Others are finally recognizing what we have known. Aronia Berries are so good for us and folks are taking notice.

Aronia Berries (A Superfruit) & Their Amazing Health Benefits

Almost two and she knows what she wants!  As she takes me by the hand, our darling granddaughter leads me to the Aronia berry field.  She has been taste testing for a bit and she knows they’re getting better and better.  Starting Sunday afternoon we’ll be welcoming your family to join us as we begin opening our farm to you to pick your own Aronia.

Hopefully you’ll love it as much as she does!  Feel free to call or text for directions, questions or just to let us know you’re coming 515-201-0162 or 515-989-4482.  Or message us on Facebook at Fogle’s 40 Organic Aronia.

Exciting News!!!  We are welcoming shoppers from the beautiful, new Fareway on Fleur Drive in Des Moines to our family!   The Fleur shoppers join those Fareway customers in Carlisle, Indianola, Norwalk who have access to our frozen Aronia berries all year.   We also provide berries to Brick Street Market in Bondurant, Gateway Market downtown, and to the Price Choppers on Ingersoll, Beaver, Merle Hay and in Johnston.

We’re also hoping Gateway Market shoppers see a little purple when dining or purchasing baked items.  The folks there will be experimenting with Aronia berries.  Their excellent foods, creativity and focus on health make us a natural fit.

So if you’re looking for ways to use Aronia, check out the Recipes pages or try experimenting and using berries in your favorite smoothies, soups, fresh salads, or when recipes call for cranberries or raisins.  Those are all pretty safe ways to get started introducing Aronia into your recipes.

Why choose Aronia?  It’s your locally grown super food!  

If you’ve heard the news lately, you know we’re smack dab in flu season.  My seven year old granddaughter had eleven children in her class on Friday!   We heard 83 were absent from the local middle school.

Knock on wood, our family has been spared.  I like to think it has something to do with the little purple fruit I sneak in on them regularly.  Aronia juice, Aronia jam, Aronia cookies, Aronia smoothies, Aronia in the soup, whatever it takes to get those healthy little purple berries into our bodies.

If you’re in central Iowa, be sure to get your Aronia frozen berries at Fareway, Gateway Market, Brick Street Market, or Price Choppers!

It’s finally time!  We’ve been checking the sugar content in the Aronia berries to make sure they are in the “ripe” range.  So if you’re interested in picking your own berries, You’re welcome you to come visit our farm near Carlisle, Iowa and pick your own.  It’s a fun way for children to learn where food comes from.  Fingers will be little girls’ favorite color PURPLE!  There are no thorns.  Berries come off in handfuls.  Aronia berries freeze well and are great in pancakes, smoothies, cookies, salads, soups, salsas, etc. all year long!

Between the activities this week and the new “puppy” with no manners, please give us a call at 5159894482 or text 5152010162 before coming.  We can help you with directions as well.

As summer seems to be slipping away, we see the season maturing right before our eyes. The acres of Aronia Berries we have planted have changed from the beautiful flowers to small green berries which are now beginning to grow and change colors.  By the middle of August they will be such a dark purple, they will almost look black.

We recall the very first year we first saw them beginning to turn, it seemed like forever before they were ready.  Our very first “drop in the bucket” harvest.   We were so excited! We now appreciate the preparation time and don’t get quite as excited until the brix levels begin to truly rise.   Honestly, we can almost tell from tasting them when the sugars are high enough to harvest.  Some folks comment to us they’ve heard you can’t eat them off the bushes.   You can and we do!   We love handfuls out of the field as do our granddaughters.  We have the cutest little purple hands and faces in late August!

Farming teaches us all many lessons.   We know what it feels like to “lose it all” to frost and cicadas, to watch the weather and pray it doesn’t get so cold to damage beautiful blossoms or to hope the hail misses us.  We’re learning to control what we can and trust God to take care of the rest.   Right now we’ve wished last winter would have been a little colder to freeze out the plentiful, but pretty (according to little girls) Japanese Beetles who have made a home in one field, but life goes on.  Some of the lessons include our entire family, today our six-year-old granddaughter says to me while playing out in a field, “Grandma do you hear that cicada?  Oh no, the berries!”  She was pretty small when the cicadas severely damaged our bushes, but she still remembers that sound.  I had to reassure her the whole bunch of them wouldn’t be here this year, just a few.  Thank goodness!