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/ .

Grown on the Range Profile 21: Minnesota Milk: Dahl's Sunrise Dairy, originally published in Hometown Focus

March is Minnesota month and our state beverage is milk!  There’s a good reason for that.  Minnesota ranks 8th in the nation in milk production, contributing almost 5% of the country’s total at 9,868,000,000 pounds per year.  We got our start in the 1870’s, when farm diversification in Minnesota began to move our state away from wheat production to a broader array of farm products.  Before that, most Minnesota farms had a cow or two for home use but when farmers started adding dairy cattle, the “milk check” improved farm cash flow and dairying was seen as a good replacement for wheat.  Minnesota saw its first cheese factory in Owatonna in 1868, but Wisconsin was capturing the cheese market.  The butter market was wide open, though, and farmers wanted the butter by-product, skim milk, for calf and hog feed.

Consequently, the late 1870’s saw Minnesota’s first creameries.  By 1898, the state had 664!  A few inventions helped spur that number.  Wendelin Grimm emigrated from Germany, bringing a bag of alfalfa seeds called “everlasting clover,” with him.  In 1858 he planted them and, when much of the crop froze out, kept the seeds of the survivors and developed a winter-hardy alfalfa that could feed dairy cattle.  In 1871, Pasteur invented pasteurization.  In 1878 the Minnesota Dairyman’s Association was formed followed by the Minnesota Butter and Cheese Association in 1882.  In 1880, the Warren Milk Bottle was patented with this slogan “Nothing But Glass in Contact With the Milk.”  In 1884, a hand-cranked centrifugal cream separator was introduced and in 1890 S.M. Babcock developed a test for butterfat in milk.  In 1889 the first silos were built, and that allowed farmers to preserve green fodder for their dairy herds.  Minnesota farmers began to form cooperative creameries (replacing the privately owned ones) in the 1890’s, and dairy marketing expanded exponentially.

In 1891 the University of Minnesota established a dairy school under T.L. Haecker who is considered the father of Minnesota Dairying.  In 1895, the USDA established a dairy division and in 1905 the first milking machine was marketed, though most milking continued to be done by hand.  By 1910, Minnesota was considered a premier dairy state along with Wisconsin, New York and California.  Although much of the dairying took place in southern and central Minnesota, in 1910 there were approximately 5,500 dairy cows in St. Louis County.  As late as 1993, northern Minnesota still had 685 dairy farms with an average size of 45 cows.  The number of American dairy farms dropped 93% from 1970-2018 and Minnesota was no exception.  Factory farms and giant milk producers took over.

So it’s actually pretty cool that we still have four dairy farms left in St. Louis County!  Dahl’s Sunrise Dairy buys from each of them, to the tune of 16,000 pounds of milk each week.  Burnett Dairy of Wisconsin owns the collection vehicles and takes whatever Dahl’s can’t use to make cheese (hmmm, what if we had a cheese factory here?).  Dahl’s processes the raw milk at its plant in Babbitt where the milk is stored in bulk tanks for a couple of hours while the machines gear up.  First, a centrifuge separates the skim and cream.  Then the skim is put into the system, pasteurized and homogenized, with cream added back in to make the 1%, 2% and whole milk varieties.  Finally the milk is bottled in sustainable re-usable glass bottles at a rate of 3,000 bottles each week: 500 cases of local milk.  One delivery driver brings the milk to 300 homes and A.J. Arntz, owner with his brother Nick, delivers to 13 Super One stores, Whole Foods, Natural Harvest, and restaurants and bakeries across the Range.

And, of course, the rest of that cream goes into making Dahl’s award-winning (Minnesota State Fair) butter.  Here’s how it’s described on their website. “Rich, sweet and creamy, with a higher butterfat content (85%) versus regular butter (80%) and an extremely low moisture level made by churning cream slower and longer in an age-old tradition of fine European butters. It has a creamier taste and a silkier texture. Low-moisture, high butterfat and only 1% salt content makes this a ‘chefs’ choice. We make our butter weekly in our old-fashioned 1950’s butter churn.”  Next month, Dahl’s butter will make its debut in a new cardboard carton, doing away with the plastic containers, a good move for sustainability.  Another move toward sustainability is re-using and upscaling expired milk into soap and candles.  Jackie Haigh of Goodland takes Dahl’s expired milk and makes Dahl’s Sunrise Dairy Hand-crafted Milk Soap.  And they’ve just found a candlemaker to turn it into candles with local beeswax---coming soon! 

A.J. and Nick Arntz bought the dairy from Wayne Dahl about six years ago.  Wayne started the dairy in 1994, running it out of his house at first, then building the processing facility in Babbitt shortly thereafter.  It grew with the acquisition of Blue Valley Dairy, Sipola Dairy, Midwest Dairy retail routes, Ely Dairy, Velvet Freeze Ice Cream and Calvin Johnson Dairy.  A.J. and Nick have recently been working with graphic designer Matthew Jankila on updating the logo and packaging to market the products as locally-made.  And they take pride in using only milk from cows not treated with the rBST growth hormone.

The Iron Range doesn’t have many food processors.  There’s a need for more value-added processors to take what we can grow and produce here and make it marketable.  Dahl’s is a good example of one such successful enterprise.

Grown on the Range Profile 20: Helstrom Farms, originally published in Hometown Focus

“Create a legacy of care for the health of our land and livestock and community using regenerative practices…to carry on for future generations.”  Ten years ago, Jason Helstrom wouldn’t have dreamed that he would write a mission statement like this for Helstrom Farms.  He and his father, Mike, ran a traditional cow-calf operation, employing the best available chemicals: fertilizers, antibiotics, supplements, vaccines, hormones, heavy tillage, and a high-grain diet for their cattle.  Until Mike attended a Minnesota Sustainable Farming Association grazing conference in 2009 where he heard Greg Judy talk about “mob grazing.”  Mike called Jason and said “you’ve got to get over here and hear this guy.”  And that changed everything.

Helstrom Farms went from what Mike and Jason call “working against nature” to working with nature “so that the natural progression and processes of nature could run their course on the Helstrom farm.”  It was gradual, or course, and it involved lots of experimentation.  They now use no chemicals in their operation and very little tillage.  Their 250 cattle are tools for repairing abused and depleted soil and turning it into verdant pasture, which in turn feeds this herd an abundant mix of native grasses and forbs.  Their Black Angus cattle are bred for surviving Minnesota winters and, as each year passes, the herd becomes even more adapted to their farm near Hibbing.  When I visited, the cattle were out in a massive snowy field with large round bales of Helstrom Farms hay to munch all day.  And, of course their presence here prepares the soil for the spring.

In May, they’ll begin the daily grazing moves to fresh grasses with each move.  “Mob grazing,” short-duration, high-intensity grazing where the cattle eat the tops of the forage where all the energy is and tramp the rest into the ground where it provides nutrients and protects the soil from sun and erosion.  Of course they leave behind their urine and manure too which fertilizes the soil.  In 30-90 days, the grasses and forbs have replenished and are grazed again.  The Helstroms own 300 acres and rent another 500 and it’s all managed naturally with the help of animals.  The cattle are so easy to move that even Jason and Charity’s children can help.  It’s a matter of reeling in a plastic line and a polybraid wire and letting the cattle move forward into fresh forage, which they do willingly!

Summer at the farm also includes chickens—meat birds, no layers.  They move through the grassy fields in 8-foot square chicken tractors, floorless moveable pens that allow the chickens to forage on fresh grass and bugs in addition to their 20% (protein) non-GMO “transitional organic” chicken feed.  Transitional organic is a label applied to feed from farms that have not yet been certified organic, but have applied and are within the required time frame to become Certified Organic.  They’re a bit less expensive than Certified Organic Feed.  In case you didn’t know it, chickens are great for pest control.  A chicken can eat two pounds of insects a day, and studies show they can consume 80 ticks per hour if there are ticks available.

The term “organic” can be confusing, especially since U.S.D.A. organic is a label that can encompass hydroponically and aquaponically-grown food and Confined Animal Feeding Operations, where livestock are not pastured.  You’ve probably read about the “free range” claims for eggs and just how much access to the outdoors is required under an organic label.  A recent effort, the Real Organic Project (www.realorganicproject.org) is a grassroots, farmer-led movement created to distinguish soil-grown and pasture-raised products under USDA organic.  Jason and Mike have taken that one step further in claiming a “True Northwoods Organic” label for their grass-fed beef.  One huge advantage in buying directly from the farmer is that you can ask exactly what that means.  Helstrom Farms sells directly to about 200 customers online (https://helstromfarms.com/shop/ ) or through farmers markets and you can ask them to describe how they raise their animals.  They’re happy to tell you.

Though it’s still winter here, calving time is coming in June and Jason and Mike are expecting (actually their cows are expecting) 130 calves.  One of the things that changed about their farming methods after their 2009 experience was calving.  In conventional livestock operations, calves are born in the winter.  But Helstrom’s calves are born in the early summer and stay with their mothers for eleven full months, spending both a summer and a winter with mom until they are weaned.  At 11 months, calves weigh about 500 pounds.  They sell all the male calves and keep all the females to replenish the herd.  At slaughter, adult animals are 2-2.5 years old and weigh 1200 pounds.

Unlike many of the farms I’ve profiled here in Grown on the Range, this farm has two full-time farmers.  It’s a family operation all the way.  Jason is hoping that his children will be interested in carrying on the family farm when he reaches retirement in another 30 years or so.  And that’s something that’s fairly rare these days.  The average age of Minnesota farmers is 56.5 and most don’t have a transition plan for when they retire.  Many don’t have children who are interested in farming.  That’s something that Renewing the Countryside and the Land Stewardship Project are actively working on.  If you’re in that situation, you can join a Farm Transitions and Farmland Access study group at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfK04ZParsDoX7yyrJtQq8ZmOARCGl4yBSMNa4Z-odiNAKOJQ/viewform?c=0&w=1 .  Until next time, this is Grown on the Range—spring is coming!!

Yes, spring is coming!

Grown on the Range Profile 19: KellyG's Wild Rice Burgers, originally published in Hometown Focus

Bob is dependable, strong, and available to work 24/7 at the former school kitchen in what is now Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Bovey.  He’s an industrial strength mixer, and he substantially reduces the time it takes Kelly and Georgia to make their KellyG’s wild rice burgers.  Recently the team added a yet-unnamed patty maker and cut the time even more.  The two human members of this team are aunt and niece and they’ve been making delicious wild rice burgers since 2017.  Lots of wild rice burgers—there are six frozen burgers in a plastic sleeve, 6 sleeves in a case, and they make and sell over 75 cases every month.  KellyG’s is a woman-owned business succeeding in a tiny community on the Iron Range, using local wild rice to make a vegetarian and gluten-free burger that is growing in popularity.

They are part of a small number of value-added processors on the Range.  They’re licensed as a wholesale manufacturing processor and they can sell directly to retailers as well as to distributors like Fraboni’s and Tri-State and Upper Lakes Foods.  Making the burgers is only the start.  “It takes lots of work to keep this product in stores” says Georgia, who lives in Bovey and developed the recipe for the burgers.  The house she shares with her sister became their test kitchen and Kelly’s family in the Twin Cities became the taste testers.  I first met Georgia when she was giving out samples at a Saturday taste testing at Natural Harvest Food Coop in Virginia. Mmm good.

The day before I interviewed Kelly and Georgia at the kitchen in Bovey, they had made 1,180 burgers.  They were neatly laid out on trays in the commercial freezers that line their supply room at Mt. Olive, ready to be packaged.  The wild rice comes from Deer River and is cooked before it’s made into the patty.  Pepper Jack cheese, eggs, and gluten-free flour are the next three ingredients on the label.  Some zesty spices give the burgers flavor and they can be baked, pan-fried, or deep-fried for a tasty and nutritious burger—each patty packs 11 grams of protein!  For the more creative cooks, they can be crumbled to make meatless meatballs, meat loaf, stroganoff with Alfredo sauce over noodles, stuffed green peppers, breakfast “sausage” or even sliced into wedges and dipped into sauces as an appetizer.  Pretty versatile vegetarian, gluten free food!

It all started when their family was on vacation in northern Minnesota and ordered wild rice burgers for lunch at a local restaurant.  They went home and started experimenting with recipes, and the rest is history…and a new business for a very small Iron Range town.  Their first taste-test for the public was at Mt. Olive Church in Bovey.  They used to mix all of the ingredients by hand and make the patties by hand.  But the addition of Bob and the patty maker have cut their work time by two-thirds!  Along the way, they were able to participate in a Department of Agriculture sensory testing event that involved 4-5 producers with their products.  There they learned that folks like the burgers a bit spicy, and they adjusted accordingly.

Georgia and Kelly pick up most of the supplies because very few distributors deliver to Bovey unless they’re coming there anyway to pick up cases of burgers.  And they keep all the records and make all of the sales calls.  They would like to get KellyG’s wild rice burgers out to even more distributors.  Recently, they’ve explored distributing through Performance Foodservice, a large restaurant distributor.  It’s not a done deal, but they are hopeful.  And that’s the plan—keep marketing to more distributors and retail outlets, growing a small local business, one burger at a time.

In the same way, it’s one business at a time that will grow the Iron Range local food system.  A food system needs growers, processors, distributers, and retailers.  This column has been telling the stories of growers across the Range.  And though we don’t yet have enough growers who are producing for local sales, we have even fewer processors like KellyG’s.  Dahl’s Dairy is the only dairy left.  We have no cheesemakers producing local cheese.  No meat processing--livestock farmers in our area have to drive hours to find a USDA meat processor. Most distributors serving the Range are from outside of the area. On the retail side of things, we’re better off.  We have retail groceries, c-stores and restaurants, but their ability to buy local depends on local growers and processors.  That’s why we’re working to build a local food system, from the growers up.   

Grown on the Range Profile 18: Off the Grid in Angora, MN, originally published in Hometown Focus

Jackie Clay-Atkinson preparing seeds to save from Hopi Pale Gray squash.

Everything is going in a circle here, said Jackie as we ended our afternoon visit.  And I could see what she meant.  She had just split a rare heirloom Hopi Pale Gray squash and given me half, leaving some seeds for me and harvesting the rest for the seed business that she runs with her husband, Will.  The squash would become dinner for each of our families.  The skin of the cooked squash goes into the compost, and the compost, in turn, feeds her five gardens, which feed the humans and the seed business.  Spoiled produce from the gardens and the orchards goes to the chickens who provide eggs and whose manure, in turn, feeds the gardens.  The horses eat hay and poop lovely fertilizer as do the cattle, who also provide quality meat.  The goats eat all sorts of excess vegetation and waste and produce meat and milk.  And the circles continue as the downed trees on their 200 acres heat the house and provide raw lumber for the mill which produced the lumber for this house I’m visiting and quality building material for the barns and sheds.  There’s lots of log and stone construction here too.  And a fair amount of what others might have considered “trash,” rescued from the dumps and Craig’s Lists to be retrofitted into the solar and wind system that powers this whole place.

Jackie and Will live completely off the grid near Angora, Minnesota.  As I drove the snowy 1.5 mile driveway deep into the woods to reach them, one question was at the top of my mind.  How on earth did they find this place?  It turns out that Jackie had flown to Minnesota to look for property in 2005, having lived here for 20 years earlier in her life.  She and her husband and son were moving back to Minnesota from Montana where they had lived off grid for a number of years.  She looked at “hundreds” of places and landed right here, even though the realtor was so convinced she wouldn’t like it that he didn’t even bring her out here to look, but drew her a map.  So she had come down this very long driveway with curiosity too.  At the end of the driveway was clearcut land previously owned by Potlatch.  Nothing even came up to her knees.  But she spotted a beaver pond down a little hill, and a creek.  Water had been an issue in Montana, and she know how important it was.  This would be the place, she decided right then.

They moved in February, bring horses, cows and goats along.  Luckily, they had left the horses with friends in central Minnesota for the winter.  But the humans and remaining animals, along with a travel trailer filled with survival supplies and an insulated ice fishing house had to traverse that long driveway.  It hadn’t been plowed in years.  Jackie’s son started with a pick-up fitted with a plow, but it was 25 below zero, and he wasn’t making good progress.  Then a most unlikely offer presented itself.  A man driving by stopped to say that he had a D4 Caterpillar and for $250 he would plow them in.  It took 5 hours and the Cat had no lights, so they followed with their vehicles and finally reached “home.”  The travel trailer had a propane heater, thank heavens.  And they had some 100-pound propane bottles they could use to get started.  The stock trailer they had brought with them became a barn and the ice fishing house, a living room.  Jackie remembers that her son’s hair froze to the trailer wall that first night as they slept. 

Jackie’s aging parents came to live with them just four months later, and shortly after that, her husband died of a brain bleed.  Times were difficult.  Her beautiful homestead today is a testament to her tenacity.  The book Jackie wrote about those times is titled Starting Over: Chronicles of a Self-Reliant Woman.    Jackie is a writer above all else, regularly contributing to “Backwoods Home Magazine” which has also published her many “how to” books.  She has four Westerns out through Mason Marshall Press (https://masonmarshall.com/)  And she publishes a blog (https://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/JackieClay/).  She met Will Atkinson, another off grid farmer, through correspondence during her rebuilding time.  And later they married.  Now they share the work and the glory of this remote place.  And Jackie writes the wonderful seed stories that fill Seed Treasures catalog, the annual offering of their seed business.  It started with giving away seeds that they had grown and saved but grew into something larger.  As I looked at their collection of seeds, I wondered why I hadn’t thought to seek out local seeds, tried on local land in the climate where I live?  It just hadn’t occurred to me, I guess.  And I didn’t know about Seed Treasures (  https://seedtreasures.com/seed-catalog/ )  Check it out!

From now on, all of my garden seeds are coming from right here.  It all started in the early 1980’s when Jackie bought some rare Hopi Pale Gray squash seeds from the Abundant Life Foundation in Washington.  A few years later the Abundant Life warehouse burned down and Jackie had some of the only remaining seeds.  Since then, folks have given her rare and heirloom seeds in the hopes of preserving them.  And they’ve shared the seed stories—every seed has a story.  Jackie and Will grow everything they sell and keep the seed of only the best tasting varieties that do well here in far northern Minnesota.  I asked about tomatoes because they’ve been a challenge in our garden.  She tells me of a plant with nearly 100 pounds of tomatoes on it!!!  Okay, I’m sold.  Buying “Bill Bean” of large fruit fame, and “Morovsky Div,” a Russian heirloom variety for summer 2020!  

Where the seeds are stored, right off the dining room in the log house.

How about you?  Will you join me in buying local seed?  I hope so!  As I leave their place, Will takes me on a short walking tour to meet the horses, cattle, chickens, goats, and turkeys that live here and form part of the big circle.  We look at the wind turbine that has served them for 10 years, made from something found in a garbage can, the solar panels bought used and retrofitted, and the new barn of lumber milled from downed trees on-site and other pieces salvaged from everywhere.  I see the fenced gardens, the stands of pine in between, the well, the orchard of grapes, apples, berries, pears, plums, cherries, apricots, the ridge of wild fruit, all asleep under a deep snow.  And I leave with my story and my squash, looking back at the log house overlooking the beaver pond that told Jackie this was the place.  They are nearly self-sufficient here, a circle indeed. 

Jackie and Will in their wood-heated home looking out on the beaver pond.

Grown on the Range Profile 17: Rutabaga Project Receives USDA Grant Funding Introducing Arrowhead Grown, originally published in Hometown Focus

Bet you didn’t know that the United States Department of Agriculture was established under President Lincoln in 1862!  The Act establishing the USDA envisioned a department “established at the seat of government” which would acquire and diffuse information on agriculture and would procure, propagate, and distribute new and valuable seeds and plants.  In 1969, over 100 years later, the Food and Nutrition Service was initiated within the USDA to address the issue of hunger in the U.S.  Nutrition assistance, commodities programs, conservation, crop insurance and “other” are the categories of expenditures authorized in the Farm Bill which funds the USDA today.  It’s the very tiny “other” category (1% of funding) that I want to focus on.  That’s where the programs focused on local and regional food systems reside.  In the most recent Farm Bill, those programs were given permanent status, finally. 

The Rutabaga Project, administered by the Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency and the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability applied for funds under the “Farmers Market Promotion Program” capacity building opportunity.  And our proposal has been funded for three years, giving the Rutabaga Project much-needed support to spur local food production and consumption.  That work is a delicate balancing act: encouraging local farmers to grow for farmers markets and direct-to-consumer selling doesn’t work unless there are consumers who are committed to shopping at the local farmers markets and buying directly from those farmers.  And, likewise, building up consumer demand for local food won’t be successful unless local growers can supply it.  It’s going to take concerted effort on both initiatives to build a vibrant local food system.

You might remember that in 2018, the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability, with support from the Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation, published a study “Local Food as an Economic Driver: A Study of the Potential Impact of Local Foods in the Taconite Assistance Area.”  That report concluded that, achieving only 20% local food purchasing could generate 250-694 jobs and keep $51 million food dollars circulating locally.  So we have an identifiable target for our efforts and an idea of the potential economic benefits, not to mention the benefits of local food for our region’s health.  The Rutabaga Project has sought and received a number of grants to analyze the local food system capacity, and to make local food more accessible to a wider range of folks.  But they were fairly small grants that couldn’t sustain the project into the future.  We had previously submitted two unsuccessful USDA grants, so we knew how much work these grants involved when we decided to move ahead.  In December, we learned that this part of the Rutabaga Project’s work plan had been funded.

Celebrations were in order!  And now, down to the work.  Here’s the executive summary from the grant narrative: “The project will conduct market analysis, outreach, recruitment, training, and support for farmers and farmers markets to expand the production and sale of local food.  [It] will increase local food sales in our region by strengthening producer-to-consumer market opportunities through restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets, school districts, and a new aggregated CSA [Community Supported Agriculture].  We will strengthen our region’s growing capacity by providing training for new and existing farmers and recruiting six new farmers to sell to consumers.  Our promotional efforts will focus on outreach to consumers through our ‘Arrowhead Grown’ campaign, which encourages consumers to buy local food.” 

Part of that Arrowhead Grown campaign, done in conjunction with the Arrowhead Farm Bureau, Iron Range Tourism, Visit Grand Rapids and the Lake Superior Sustainable Farming Association, was the initiation of the www.arrowheadgrown.org website and a printed booklet identifying all of the farmers markets in the Arrowhead region, their locations and hours.  Another part of the campaign, funded by the University of Minnesota Northeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnership, will be a 2020 Local Food Trail targeted to tourists and residents alike.  A “passport” booklet will identify farmers markets, u-pick farms and restaurants serving local food on the Range.  Participants can visit these over the course of the summer, get their passport booklets stamped, and turn in the booklet to win a weekend getaway through the Iron Range Tourism Bureau.  A third part of the campaign is a billboard effort aimed at tourists and funded by the Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation, the Arrowhead Farm Bureau, the Blandin Foundation, and the Iron Range Tourism Bureau. Watch for the Local Food Trail and billboards this spring!

The USDA grant will focus on four specific efforts over the next three years.  1. Expanding four rural farmers markets (Cook Area Farmers Market, Tower Farmers Market, Virginia Market Square and Hibbing Farmers Market), 2. growing the existing Mesabi East Farm to School program and expanding that to the new Virginia/Eveleth/Gilbert school as it develops, 3. Replacing a local CSA which closed last year, and 4. Implementing a farm-to-retail program with local groceries and restaurants.  If you would like to be a part of these efforts, contact the Rutabaga Project Manager, Kelsey Gantzer, at 218-404-8466 or Kelsey.gantzer@aeoa.org.

Approximately 24 local farmers currently sell through the four identified farmers markets.  We hope to expand that number and to recruit and support six new farmers who want to start or expand a farm.  The new CSA will be an aggregated CSA which combines produce from a number of farms and distributes it to area members.  We hope to be able to offer reduced-cost CSA shares to eligible families as well.  We’ll be cheering on Mesabi East’s Farm to School program and working with the Virginia/Eveleth/Gilbert merger committee to incorporate Farm to School in the new effort.  We’ll be approaching area restaurants to help familiarize them with the process of buying local produce and streamlining it so that it’s easy to do, then helping them to publicize their local offerings.  We’ll be working with grocery stores to add local produce, too.  We hope you will do your part to help us build up our local food system by buying local whenever you can!

Grown on the Range Profile 16: Owl Forest Farm, originally published in Hometown Focus

We’re sitting at Kate’s kitchen table on a cold December day.  The snow is piled high outside and it’s white everywhere you can see, but a ceramic holiday tree with bright lights shines inside on this table.  The greenhouse just down the driveway is cold and full of summer’s supplies now in winter storage.  The rows of flowers rest beneath the snow, already deep for December.  The native wildflowers show their winter presence despite the snow and cold.  And Owl Forest Farm waits through the winter.  Kate Ingrid Paul and her husband both have off-farm jobs.  That’s what makes this all possible.  Kate tried full-time farming and ran a robust vegetable CSA for six years (2013-2018), but she was always scrambling for winter jobs to pay the bills.  In 2019 Owl Forest Farm transitioned to predominantly a flower farm and began to wholesale flowers to local florists and offer CSA flower shares.  Such is the story of many small farms on the Iron Range.  They try something, adapt and change, find a new market, and move forward.  They’re resilient, they’re surviving, and they’re locally grown.

Owl Forest Farm sits on land where Kate’s great-grandfather tended his cattle after arriving from Norway in 1893.  Kate grew up here, playing on this very land, but left for 17 years, then returned to find a life closer to the land.  Owl Forest Farm started in 2006 with 1.5 acres planted, then expanded to over 4 acres in 2013 and now has 6 acres planted.  Kate has always farmed without chemical pesticides or fertilizers, instead using extensive cover cropping, compost and manure to enrich the land.  There are always living roots in the soil, a key principle of soil health.  In 2018, she applied for and was awarded a USDA Value-Added grant for 2019-20 to add a building to be used for equipment storage, processing and packaging, education, and walk-in coolers.  USDA provided 25% so Kate and her husband had to finance the balance.  Farmers need good relationships with bankers.

The new building is in the background.

The building is up and functional and the inside is coming along.  When I visited, the classroom space was being finished.  The walk-in coolers were installed, and the farm equipment was securely sheltered from the weather.  There’s drying space upstairs for seeds, herbs, and dried flowers.  And one large cooler serves as a root cellar, preserving summer vegetables for winter consumption.

In the near future, Owl Forest Farm is looking to the Natural Resources Conservation Service for financing to add a third well.  Well water from Kate’s house and her mother’s nearby house supply the greenhouse and gardens right now.  But more will be needed as they move into higher volume flower production.  Last year, Owl Forest Farm sold wholesale flowers to Virginia Floral and Silver Lake Floral in Virginia, Range Floral in Hibbing and Eveleth Floral.  You might have received a bouquet with local sunflowers, statice, straw flowers, zinnias, peonies, flowering herbs or amaranth.  And that’s a BIG deal!  Eighty percent of all cut flowers sold in the U.S. come from other countries, even other continents where workers, often including children, labor for minimal amounts and endure exposure to pesticides and other chemicals.  And when these flowers are shipped to the U.S., any sign of insects results in another fumigation leaving a toxic residue for florists and customers here.

Local flowers are different.  They move from field to vase with little interruption.  They are grown locally and transported minimally.  And at Owl Forest Farm, they are grown using organic practices, ensuring you a chemical-free gorgeous product with a long vase life.  It all begins in very early spring in the greenhouse where seeds are started on heat mats using succession planting.  They are transplanted outdoors to the 4.5 acre fenced garden (deer love to eat flowers) and planted in rows where landscape cloth helps control weeds.  Weeding is still an enormous job, though, as weeds sprout up in the openings cut for flowers.  It’s a labor of love, done on one’s knees.

The most recent work on the farm centers around a Minnesota Department of Agriculture AGRI Sustainable Demonstration Grant, a three-year grant for research on herbaceous peonies.  The goal is to grow and evaluate multiple varieties of peonies for production in USDA Zone 3 (cold!).  In the fall of 2018, they transplanted 1.388 bare root peonies into rows in the fenced garden.  Thirty-two varieties of peonies are represented (who knew there were that many varieties???), with differing bloom times and colors.  The second year involved feeding with composted manure and organic granular fertilizers and an organic anti-fungal agent.  The new shoots were staked and carefully labeled, and, of course, weeded.  This coming year Kate will be recording bloom times, duration, colors, hardiness, and fungus susceptibility, with special attention to number of blooms per plant and late season bloom potential.  In northern Minnesota, late blooming peonies could extend the season for the national and international cut flower markets.  Elsewhere in the U.S., peonies bloom in May and June and then the season ends.  This research could kick-start a new commercial enterprise that would support small farms on the Iron Range.

Kate will also be broadening her flower CSA to include sales of fresh flowers for weddings and events and u-pick days right on the farm.  She’s looking to use the new classroom for workshops on floral arranging and gardening basics.  And the farm is available for professional photographers wanting spectacular backdrops for graduation photos, engagements, weddings.  Interested photographers can email owlforestfarm@gmail.com to inquire about fees per 4-hour session.  It was fun to hear about all the possibilities here at Owl Forest Farm and to see yet another farmer who is growing something we all love and doing it locally.

Grown on the Range Profile 15: Farm to School, originally published in Hometown Focus

The history of farm-to-school in Minnesota is generally traced to the 1990’s when a state bill was introduced that supported Minnesota-grown foods in school meals, but we have a much earlier example of farm-to-school right in Virginia.  The Independent School District of Virginia established a school farm in the early 1920’s on the 80 acres where the golf course and hospital now stand.  Agriculture students worked on the farm during the summer, taught by Russ Pickering, a young man who had farming experience with his father.  The city built a home for the Farm Superintendent as well as a barn and other buildings, including a dairy building with a 40-quart ice cream freezer and butter churns.  The farm had dairy cows, work horses, poultry and hogs.  Sixty-seven acres were planted in oats and hay in addition to vegetables.  In addition to keeping animals and tending crops, students were required to operate and repair farm machinery.  The milk, eggs, potatoes and vegetables were used by the “domestic science” department and the cafeteria: farm-to-school!

The most recent local effort at farm-to-school is taking place in Aurora at Mesabi East Schools.  Having a garden and teaching students to grow food was a huge dream for Rachel Doherty and Barb Hinsz of Mesabi East Schools just three years ago.  And now, the ME3C (Mesabi East Environmental Education Center) is a reality.  A room in the school was used as a growing room for several years, but the dream was for something much bigger.  In May of 2018, the school district acquired Plagemann’s greenhouse.  The facility has five large greenhouses behind the main building and one smaller attached greenhouse in addition to office space, learning space for students, and a whole room for hydroponics.  Essentia Health has helped to fund the hydroponics equipment.  It has taken some time, but much of the greenhouse space is currently useable and the rest will be useable by next year.  The Horticulture class, an elective for juniors and seniors, meets there for an hour each day.  Students have learned to grow microgreens and lettuces—in fact, they’re planning to grow the entire salad for prom this spring!  And they’re researching how to grow sunflowers (the school flower) for graduation.  That’s one of the things the students like best: experimenting with different seeds, different growing media, different light environments….and learning what works best for the particular flower or vegetable they’re wanting to harvest.  It’s hands-on science at its best.

The Special Education class that Rachel teaches for 9th-12th graders spends two hours each day in the greenhouse.  The experience is especially enjoyable for these students because their disabilities aren’t really an issue here—they love planting and tending their flowers and greens and teaching the elementary students about growing food.  Right now, all of the students are involved in making holiday decorations—wreaths and centerpieces that they’ll sell at an Indoor Winter Farmers Market on Saturday, December 14 from 10-3 at the greenhouse.  They went out and foraged the boughs themselves, then learned about wreath-making and the different types of evergreens.  The wreaths are beautiful—I plan to stop in on the 14th to buy at least one!

Rachel and Barb have brought in $160,000 in grants to the program so far, and they’re applying for more.  The most significant will be a USDA Farm to School Planning Grant that will allow them to develop a template for other area schools to follow in implementing Farm to School in rural areas like ours in a northern climate.  The program is new this year and still small.  The students are growing microgreens and lettuce for Mesabi East cafeteria lunches.  In addition to that, a variety of local produce comes from Early Frost Farm and Northern Delicious, and Nana’s Noodles provides homemade pasta!  This year, the program has been able to provide one meal per month that features locally grown/made food.  They’re hoping to attract more growers for next year and expand to more frequent locally-sourced meals.  The students love it!  There have been some great photos of local lunches on Facebook like this one posted by STEM teacher Lindsay Engel.

In northern Minnesota, the Aitkin Farm to School program has been going on for several years and provided helpful information to Mesabi East.  And there is a program in Duluth.  Nationally, Farm to School is growing.  The most recent Farm to School Census results are from 2015; a new census is being conducted right now in the fall of 2019.  But even four years ago, 42% of the school districts surveyed by the USDA said they participated in farm to school activities…that’s over 42,000 schools across the country.  The impact of farm to school is generally thought to be better nutrition and health for the students, but the census shows that farm to school programs also resulted in $789 million being spent with local farmers, helping the economies of local communities like ours.  That’s economic development!

Last summer, the ME3C students took home “gardens in a bucket” so that they could continue to tend the plants they had started at school.  And the program sponsored “pop-up” farmers markets on Sundays and grew the number of customers over the summer.  They plan to repeat that this summer.  This spring, the students will sell seeds to the community too.  And, of course, experiment with planting them.  Of the five greenhouses, one will be devoted to flowers and the rest to various crops and different growing systems.  Staff negotiated a donation of 44 self-watering raised-bed planters from Ecogarden Systems which will allow lots of experimentation.  And probably hefty yields too. 

Plans for the area right in front of the facility include a large pollinator garden, something that everyone driving or cycling into Aurora will notice.  Long-range plans include edible gardens at the Mesabi East athletic complex…an innovation over the usual mowed-grass choice.  Everybody’s on board with this new venture and it’s generating lots of excitement.  The students are probably most excited of all.  Way to go Mesabi East! 

Grown on the Range Profile 14: Bear River Farm, originally published in Hometown Focus

Bear River Farm sits on wooded land in the middle of five different state forests.  Missy and Tom Roach bought it in 2001 from a man who had lived there for about 15 years.  The 40 acres had a number of owners before that, going back to the 1860’s.  In the Treaty of 1854, the Chippewa of Lake Superior ceded ownership of their lands in the northeastern portion of what is now commonly referred to as Minnesota’s Arrowhead Region, to the United States government. At approximately five and a half million acres, the 1854 Ceded Territory covers all, or portions of, six counties.  The Chippewa ceded ownership of the territory but, as with most treaties, did not cede their rights to hunt, fish, and gather on those lands.  It is against this historical backdrop that homesteading and the establishment of farms in the Arrowhead was undertaken by European settlers.  In the Bear River Valley, a Canadian lumber company helped itself to most of the valuable timber before the land was finally surveyed and opened to homesteading. 

The farm is small, with 20 acres of woodland and 20 acres of “pasture mix.”  Perfect for the specialty crops and a few hogs and chickens who roam large areas on the farm.  There’s a house that used to be a huge barn where the folks lived upstairs and the animals downstairs (good for heat, they say).  Now its two stories shelter a family of four and a dog and a cat.  Down the hill is a large greenhouse built of spare windows and doors that still has the remains of this year’s chard and kale, spinach and parsley.  The soil, both here and in the gardens, is always covered—and most often contains living roots, cover crops in rotation with specialty crops like asparagus and garlic. The greenhouse (unheated) produces chard and many kinds of lettuce, kale, cucumbers, squash, greens, peppers tomatoes and onions in season. 

Up the hill is a barn with a huge fenced area extending into the woods where pigs sometimes live when they’re not out in the larger fenced pasture.  The pigs caught a flu and all died this year, so it’s quiet here except for the rooster. There’s a small greenhouse and a chicken coop, all within another large fenced area, and a colorful variety of hens are moving around.  It’s winter and they’ve cut back on their laying a bit, but still provide the family with fresh eggs every day. 

The large fenced “garden” is about 170x70 and that’s where most of the specialty crops grow.  It didn’t used to be fenced, but the deer were constant visitors.  And it didn’t used to be very fertile either—mostly clay.  Missy and Tom brought in compost, peat, manure, and planted clover, winter rye, buckwheat, oats, and peas and let it sit for several seasons at the beginning.  Now it is thriving.  There are seven rows of asparagus, each 70 feet long, peeking out of the snow.  Missy plants cover crops over the rest of the garden and carefully rotates the garlic on a 5-year cycle into areas that have been pre-cropped with buckwheat and oats.  During the growing season, the garlic is interplanted with clover.  Missy has the supplies to construct several large row cover structures so that the asparagus won’t freeze this June like it did last year.  There’s a mini hoop house at one end of the fenced area for tomatoes and peppers.  The garlic and asparagus are popular at the Cook Area Farmers Market where Missy sells in the summer.  The market is open on Saturdays from 8-1 in the city park on River Street.  It’s a bustling place starting in about mid-June.

Down the road a little, Missy planted a large pollinator area a few years ago with a grant she won in the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability’s Community Sustainability Initiative contest.  It will be buzzing in the spring.  Missy and Tom tap maples too on nearby state land.  They boil the sap over an open fire and this year made over 11 gallons of syrup.  I bought some of their syrup last summer and it is wonderfully smoky.  You open the jar and all of a sudden you’re in front of a campfire.  Yum!  I used it to sweeten the applesauce I made from the trees in my yard—great combination. 

Away from it all a bit is a large dog yard for the two dozen sled dogs that Tom keeps.  He has about seven different kinds of sleds and does quite a bit of mushing in the winter.  There are miles and miles of trails throughout the area so the dogs get to run a lot.  I remember last winter when Tom posted a video on Facebook that he had taken from the sled during a long run.  He was out harvesting firewood and was bringing home a big load on a freight sled with a large team.  They heat with wood, all harvested from nearby.  They also enjoy winter camping and mushing in the Boundary Waters with the dogs.

It’s winter now and the gardens are put to bed, the garlic planted, abundant produce is canned and ready for soups and stews, and Missy is already dreaming of starting plants upstairs in the house next spring.  Those plants eventually go to the greenhouse.  Bear River Farm is like many small farms in northern Minnesota—a combination of a few animals and specialty crops.  (That term “specialty crop” is a bit misleading—it is used by the USDA to distinguish anything that is not a commodity crop like corn, wheat or soybeans that are traded.)  And, like most farmers, both Missy and Tom have off-farm jobs.  Missy has been active in the Minnesota Farmers Union for a number of years, too.  She’s a strong advocate for family farms and the direct marketing of farm products to local consumers.  Find Bear River Farm at the Cook Area Farmers Market next summer!

Grown on the Range Profile 13: The Next Generation of Farmers, originally published in Hometown Focus

Last week I attended the Farmland Summit for Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.  It was put on by the Farmland Access Hub, a collective initiative of about two dozen organizations who want to help new farmers gain secure and affordable access to farmland.  And that’s a challenge.  The average farmer in the U.S. is 58 years old and 90% have no “exit plan” or transition plan for what will happen to their farm when they retire or die.  Young folks who want to get into farming have a tough time accessing capital and often, they’re also carrying student loan debt. 

The National Young Farmers Coalition calculates that two-thirds of all farmland (573 million acres or 63%) will need a new farmer over the next two and a half decades as older farmers retire.  Their survey of young farmers in the U.S. revealed that two-thirds did not come from a farming background and therefore aren’t in a position to inherit farmland.  And these young farmers are often looking at a different kind of farming than the last generation of farmers.  More young farmers are women, more are interested in farming organically, and a whopping 72% are growing vegetables to sell through direct marketing.  Their farms are smaller, 50 acres or less, and more of the farmers rely on off-farm income.

What if you’re a young person who wants to get into farming on the Iron Range?  Well, you’re in luck for several reasons.  First, according to the study “Local Food as an Economic Driver” published in 2018 by the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability, the Range has 2.1 million acres of land suitable for agriculture and there is growing interest in local food.  Second, you can access resources designed to help.  You might work with a “farmland access navigator” from Renewing the Countryside (Brett Olson brett@rtcinfo.org) or the Main Street Project (Bob Kell bkell@mainstreetproject.org) who will help you clarify your goals, explore lease or purchase options, review land suitability, and assess financing options.  You might use the MN Department of Agriculture’s “Farm Link” website, an online tool listing Minnesota farm properties that are for sale, rent and/or farmers who are interested in providing opportunities to a beginning farmer by transitioning an existing farm with no current heir. 

What if you’re interested in farming but have little background?  The Land Stewardship Project offers “Farm Beginnings” which provides wide range of trainings, including Farm Dreams, Farm Beginnings, and the Journeyperson Course. They facilitate land access for family farmers as well as a “vibrant network of farmers throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin, who lead field days, skill shares, and lots of support to each other.”  They also offer a Farm Transition Toolkit and a clearinghouse that connects land owners and land seekers. (https://landstewardshipproject.org/morefarmers/seekingfarmersseekinglandclearinghouse)

Third, you can enroll in the new Eco-Entrepreneurship Associate in Science Degree Program at Lake Superior College in Duluth and pursue applied Track 1 focusing on sustainable food systems, regenerative agriculture methods and controlled environment agriculture.  Your coursework will take place in traditional classrooms as well as in the two-acre “LSC Living Laboratory” that the college has built on its 100-acre campus.  I toured the Living Lab several weeks ago and it is amazing!  The program’s co-directors Dr. Randel Hanson and Dr. Michael Mageau welcomed twenty new majors into the program this fall.  The Living Lab’s 6,000 square feet of greenhouses are producing abundant produce both hydroponically and organically.  The day I visited, the outside gardens were full of huge ripe watermelons—grown right here in northern Minnesota!  The permaculture design of the gardens uses Lake Superior Bluestone which absorbs heat during the day and keeps the gardens warmer at night.  This newly-developed degree is the only program of its kind at a community college—and it’s just an hour down the road from us. (https://degrees.lsc.edu/eco-entrepreneurship/) 

Or maybe you aren’t in a position to enroll in a degree program but still would like access to training?  The Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA) keeps a calendar of all trainings available in the state.  Examples from October’s calendar include “Growing Ginger in Minnesota,” “Biodynamic Composting,” “Paperpot Transplanter Field Day,” and “Local Foods Marketing.” See misa.umn.edu and click on “calendar.” Many are free.  Our local University of Minnesota Extension representatives also offer technical assistance and training.  Check out their small farm resources at https://extension.umn.edu/farming-systems/small-farms.

As a follow up to publishing “Local Food as an Economic Driver,” the Rutabaga Project for Access to Local Healthy Food and the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability have published a Northeast Minnesota Farmer Financial Guide and a series of “Coffee Break” 5-10 minute videos on farm finance.  Both are available at https://www.arrowheadgrown.org/farmer-finance-guide  Also on this website is a comprehensive directory of farmers markets in the Arrowhead region.  If you’d like to read the 2018 local food study referenced here, you can find the full study and a summary at https://www.irpsmn.org/localfood . 

Last, you might want to connect with some folks.You could join up with the Duluth Chapter of the National Young Farmers Coalition at https://www.youngfarmers.org/chapter/duluth-young-farmers-coalition/“The Duluth Young Farmers Coalition is an assembly of young individuals taking ownership over our agricultural future. Duluth’s regional chapter was founded on the need to collectively illustrate and resolve the many issues young and starting farmers face. DYFC is active in the cultivation and development of budding growers, serving as a bridge of contact within the region as well as providing a platform for shared resources, educational support, and community incubation.” You might also want to connect with the Lake Superior Sustainable Farming Association https://www.sfa-mn.org/lake-superior/ .And, of course, there are long-standing organizations like the Minnesota Farmers Union https://www.mfu.org/ and the Arrowhead Regional Farm Bureau http://arrowheadfb.blogspot.com/ who will welcome you.This news just in: the Minnesota Department of Agriculture has a new website for beginning, emerging and transitioning farmers and is hosting a conference on this topic on January 24-25, 2020.Check it out at https://www.mda.state.mn.us/beginning-emerging-transitioning-farmers

Grown on the Range Profile 12: Peterson's Berry Farm, originally published in Hometown Focus

The farm spans both sides of Highway 53 and borders on several lakes.  It eventually covered 400 acres with vegetables, fruits, cattle, hay, chickens, pigs, and rustic log buildings.  Mark Peterson’s grandfather came to Minnesota shortly after ore was discovered and homesteaded this land.  He opened a general store in Eveleth and sold real estate, too, and added land to the original farm.  Peter Peterson hired folks to tend the farm during the week and came out every Sunday to survey the operation.  When the City of Eveleth moved to allow mining under its original site, Peterson’s store moved too.  He sold his farm’s local produce in the store.  Mark remembers working there as a child and doing home deliveries every evening.

The farm stayed in the family but changed character.  Today, the 11 acres west of Highway 53 are Peterson’s Berry Farm, a u-pick operation, and those east of the highway operate as tree farms.  Mark and other family members live on the part of the old farm that is rich in maples for tapping, and planted with asparagus, apple trees, straw-bale tomatoes, Christmas trees, and a high tunnel full of beautiful fall raspberries.  Wood piles are stacked high for this winter and for next spring’s sap boiling.

The 11-acre berry farm sits adjacent to Harvey Lake and contains a small natural pond and two that mark has dug for irrigation.  The soil is sandy and well-drained, partially due to a network of ditches dug by workers that Mark’s grandfather hired during the depression.  The day I visited it was 68 degrees and in full fall color, everything was glowing yellow and gold.  The blueberries were turning deep red and the cover crops of oats and winter rye were vivid green.  Everywhere there were strawberries, raspberries, juneberries, blueberries, honeyberries and a few hazelnuts and currants.  I noticed strawberry patches alternating with cover crops. Mark tells me that he harvests a strawberry patch for about two years and then lets the land lie fallow under a cover crop and plants new strawberries into last year’s cover crop on a waiting patch, rotating around the acreage.

Mark worked on this farm as a child and has always lived here.  He started out as an Ag teacher at area high schools and retired, after a 30-year teaching career, to tend this farm.  He took an Extension class in growing strawberries in the late 1980’s, then started planting and harvested his first crop of blueberries in 1990.  When a bad year left him with almost no blueberries, he knew he had to diversify and cleared more of the land.  He grows North Country, Killarny, Nova, and, more recently Superior Blueberries and Bluettes.  I learn that the key to blueberry success lies in the fall before you want to harvest them.  They need enough snow cover to protect them while the ground freezes, allowing them to continue to draw moisture.  When the ground is finally frozen, they are ideally protected by a thick snow cover.  Mark places snow fences and arranges his plantings strategically to accomplish this.

It’s almost time to prepare for winter.  When the temperatures average 40 degrees, the strawberries get a straw blanket.  The blueberries get a foliar nitrogen feeding.  And then it’s time to harvest and freeze the large high tunnel full of fall raspberries near Mark’s house across the highway on the larger part of the farm.  There are patches of things growing everywhere—tomatoes still ripening in straw bales, asparagus shining bright green and MN-hardy Frostbite apples that are as deep red and as sweet as can be.  This is former pasture, so it’s pretty decent land.  Both the berry farm and the residential portion are surrounded by beautiful woods.  And just down the road, the tree farms begin.  It’s too wet to drive in, but I can see row after row of tall Norway pines reaching up to the autumn sun.

Speaking of autumn, Halloween is just around the corner and harvest time is upon us.  Check out www.pumpkinpatchesandmore.org for listings of corn mazes and hay rides as well as pumpkins.  In St. Louis County, visit Mr. Ed’s Farm outside of Hibbing or Simek’s Farm near Kelsey for all kinds of fall fun for the whole family.  A sister website, PickYourOwn.org lists eleven u-pick farms in Northeast Minnesota, including Peterson’s Berry Farm, all in St. Louis and Itasca Counties.  Mark says there used to be many more growers in our area.  And maybe there will be in the future, too, as our growing season lengthens and moisture increases.  Visit one of our local u-pick farms and tell them you appreciate what they grow!