Tag: Farm to Table (Page 3 of 4)

Winter Farmers Market Season is HERE!

Welcome to the WBL Winter Farmers Market!

This marks our second season of Winter Farmers Market in White Bear Lake!  We can’t wait to share all the amazing food from these local growers and makers!

Nov 10 – Dec 8 – Jan 12
9-1 at Tamarack Nature Center

Community Supported Market

Again, I’m blown away by the community support for this local food event. We all love our weekly Summer Farmers Markets in downtown White Bear Lake, so this is a natural extension to keep a good thing going. At last year’s first ever event we had over 500 shoppers visit us at Tamarack Nature center. This year, we’re seeing if we can grow our love of local by holding three indoor markets this Winter. Adding on site Food Trucks and a coffee shop to keep it interesting- we’re ready for you to make this another successful market season!

ENTER TO WIN $20
“Market Money” to spend your way on Nov 10th!

Shop Local Eat Local

These Winter Farmers Markets give us all a way to shop local foods a little longer into the season. The November Market “Gather” gives you the opportunity to fill your hostess gift bags and Thanksgiving tables with the best of this season’s harvests of vegetables, meats and dairy, along with freshly made preserves of all kinds! Most items for sale are sourced from White Bear Lake and surrounding communities. We’re excited to offer many returning local farmers along with a few new additions to round out your shopping list.

Meet the November Farmers and Makers 

Butch and Kris of All Good Organics in their Greenhouse

All Good Organics:   With their own Farm Store on their farm in Lino Lakes, Butch and Kris will have a wide variety of farm fresh produce. Some of their offerings include greenhouse grown lettuces, full variety of fall/winter vegetables, frozen summer vegetables, homemade canned items (best sauerkraut!) and farm made spice blends! I visited with them last spring and got a great tour of the farm!

Dahl Hobbie Farm:  Susan is known for her jellies, jams, raw honey and her honey-based 12 spice cough soothing formula. She’ll also be bringing some specialty chutney.

Eichtens Cheese & Bison: Our closest cheese producers are bringing a large variety of locally sourced and crafted cheeses. They offer some of their summer sausage and MN Wild rice as well. They’ll also have gift boxes available. My new favorite is the herbed gouda, it simply makes everything better.

Jessy and I at the last WBL Summer market

Gilbertson Farm: Jessy brings a well rounded selection of humanely raised beef and pork, chicken, DUCK,  eggs. They sell a variety of cuts and blends. We love their pork sausage. They make a mean Wild Rice Brat- and their pork chops cook up tender and with so much more flavor than anything store bought. Plus the animals all had a great life!

Great Harvest: If you’ve been to the WBL Summer Farmers market you’ll remember these breads- and likely Sheldon the happy purveyor of so many samples 🙂 They specialize in yeast breads. They’ll bring breads, rolls, scones, cookies. Their monster cookies are legendary- their scones are my favorite!

Hoppel Poppel Breads:  Sigrid shares her German roots through baking amazing sourdough breads and pastries. Her caramel rolls alone are worth a visit to the market. Some of her heavily seeded loaves are a meal in themselves. She’ll bring a variety of European style breads and pastries.

Ben Pratt of Ingredients getting ready to cook for this Summers “Harvest Party”

Ingredients Cafe: A White Bear favorite, the chefs at Ingredients are whipping up some scratch made soups to make your at home weeknight dinners simple and delicious. A special shout out to Ben Pratt, owner of Ingredients for volunteering his time to cook for the Harvest Party at the YMCA this Summer!

KDE Farms: Brian and Roberta raise grass fed highland cattle right in Hugo. They’ll be bringing cuts of beef, whole chicken and eggs. I had the chance to visit their farm this Summer, here’s the article that resulted from our time. Roberta also makes some tasty local maple syrup!

Ox & Crow Coffeehouse: Mara at Ox & Crow has created a wonderful coffeehouse in the Mahtomedi.. We’re looking forward to having her locally roasted specialty coffee beans and house made chai teas served hot. She’ll also be bringing

Platense: Vanessa brings us a taste of Argentina right here in Minnesota! She uses authentic family recipes for traditional frosted nuts from Argentina. The flavors might not be local but they are locally well-loved!

Sailor Mercy: Dani  hand crafts each small batch of immunity boosting  Organic Elderberry Syrup. Made with all high end, organic products, plus local raw honey and un-fluorinated water this is the good stuff! . Her company names combines her twin daughter’s names with her passion for local and organic. She also makes amazing “no moo’ hand crafted chocolates.

Suzi Q Western Dressing:  “Dang Good” Western Dressing brought to you by Linda (Suzy Q) and (Cowboy) Mark from right in town. They had their first Summer selling their dressing at the WBL Summer market, and it was such a hit they’re bringing it to the Winter market too!

Fresh MicroGreens from Weeds Greens!

Weeds Greens: Matt Green of Weeds Greens supplies some of the best restaurants in the metro- and luckily our market too. They grow chemical free hydroponic micro greens, fresh herbs and baby greens right in Lakeville. Fresh and local GREENS in our MN winters are such a treat!

New at this Farmers Market

Coffee Corner!

We’re excited to offer hot coffee and Chai from Ox and Crow, and specialty sourdough bakery goods from Hoppel Poppel in the party room at Tamarack. This is right off the main Atrium by the community booths! so you can munch and sip while learning about other ways to make meaningful local food choices.

Food Trucks!

Kicking off this season’s winter markets we’ll be joined in November by both  Gateway Trailside + Smokey’s  Pub n Grill.  After you work up an appetite shopping and or hiking the trails you can grab lunch from two local food truck favorites!

Community Boosters

Pine Tree Apple Orchard is generously donating some of their tasty apple cider! A local favorite for apples, all kinds of apple baked goods and their pumpkin patch (not to mention strawberry picking in the Summer) Pine Tree is once again on board with making sure our cups overflow!

The cider will be served by our local White Bear Area Food Shelf volunteers. Cash donations to the food shelf will be accepted and appreciated!

Tamarack Nature Center will be sampling and have more information on how to get involved at the nature center. Plan to take a walk around some of the many miles of trails around the Nature Center and enjoy the nature where your food comes from!

Pam from the White Bear Lake Seed Library will again be spreading seeds of knowledge, and giving you info on starting your own seeds. We are so lucky to have a free and trusted source for locally saved seeds! Great blog and info at their link above.

The Ramsey County Master Gardeners will be available to answer gardening questions and and spread the word (and free starter kits) for the Ramsey County Composting program!

Viva Musica reps will be demonstrating their “Kindness Rocks” art program for schools.

Forks in the DirtThat’s me 😉 I’ll be there with a table to talk growing your own, backyard chickens, composting, canning and/or finding the best local food resources. My mission in getting this winter market together is to help us ALL make healthier, more sustainable food choices- for our own health, and the health of the planet!

Follow the WBL  Winter Market Facebook Event Page for up to date information and specials.

Can’t wait to Dig In and see you there!

– Michelle and the fabulous farmers and vendors of the WBL Winter Market!

Grass Fed for Good at KDE Farms

Welcome to KDE Farms

Say hello to the happiest Grass Fed Highland Cattle I’ve had the pleasure of hanging out with!  They are living their best lives out in their fields just north of the Twin Cities in Hugo MN on a 3rd generation family farm.

At first glance the rolling hills look like your average small family cattle farm, but then you realize there’s no barn, you see horns on the cattle and can’t find a feed trough. Welcome to KDE Farms, where they raise grass fed Highland cattle, meat and layer chickens and produce some fabulous maple syrup. You can jump right to their online shop if you can’t wait.

Walking the Fields

Visiting these down to earth farmers earlier this Summer, I fell in love with their farmland- and the way they raise their animals. These docile Scottish Highland cattle can take three years to finish off. But they balance out their keep with having a double coat that is water proof and down-like, eliminating the need for a barn. And they’ve naturally developed to thrive off of grass.

This leads this kind of farmer to maintain their land in a way that conventional farmers (usually) don’t. Because they are feeding their ‘product’ from what they grow and not what they purchase, grass fed cattle farmers blend their knowledge of raising healthy grass with raising healthy animals. And, as Brian and Roberta Ehret can attest to- that all starts with healthy land.
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Harvest Party to Celebrate Local Food!

Are you ready to party in the Garden!?!

This Harvest Party grew from the BearPower organization. White Bear Lake is lucky to have the efforts and talents of this group of dedicated people. They’re working to bring healthy living to our community in so many different ways.

I’ve been digging into coordinating this BearPower Harvest Party with the BearPower team and loving finding the best of the best to help celebrate community grown food. We’ve brought together the cream of the crop local chefs to prepare all that lovingly grown food. Add to that a great mix of activities to take over our White Bear Area YMCA gardens for the day and you’ve got a can’t miss event! We’ve got FREE food,  games,  information, samples and activities to get you growing your love of good food! Continue reading

Seed Saving for Home Gardeners

Garden Fresh Food

It is that time of year gardeners… Everything is ripening, and FAST in the garden right now. So right now is the time to start looking at your plants’ produce not just as food- but also as seed for next year’s garden crops. Time to start seed saving!

I started saving seeds because I got behind on picking my pole beans. When I found a few (ok, lots) of bean pods that were swollen and starting to yellow and a light bulb turned on. I didn’t have to toss these inedible beans into the compost- I could let these keep growing and save these to plant for more beans next year.

It was a sublimely empowering moment. One I want you to have too!

Beginners Luck

I got lucky starting with one of the easiest seeds to save. For the first few years I saved mostly bean varieties and native flowers. I’m still a novice when it comes to saving seeds. Which is why I’m the perfect person to pass the torch: if I can do it – you can too! I want you to feel that same kind of power that saving your own seeds invites.

The Barn + Diane’s Garden at Heritage Farm, Seed Savers Exchange. Photo Credit: Molly Moe

Seed Savers Exchange

Diane Ott Whealy and I in her magical heirloom garden. Photo credit Molly Moe

First- I want to give a shout out to the Seed Savers Exchange for their recent Summer Conference and Campout on Heritage Farm. I’m still buzzing with all the new information I brought home. I had to share some of what I learned with you all!

They’ve built a vibrant community of dedicated volunteers and staff, all starting with co-founders Diane Ott Whealy and Kent Whealy in 1975. I was lucky enough to meander through Diane’s gardens with her at the beginning of the weekend. Continue reading

Pick Your Own Blueberry Farm

Pick Your Own Blueberry Farms are becoming more popular and for good reason! PYO Farms bring together the best of summer- getting to spend time in the great outdoors in a beautiful setting, with friends + family, all working towards a tasty end goal; buckets full of blueberries! This is local food bliss. Blueberry Fields of Stillwater brings a sweet mixture of this bliss to their guests each year.Rows of netting covered blueberry fields

**Updated article 7/10/23**

Two women in straw hats standing in a blueberry fieldSummer took over Blueberry Fields of Stillwater in early 2022, and she is just as in love with the farm, connections to the earth, blueberries and customers as the previous owners. 

Blueberry Fields of Stillwater

As Summer explains, “I was looking to make a change and for a place where I could be more in tune with nature, while still being part of the community.  When I saw the Blueberry Fields of Stillwater property, I just knew it was where I needed to be.  The love, care, and hard work that Bev and Mike O’Connor put into the Blueberry Fields was evident; the land just sang to me.  I am so grateful that they were willing to let me carry on what they had started. They have been so helpful and supportive to me in teaching me the craft of blueberry growing hands on here at the Blueberry Fields of Stillwater.”

Getting the how to pick info from staff at Blueberry farm before picking our own.

So- same great blueberries, same ORGANIC farming practices, new smiling face. I’m in.

Is it the farm’s rolling hills and pastoral setting? Or the acres of immaculately maintained spacious rows all bursting with blueberries? Maybe it’s all the energy and love that farmers have poured into the land?

If you’ve never picked your own blueberries before no worries, they’re every bit as easy as strawberries and raspberries. You can just roll them between your fingers and the ripe ones will kind of fall off. You can easily tell the ripe from unripe berries. Continue reading

Local Food For Thought

I love that when I took a step back and looked at why I care about local food so much, the answers came full circle! Of course, nature had her answer all wrapped up like that. And just for the record, no one knows exactly what ‘local food’ means… some say it is food grown ‘within 100 miles’ of the purchase, others say ‘in my state’.

Here’s a quick(ish) look into why I believe taking the extra effort to eat local pays off in dividends larger than we can measure.

Nothing beats sun ripened home grown tomatoes!

Local Food Tastes Better 

Fresh + local food just tastes better. Exhibit A> The Tomato. Homegrown varieties will leave you smiling as you savor the layers of flavor that drip off the sun warmed juices. The store bought, often packaged version of tomatoes  we get up North in winter are pale pink, mealy, styrofoam imposters. Don’t even get me started on eggs 😉

Nutritional Value

Food loses nutrients after it is harvested- up to 30% in three short days! Being able to pick a salad out of my garden or buy from a farmer that harvested earlier that day means more nutritional ‘bang’ for my buck or my work than buying food that was shipped across the country. Not to mention food flown/shipped here from another continent before it was ripe. Continue reading

The Good Acre: Full Circle Food Hub

The Good Acre (TGA) provides Full Circle Local Food System Support. From soil to your table, TGA is there implementing the organization’s mission:

“We connect and strengthen farmers, food makers, and communities through good food.”

This is the place you can learn how to make kimchi, pick up a farm share with locally made add-ons, attend a beginning farmers conference, volunteer in a hoop house or find your child’s school lunch staff kicking up their culinary skills. Full circle!

There is also a contagious positivity running through those artfully slanted walls that makes it all gel.

I stumbled upon this powerhouse operation online while looking up local CSA’s. Turns out Community Supported Agriculture is the perfect term for part of what happens here, but The Good Acre goes way beyond the traditional CSA.

What is a Food Hub Anyway?

Farm Share Packing Day

food hub, as defined by the USDA, is “a centrally located facility with a business management structure facilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and/or marketing of locally/regionally produced food products.”

The thing that the USDA missed in its definition is the community that takes root around an initiative like this. There are farmers who would not be making it if it weren’t for TGA. In 2016 around 65,000 pounds of food moved through the facility. That’s 65,000 pounds of food that traveled significantly less than the average 1,500 miles. Hello lowered carbon footprint.

Food Hubs like TGA aren’t prolific, and that may be in part because for now, they rarely turn a profit. They are often funded in part by donations, grants and in the case of TGA- significant support from the Pohlad Family Foundation. Continue reading

Winter Farmers Market Tomorrow!

I wouldn’t want you to miss out on all the food!

The first White Bear Lake Winter Farmers market is tomorrow, Saturday December 9th from 10am-2pm, at Tamarack Nature Center. Link to map and directions HERE.

This is a one day only event and a great way to fill your holiday tables and check off gifts with sustainable items from your neighbors.

HERE is a previous post all about the market, from vendors and community tables to the donated apple cider.

The Facebook Page, HERE will continue to have updates, like this  basket of goodies I’ll be raffling off at the market!

Thanks for following along on this journey to find good, simple, local food- I truly appreciate it.

Can’t wait to Dig Into the food this Saturday!

**Looking forward to sharing recipes made with all the local food I bring home from this market!**

Michelle

 

Veggies from the Burbs

I did a double take when Don Heinel told me where his land was – Little Canada you say? But it turns out, not knowing the farm was there was the just the tip of the iceberg (lettuce).

Don has been doing this a while- like his whole life. Being out in the fields has given him plenty of time to think things through. And his willingness to share (but not preach about) what he’s come up with so far is refreshing and contagious!

Don with some happy sweet corn

At first glance Don may seem a bit gruff, he’s admittedly “not a big smiler”, but don’t let that fool you. He’s one big ‘Veggie Bear’, (favorite nickname I’ve come up with so far) who is a passionate steward of his land, dedicated to bringing lovingly grown food to market for you to enjoy.

He’s found his own balance of ‘common sense’ farming techniques that bring him high yields without much chemical application. He uses Neem oil and other organic applications when needed, but finds that prevention is the best medicine. He practices crop rotation, letting land lie fallow (not planting anything on it) and pays close attention to water drainage issues (standing water weakens plants and harbors bugs, dry land stresses plants and lowers yields).

While Don was walking me around his farm I saw lady bugs, dragon flies and weeds- not in abundance but enough to know there are no herbicides being sprayed on the row crops, or pesticides taking out the insects. Birds were flying in to grab some snacks of their own too.

No, he’s not Certified Organic.

Don doesn’t care to be certified organic, especially with selling directly to his customers at market. Selling direct gives him a chance to talk with you all and explain the nuances of organic, conventional, sustainable, and where he falls with best practices. For him, the certification is just a lot more paperwork and red tape without the payoff.

Don urges us all to find out more about the way food is grown, starting with the simple fact that, yes- organic pesticides do exist! I learned about the “OMRI” because of him. The OMRI, the Organic Materials Review Institute, “supports organic integrity by developing clear information and guidance about materials, so that producers know which products are appropriate for organic operations,” directly from the OMRI Website. Cool Beans.

The Way Back Story

Don’s a 4th generation farmer whose family has been farming for over 100 years and working this same land since 1939, and farmed in Roseville prior to that. Keeping that same 17 acres in the family for all those years means that Don’s farm is a lot closer to the metro area than most new farmers could hope for; not in today’s real estate market. It also means he knows his land like the back of his hand. He showed me ‘the hill’; a barely visible rise in one section of field and explained how just that rise makes it too dry to plant. He also explained when and where he recently changed row direction from E/W to N/S and just how that will affect water drainage, and how he wait until just after the dirt stops clumping (into what he calls dirt ‘potatoes’) after a tilling to plant.

It’s obvious he paid attention to his chores as a kid on the farm, and spoke to making a conscious decision to stay and farm because of the freedom of choice it allowed him. What and where to plant, who to sell it to, how much is a fair price; these choices and the time outside are a good fit for Don.

Don has sold produce under the Heinel Farm name since 1988 at the fall White Bear Lake Farmer’s Market, the first year it started. He also used to sell wholesale but gave that up after witnessing the increasing hoops farmers had to go through, and the increasing liability insurances etc. they had to take on to continue selling that way. Markets might take a little more work, but they are proving more rewarding too.

Farming Today

His wife, Shari, while following her own career path, helps where she can and is his technical support, answering emails and posting to their Facebook page and all the other tasks that keep the company running. They make a great team and can be seen together at different Farmer’s Markets throughout the week.

Don at the White Bear Lake Farmer’s Market

Don’s father was his main mentor and business partner until he became ill. He passed away in 2015. His father was also the one who suggested Don start taking it easy, helping Don make the decision towards ‘semi-retirement’. Although, once I understood his schedule a little, there’s no way the average person would call that being ‘semi-retired’! He still gets up early, works in the fields most mornings and is at market 3 times a week. Logistically this meant quitting the Minneapolis market so he didn’t have markets on the weekends. (whew!)

Heinel Farm Summer 2017 Market Schedule

Mondays: Little Canada Farmer’s Market: 2:30-6pm

Tuesdays: Shoreview Farmer’s Market: 3-7pm

Fridays: White Bear Lake Farmer’s Market: 8-12pm

 

Nothing like a few green beans to munch while we walked!

In Don’s words “Weather and Critters are the two biggest issues for farmers.” And this year he’s dealt with both. Although his farm was lucky enough to escape damage from the hail storm on June 11 he was still catching up from what he referred to as the “7 days of death” the cold rainy yuck that hung around the Twin Cities in early May. His critter problems include the typical racoons, deer and rabbits along with a crow that has been bugging him for years on end.

Don shared one of his favorite quotes with me, and now I’m sharing it with you…

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.   -Dwight D Eisenhower

Don checking tomatoes in the High Tunnel.

Critters are one of the reasons he invested in a high tunnel. He uses that for tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers; and low tunnels for cucumbers and zucchini. He also starts a *few* plants; 20 flats that each have 162 cells each – that’s 3,240 seedlings to transplant. And with those seedlings and direct sowing he fills the 17 acres (except what he lets lie fallow) with all kinds of beets, squash, sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, fennel, bush beans, broccoli, lettuces, kale, cauliflower, zucchini and cucumbers. Yum.

He likes going it alone, and stated, “There’s a certain something to doing it all on my own.” I think he enjoys the peace and solitude of the farm just as much as he enjoys seeing his customers on market days.

Another one of the choices he’s glad he gets to make is being able to give extra produce to the food shelves in the area. In 2016 the farm donated 2,662 pounds of beautiful, Minnesota Grown veggies to the White Bear Area Emergency Food Shelf, and a similar amount to the Ralph Reeder Food Shelf of New Brighton. That’s a few heads of fresh and local broccoli that went to our neighbors in need! Thank you Don and Shari!

If you’re interested in seeing a vegetable farm up close and personal, Don has shown others around for a nominal fee based on availability. He showed me how to wrap a cauliflower (below) so I can try to grow my own next year 🙂 and I still have things to look up from our time together.

I mean, this is the guy who gets spinach to winter over so it shoots out of the ground before anything else, I’m going to listen to his tips! Of course, like all smart businessmen, Don won’t tell a soul how he gets the spinach to grow or which seed variety he uses. And I have to say; good for you Don, I think you’ve earned this one!

My youngest, picking out his cucumber from Farmer Don, aka “The Veggie Bear”

After visiting Heinel Farm and seeing all the flourishing veggies, it gave me a little push to figure out ways to grow happier veggies in my own garden- and to know which ones I’ll leave to the experts.

Either way, I can’t wait to dig into the summer surplus flooding our farmer’s markets from farms just like Don and Shari’s!

Michelle

Forks’ Weekend Spread: July!

Twin Cities farm & foodie fans, here we go again with an over the top summer weekend overflowing with possibilities. And this time, I’ll be here to partake in the farm fresh tastes, sounds and celebrations! Time to jump on this hay wagon and enjoy the ride 🙂

July 15: Eat Local Co-op Farm Tour 

The barn doors are wide open. Twin Cities co-ops have gathered 27 of their hard-working farmers together to open their farms, fields, milking rooms etc. to you for the day. Use this Farm Tour guide to map out your self guided tour and see which farms have special activities, music, even samples that match your interest. This is a great FREE way to let your kid milk their first cow, see actual farm work being done, pull their first carrot and talk to farmers about how they farm. Be ready to stock up on farm fresh produce-right from the farm! Last year my boys and I experienced a great sense of community at Big River Farms,  along with a great wagon ride, samples and music. We bought a few things that had been picked right from the fields we toured. This year they’ve added a little something extra with pollinators! I remember it as one of best days with my boys last summer.

Wagon riders at last year’s Big River Farms’ tour day.

Tips: Wear farm appropriate clothing (farm boots, sun hat), bring along some bug spray, a cooler for things you buy and a lunch if you want. Learn from my mistake last summer! Print out a google map, because these are RURAL farms, you may lose service once you’re on the road!

Stay up to the minute and Follow on Facebook. TC.Farm (also featured below in the Tullibee Butcher Dinner) went the extra acre this year and created their own guide; which looks awesome!

Details: 10am-4pm. 31 locations across the extended metro area.

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