Rufus, Jacob and Jessica Haucke
Viola, Wisconsin

Keewaydin Farm was founded in 1976 by Richard and Mary Haucke. The Hauckes considered themselves stewards of the land and for several decades, ran a sustainable grass-based dairy enterprise while raising their three children. IN 2002, after years of travel and exploration, the adult Haucke children returned to Keewaydin to create a viable, certified organic family farm. In addition to a 40-cow dairy, the farm includes a 10-acre market garden, and a maple sugar shack. The family also raises chickens, heritage turkeys and pork.

Farmington, Minnesota

Gardens of Eagan is a 100-acre, urban-edge vegetable farm providing certified organic produce to the Twin cities and surrounding communities. Its proximity to the metropolitan area allows the farm to serve as an educational resource to consumers and farmers through its nonprofit Organic Field school.

Gardens of Eagan is a demonstration of the logic, elegance and viability of ecologically based, organic food production. Originally in Eagan, Gardens of Eagan was established by Martin Diffley in 1973 and co-operated with Atina Diffley.

Featherstone Farm’s Jenni McHugh
Nurturing Life on the Farm and Elsewhere
by Allie Mentzer, Promotions & Education Coordinator

As we embark on another Eat Local Challenge, you might notice that eating locally has become trendy and mighty marketable. Frito-Lay, even Walmart, will claim to sell you “local food” from “family farms.” Fact is large corporations simply can’t develop the long term commitments to local farmers that co-ops have nurtured for decades.

Check out Chris and Kim Blanchard’s great farm (and food!) blog for up-to-the-minute reports on what’s happening at Rock Spring Farm and how to cook their seasonal organic offerings! Click below to read an article from the Rollin’ Oats Journal with more about the Blanchards and their farm.

Rock Spring Farm: “Feeding People is a Sacred Act”

As summertime kicks into full gear, local produce is popping up everywhere—my mouth waters just thinking about it.

Driftless Organics, located in Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, is a home-team favorite. Noah Engel might look familiar to our member-owners and shoppers, since he spent some time working in our produce department a couple of years back. Noah and his brother Josh grow some delightful potato varieties (amongst other organic vegetable treats). To learn more about the Engel brothers’ farm, check out their blog, Cropaganda!

The Spring Plant Sale is on, with native plants from Glacial Ridge and bedding plants from Rock Spring Growers!

It’s easy to garden organically with native plants grown by Gene Stark and his family. Since native species are naturally adapted to Minnesota’s growing conditions, they don’t require fertilizers or pesticides to succeed.

Glacial Ridge is decidedly a family business. Six members of the Stark family, including children and grandchildren, now live in Glenwood, Minnesota, where Gene and Muriel Stark started Glacial Ridge two years ago.

The most delicious chestnuts you’ll ever eat are seasonally available in the produce aisle: organic chestnuts from J & B Chestnut Farm in Winfield, Iowa. You can read all about the Wittigs and their unusual road to farming chestnuts in the November-December issue of The Mix.

You might call John Horrigan the “accidental farmer.” His small orchard outside Moose Lake, MN, wasn’t a long-time dream that became a reality and it wasn’t even the reason he bought the property. But those who are fortunate enough to eat his Minnesota grown apple varieties have been treated to his growing knowledge and passion for apples and farming.

Last year Horrigan, a Linden Hills Co-op member, supplied the co-op with Chestnut crabapples, Kerr crabapples and Zestar apples. “Zestar went out the door here about as fast as it came in,” said Horrigan.

While many people eat organic food these days, not as many are able to buy garden plants that are grown sustainably and without toxic chemicals. The Circle of Life program puts Rush Creek Growers of Spring Valley, Wisconsin at the forefront of creating sustainable standards and practices, and eventually a certification process, for greenhouse plant production. Rush Creek’s head grower, Sue Baker, is proud to participate in this fledgling project.

Shoppers in Linden Hills Co-op’s produce aisle are used to seeing the occasional farmer around and sometimes having the chance to meet the fine folks who grow the food we eat.

Luis Loja and Leonardo Bravo of El Guabo Banana Cooperative in Ecuador visited North America and the stores that sell their Oké bananas, accompanied by Isaac Grody-Patinkin from Oké USA and Scott Patterson, Equal Exchange).

What’s different about these bananas? Check out the Oké USA site for the full story. Meanwhile, enjoy these delicious bananas!