.  Here’s a headline from February 28: “With most drug ingredients coming from China, FDA says shortages have begun.”  We are learning the vulnerability of international supply chains now.

Folks propose solutions like “make more of what we need in the U.S.” which makes sense, but would take years to ramp up, given our abundant but distant existing supply chains.  In the case of food supplies, we would need to ramp up, too.  That’s what the whole local food movement is about.  Increasing demand for local food so that farmers know that they can sell what they grow—and increasing farm production of food for humans so that we eaters know that we can get what we need locally.  But that would take some adjustment on consumers’ part.  We would need to learn to eat what can grow locally and to eat seasonally.  That’s a challenge!  No bananas for breakfast--how about berries, apples, cherries frozen from Minnesota’s summer harvest?  Maybe hothouse tomatoes for those winter salads and hydroponic or aeroponic lettuce?  Top the salad off with microgreens from your own stash?

Microgreens in my basement grow room.

At my house, we have a small soil sprout/microgreen operation in our basement under grow lights.  That gives us fresh sunflower, radish, mung bean, pea, broccoli, adzuki, fenugreek, lentil, kale…..a huge variety of microgreens that are about 2 inches tall when we cut them.  They use less water and soil than fully mature vegetables grown here or in California, and they don’t have to be transported by truck.  We also grow lettuce, arugula, basil, and mizuna for salads.  Here’s a book that gives easy-to-follow steps for growing your own microgreens: “Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening” by Peter Burke, Chelsea Green Publishing.  You don’t even need grow lights—window sills will do!

Back to supply chains and local food.  Americans eat mostly U.S.-produced food, though the percent of imported foods has doubled from 1993 to now.  But, generally, 82% of what we eat was produced in the U.S.  Will U.S. supply chains experience difficulties?  Here’s a headline from March 18: “COVID-19 Threatens Food Supply Chain As Farms Worry About Workers Falling Ill.”  U.S. farms employ hundreds of thousands of seasonal workers, mostly from Mexico, who enter the country on H-2A visas. What will the impact of the coronavirus on seasonal workers be?  On local workers as states order residents to shelter in place?  We don’t know.

Through this lens of cataclysm, what becomes apparent is that it might be smart to focus on local food.  For example, on the Iron Range, we have local milk and butter available through Dahl’s Dairy.  We have lots of local farmers selling eggs.  Ask around, and if you can’t find anyone, check out the Iron Range Grown page on Facebook.  You can post a request there and get answers from area growers.  We have local honey and maple syrup and wild rice up here in northern Minnesota—read the label to make sure it’s local or regional.  And we have local meat producers.  I’ve profiled a number of them in this column in the past months.  You can get grass-fed beef and pork, or corn-fed without antibiotics, free range chickens fed organic and/or non-GMO feed, duck and lamb all grown locally. 

When you buy locally, you can choose producers that meet your standards.  For example, I buy grass fed beef, free range chickens fed non-GMO feed, and pastured pork.  But others might not care about pasturing or free ranging and just want meat from animals not dosed with antibiotics.  Meet and dairy are available all winter, too, on the Range.  Our challenge up here is that we don’t have nearby U.S.D.A. meat processors, so local farmers have to travel fair distances to get their meat processed.  If we had a local processor, our meat could be even less expensive by conserving on fuel for transport.  But it is still available.

Having local veggies with your meat in the winter here requires that you either grew them and preserved them or bought them from a farmer and preserved them.  There’s a renewed interest in canning and dehydrating summer’s bounty for the lean months.  Just like our grandmothers did.  But as we get closer to growing season here, farmers markets will be open and offering what’s in season.  In northern Minnesota, that means rhubarb, radishes, lettuce, spinach, and some herbs early in the season.  You won’t find tomatoes until the end of July and sweet corn until well into August.  That’s frustrating for many farmers market shoppers, I know.  I manage the Virginia Market Square Farmers Market and we always have folks asking for tomatoes in June.

If you do find tomatoes in June at a farmers market or farm stand, they’re either hydroponic or grown farther south and re-sold here.  Many farmers markets apply a distance rule for their vendors to insure that the produce being sold is really local.  In Virginia, we use a 50 mile radius—your product must be grown or made within 50 miles of Virginia in order to be sold at Virginia Market Square.   Yes, that inconveniences customers who want sweet corn in June, but it does something positive and far more significant for the local economy.  It keeps our food dollars here in our region, going into the pockets of farmers who grow right here.

I’ve mentioned many times the local food study commissioned by the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability and published in 2018.  That study concluded that, if we bought just 20% of our food locally, we could generate 248-694 local jobs and keep $51 million per year in our local economy.  Now seems like a good time to set that goal and go for it!

Grown on the Range Profile 23: Diamond Willow Corral, originally published in Hometown Focus

Chad Hofsommer runs a birth-to-freezer operation, raising grass fed Texas Longhorns and hogs on pasture.  He doesn’t like the U.S.D.A. organic label because he doesn’t think it’s strict enough.  He gives me an example: The USDA Organic standards for meat specify this: Ruminants must be out on pasture for the entire grazing season, but for not less than 120 days. These animals must also receive at least 30 percent of their feed, or dry matter intake (DMI), from pasture.” On this farm, animals are outside 365 days and 90% of their feed is from pasture, supplemented with non-GMO barley which is high in Omega 3.  He even uses a natural mineral mix that he has designed.  He’s not certified organic.  But he sells directly to customers who are welcome to come visit the farm and see how the animals are fed and cared for.

On the day I visited, it was a “balmy” 38 degrees after a long winter.  I got to meet the 2200-pound bull Romeo, a polled “Ballancer” breed who was lying down in the hay with the three week-old calves, allowing them to snuggle with him.  Chad’s wife Tammy tells me that the “ladies love Romeo” and regularly lick his coat.  Calves on this farm stay with their mothers 7-8 months, until the mother is pregnant again, and then they’re weaned.  The “ladies” are friendly and come right up to the fence where Tammy has treats.  They’re in one segment of a pie-shaped 160 acres divided into “pie pieces,” each piece a fenced pasture.  During grazing season, they move from one segment of pasture to the next each week, eating what grows there naturally and fertilizing it and tilling it while they’re munching.

Chad doesn’t vaccinate because the cattle don’t get sick.  The combination of grazing, winter hay and minerals and fresh air keeps them healthy.  They’re adapted to this climate and do well outside with windbreaks that Chad builds and places strategically.  They’re 24-30 months old at slaughter.  Chad slaughters right on the farm and hangs the meat in a walk-in cooler until he takes it to the processor in Floodwood.  He believes that eliminating the cow’s stressful ride to the butcher yields better tasting meat and is more kind to the animals.  Floodwood Custom Meats does the cutting and packaging.  Chad does the same thing for his hogs.

I meet the boar, a handsome Hereford who is lounging in his own large outdoor pen on the day I visit.  He’s a friendly guy who also comes to the fence to greet us. The sows farrow twice a year, giving birth in one of two heated, insulated “dorms”, essentially birthing rooms in the barn.  I get to meet a 3-week old litter of piglets, still living in the dorm with mom.  The pregnant sows who are about a month from birthing are across the “hall” in large pens with beds of hay, waiting their turn.  Chad keeps some but also sells feeder pigs.

About half of the remaining hogs are out on winter pasture in a huge open field with a shed.  There’s still snow on the ground, so they’re getting hay regularly, barley snacks, and the mineral mix.  But soon they’ll be out on pasture again.  The other half are in a large pole barn with ends that open.  There’s a mix of young (the fall piglets) and some old here, and this has been their winter housing as the doors can close for wind protection.  Today they’re out and about in a fenced area surrounding the barn.  Some are playing with the large spools that Chad leaves for them to push around.  These hogs all have their full tails and full ears—no tail docking here--they have enough space that there’s no danger of them biting off tails or ears.  The hogs rotate in and out of this barn depending on age, season and slaughtering schedule; the ones I’ve met today will be moving soon.

Across the road, Tammy trains horses and gives lessons….there’s no shortage of animals here at Diamond Willow Corral!  Chad and Tammy don’t grow their own hay—Chad selectively buys it from like-minded farmers nearby and in central Minnesota.  Last year a relative harvested hay after planting oats and the huge round bales looked like “chia pets” with green oats sprouting all over each one.  The pigs loved it.  And the pastures are mostly full of what grows there naturally.  If the soil needs a deep-rooted cover crop for soil health, Chad just mixes the seed into the minerals and the animals ingest it and plant it in the pasture with fertilizer.

There’s no shortage of manure here, either!  The manure from barns or pens where cattle or hogs are temporarily housed is collected and composted for the gardens and pastures.  Chad saves the Longhorn hides and heads when he kills the animals.  There’s a market for handsome longhorn skulls with wide curved horns.  And there used to be a market for the hides.  Chad is salting and keeping the hides he harvests now for when the market bounces back again.

Like most other farmers on the Range, Chad holds an off-farm job to provide health insurance and to supplement the farm income.  But raising these animals is his passion.  He’s always looking for new customers.  You can find him on Facebook at Diamond Willow Corral, but he’d much prefer an old-fashioned phone call at 218-638-2233.  I brought home some pork chops, beef, and bacon to sample.  They were great!  Excellent taste and a good price too.  Remember, buying local supports our economy right here where we live.

Grown on the Range Profile 22: Bryndlewood Urban Farm, originally published in Hometown Focus

Brynden’s grandparents were founding members of the Grand Rapids Farmers Market.  Their homestead is just down the road from Brynden and Will’s urban farm.  And Brynden’s parents, right next door, had always gardened and maintained a large sugar bush.  In 2010, her father put up a good-sized high tunnel just when she returned home from college.  She started growing vegetables at her parents’ property and soon bought the house next door.  It’s within the city limits of Grand Rapids, but, together with her parents and grandparents places, spans about 110 acres, mostly wooded.  This has become Bryndlewood Gardens.

In 2012, Brynden started selling at the Grand Rapids Farmers Market, marketing her produce as “clean grown.”  That means no chemicals, no synthetic fertilizers, and no pesticides.  With the high tunnel, enclosed at each end and heated, she was able to extend her growing season substantially and offer greens early in the summer.  This past winter, that high tunnel served as a chicken run with an insulated portable coop attached to the south end.  The 80 or so ISA Browns scratched and fertilized the soil, eating up any remaining insects and insect eggs, while laying 50-60 eggs a day during the winter months.  The chickens move from tunnel to tunnel, building soil and controlling potential pests.  There are now three more tunnels and another frame ready to cover.  The day I visited, the hens had just moved from their winter tunnel to a new one and were enjoying the sunshine in their temporary home while their summer run is being readied.

The plants move from tunnel to tunnel too, a sort of crop rotation throughout the season with multiple re-plantings.  All of the hoop houses, ranging from 30x50 to 30x104, have double plastic covering, enclosed ends and heating sources, so they’re more like greenhouses.  Some came from the Twin Cities, bought at a bargain from a business that was liquidating, disassembled and moved north and reassembled on site.  The germination house is a repurposed institutional cooler from a local gas station.  Its glass doors form the south side and take in sun and heat all day.  It’s warm and damp, with a crushed rock floor and fans for circulation.  It smells faintly of fish emulsion fertilizer and its color greens more each day as the 40-plus flats of new shoots come up in the March sun.

Along the way, Brynden met Will Lenius and Will jumped head first into the farming endeavor as well as renovating the house Brynden had bought.  They were married in 2017 in one of the hoop houses planted with colorful flowers to form the side walls.  The couple built 20 banquet tables, filling the high tunnel, and grew all the food for the wedding celebration meal.  How cool is that?

While there are large outside gardens too, most of Bryndlewood Gardens’ produce is grown on less than an acre inside the greenhouses.  And the produce is abundant!  Brynden remembers her grandfather growing 2-pound onions and has matched that with hers.  The summer offerings coming from Bryndlewood include many varieties of heirloom tomatoes, bell peppers, leeks and sweet onions, cucumbers, zucchini, loose-leaf lettuce, head lettuce, radishes, broccoli, kale/chard, celery, carrots, summer and winter squash, peas, green beans, rhubarb, and an amazing array of fresh cut flowers, bedding plants, and, of course, farm-fresh eggs.

Brynden spends full time on the farm in addition to caring for their young daughter and Will has a full-time off-farm job.  That’s typical for northeastern Minnesota farms.  And they have lots of help: both Brynden and Will’s families regularly pitch in to keep the operation going.  From bleaching and sanitizing planting flats to cleaning out the chicken runs, there’s always something to do.  All of the planting, harvesting, and weeding is done by hand.  Drip irrigation keeps the greenhouses watered, but all the natural fertilizer is applied by hand.  And every vegetable picked has to be washed and bundled for sale.

Winter chores are a bit less, but it takes a fair amount of effort to keep the heavy snow from collapsing the tunnels.  And then there’s the buildup of snow around the sides that has to be removed in the spring.  A free-standing array of 40 solar panels as well as 16 panels on the house helps offset the energy costs of this operation, especially during the winter.  But the winter isn’t actually all that long when you’re extending the season in greenhouses.  Planting starts in February and transplanting in March.   Last spring, the first harvest was picked by May 7 and included all kinds of greens—spinach, chard, leaf broccoli—and radishes.  Bedding plants galore were ready by May 10. 

And the season extends all the way to October with high tunnel greenhouses, so “winter” when little grows is really only about 4 months.  The chickens keep laying, though, and there’s a weekly pick-up to prepare for.  But life is never dull.  Brynden and Will are also active supporters of Grand Rapids’ new Free Range Food Coop.  According to its Facebook page, “Free Range Food Co-op is a start-up food co-op currently being organized in the Grand Rapids area by community members who want better access to local, organic and natural foods and goods. Free Range Food Co-op will be a full service, community-owned grocery store that will provide affordable, healthy, local, organic and sustainable food and products. Free Range Food Co-op will be a place to shop for healthy food and products, as well as a welcoming and friendly community space for people to gather. The co-op will be a leader in socially responsible and sustainable business practices in all aspects of its operations and will collaborate with others in working toward positive environmental and social goals for our community.”

You can find more information about the Free Range Food Coop and the Grand Rapids Farmers Market on Facebook and at https://freerangefood.coop/ and http://www.grfarmersmarket.org/ .  And you can visit Bryndlewood on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Bryndlewood/ .