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!

We are seeing more and more studies concerning Aronia Berries.  We’re happy to share them with you.   It’s crazy only 15 berries per day can be so valuable to our health!

New Superfood Status

Lipids in Mice Given Aronia

Neurotoxicity Study

Chokeberry Nutrition

Benefits of Using Aronia with Chemotherapy

Anti-Inflammatory Properties

Glucose Related Changed in Mice Given Aronia

Visceral Fat and Hyperglycemia Results in Obese Rats

Top 8 Reasons for Aronia

Gastric Results

Harvest 2016 was another learning experience at our farm.  We harvested by hand, had help to hand-harvest, and hired a mechanical harvester.  We appreciated the speed with which the harvester went through the fields.  In one day, the harvester had picked all the berries above about 14″ from the ground.  Not ideal, but certainly a huge help.  We appreciated all those who helped with the 2016 harvest!

This week we’ve been trying something different, we’ve welcomed folks to our farm to pick their own berries.  It has gone well.  People enjoy knowing where their food comes from and how it is grown.  So if you still would like to pick your own anti-oxidant powerhouse berries, call for directions and come pick your own before they are gone!

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We know how healthy blueberries are for us.  The chart here shows the anti-oxidant score of Aronia, blueberries and other common fruits.  This shows why we believe so strongly in Aronia.