As we sit here in Central Iowa and watch the weird weather, we are preparing for the coming year. The warm, warm late winter has encouraged the leaves to begin appearing on the Aronia plants. Yes, we all loved the warm weather and we were all outside, but we knew it was too early.
We’ve been learning about chilling units, chill hours, etc. The time the Aronia plants need to “sleep” in the winter. Seems like the magic number is somewhere around 1000-1200 hours and then buds begin to burst. The problem may be when this happens too early (like this year) we all hold our breath that a late freeze won’t ruin crop production by freezing off or frosting the precious flower buds which eventually become our crop. Maybe you have a fruit tree that the same thing happens too occasionally. Mother Nature is in charge!
We’re also preparing for the coming year in other ways. Planning for the Warren County Farm Tour begins in earnest tomorrow. Mark your calendars for August 28! We will be having a U-Pick operation here that day and hope many visitors will enjoy the berries, recipes and products we will have on hand.
So as we “weather” the cold tonight, we will still be thinking berries!
Today we can finally relax a little. It’s been a while since I posted. We’ve been through a lot since the last post. July 7th started out with farm pictures for the Fogle’s 40 Organic Acres Facebook page. Woody in his Papa Bernstein bear hat and the girls and I. No big deal, except I really don’t like to have my picture taken, but after that day, I’m not going to fuss. These pictures could have been our last. Woody went to mow Field 4, which we can’t see from the house. He and the mower slipped into the pond. He was trapped under water and under the mower. He had given up and decided to push one more time, he was able to lift the mower off of him enough to get out and swim up the 8′ or so he was underwater. God wasn’t ready for him just yet. We are so, so grateful! Bumps and bruises healed.
Take the Pictures – Could mean the world…
It seems like ages ago the Iowa State Fair booth in the Ag Building was set up to greet many of the million visitors to the Fair. We worked several times and educated folks about all things Aronia. We met many wonderful growers and folks interested in Aronia. I have to share about two folks stick in my mind. The first was a middle-aged woman who was told she was pre-diabetic and had to take a medication. She related that she began eating about a handful of berries six months ago and made no other dietary changes. On a recent visit to her doctor her blood work was so much better, they discontinued her medicine. She told the doctor it was due to the berries, that was the only change. He didn’t believe her. Yet many of us know “Food is Medicine”. She will continue to tell folks and eat her handful of berries! If that wasn’t amazing enough, not more than 10 minutes later, a gentleman came by and told us he’s been using Aronia concentrate for the past year and he feels more like 50 than his 80 years. He has even persuaded his daughter to use the concentrate and give it to his grandchildren. He was completely sold on the health benefits.
The amazing part of this Fair presence was that more folks had heard about Aronia than last year. What a difference a year made. It’s exciting to be in the emerging Aronia industry.
We harvested Aronia berries on August 22nd, the last Saturday of the Fair! We had wonderful youth and adult helpers representing two softball teams, a 4-H group, the church youth and some old friends. We hand-picked almost 2000 pounds of berries on that Saturday. Needless to say we were all exhausted. It’s hard work and I am reminded every year I need to get in better shape. We hope to be fully recovered from the cicada damage next year and have even a bigger harvest. We are planning to use a mechanical harvester next year.
After harvesting, we plunged head into the Warren County Farm Tour. Not knowing what to truly expect, we worked with our neighbors, Larry & Jan Fife of the Ring King, to provide Aronia themed foods. We also had doTerra essential oils, Scentsy, Paws at Home Pet Care, information about Aronia’s benefits, plants, and information on how to care for organic plants. We thought we may have a 150-200 folks visit. Last night, when the driveway was cleared out and all the food was gone, we figured we’d had closer to 500-600 visitors. Two hundred families had entered for the gift basket! It was crazy!!! We were overwhelmed with the interest in the unique farms that make up a portion of Warren County. Our thanks to all who visited, organized, and promoted the 2015 Warren County Farm Tour.
Ready for the TourAronia food by the Ring King at the 2015 Warren County Farm Tour
We are especially grateful to our entire family, without whom we couldn’t have made it through the past two months!
Woody and I have made a commitment to be a part of the 2015 Warren County Farm Tour. We are excited, a little anxious about the preparation and timing though. We finish co-chairing the Midwest Aronia Association’s Iowa State Fair booth in the Ag Building on the 23rd of August and will host the Farm Tour on August 30. Sometime around there we will be harvesting as well. Crazy? Maybe, but we feel strongly folks need to know about the benefits of the Aronia berry. There is all kinds of research being done on how to use these very-high antioxidant berries. The article below explains a little bit about the excitement.
The Aronia berry blossoms are beginning to pop open! Our fields are not only beautiful, but as the dog indicates, they smell good too. His nose was just lifted and sniffing, it was too cute to resist. This time he was not sniffing for deer!
We’re thankful too, the Weed Badger we’d waited for all last summer is working well and we have high hopes it will make our life much easier and our berries healthier. It sure has changed the appearance of the fields.
2 cups uncooked spaghetti broken into small pieces, or rings, cooked and cooled
Cook pudding mixture until thick:
4 eggs
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 cups powdered sugar
Dice 2-3 apples (no need to peel). Mix apples along with 1/2 cup Aronia berries. Mix cooled spaghetti and pudding mixture all together. Refrigerate overnight. Mix with large carton Cool Whip the next morning. Makes a large salad. Can easily be made gluten free with gluten free spaghetti.
Okay, I have to add this…you’ll see why if you get to the third paragraph. Unfortunately we weren’t able to attend. (It was the same week as Woody’s heart procedure, but we were there in thought.)
Midwest Aronia Association 5th Annual Conference
“Let’s Get Growing” Moline, Illinois March 21, 2015
Midwest Aronia Association held their 2015 conference in Moline, Illinois, March 19-21. This annual Midwest event is the largest gathering of Aronia growers in the nation, drawing speakers and attendees from across the United States, as well as internationally, to network, learn and share information about the Super Fruit, Aronia berry. Aronia has been introduced in recent years as a value-added sustainably grown crop, and researchers continue to discover the numerous health benefits of the dark purple berry.
The Midwest Aronia Association is a non-profit group whose focus is education concerning Aronia. Main goals include assisting growers, and re-establishing Aronia as a healthy staple in modern diets by introducing Aronia berries to consumers. With grower-members throughout the United States and Canada, there is growing focus on local and regional marketability as well as expanding domestic market growth and development of the Aronia industry.
With approximately 150 attendees, events included management practices; marketing and business development; labeling, processing and Regional Chapter development. The conference opened with a well-received Recipe Contest for which participants contributed an Aronia-based food and recipe for judging and eventual inclusion in an Aronia Cookbook with a Harvest Season 2015 targeted publication date. Additional Aronia recipes will be accepted throughout April. Other topics included site preparation, harvesting, soil nutrition and cultural management, storm and pest damage mitigation, irrigation, crop insurance, processing, product development and marketing. The Aronia Promoter of the Year award was given to Peggy Fogle for her tireless efforts in organizing and staffing the successful Iowa State Fair MAA booth and other volunteer activities. Dr. Terry Wahls whose research on nutrition in the study of traumatic brain injury and Multiple Sclerosis delivered the keynote address after the annual banquet.
The MAA annual business meeting and board member elections were held during the conference. 10 officers/committee chairs were retained or elected to the board. For more information about Aronia and the MAA, please visit www.midwestaronia.org
Today we pruned, AGAIN. We are nearly finished pruning 1800+/- plants in Field 4. What we are finding makes us sick one moment and tickled pink the next. The Aronia Melanocarpa bushes are such hardy plants, we know we made a good choice planting them. It seems that the bushes most damaged by the 17-year cycle of Cicadas seem to have sent out the most new shoots last summer. HOORAY! Because now as we’re cutting them way off to trim out the damage, we are still hopeful they will be productive, if not this year, in the future.
Yet it still hurts to have to cut the top out of a bush that is as big around as your thumb but has been chewed almost in half and eggs laid in a portion of the stem 2-3″ long. So much damage that when the bush tries to produce fruit, it will be so weakened, the branch could not sustain the weight or the production.
As we are pruning, we feel it is somewhat of an analogy for our lives. Just this past week, Woody had angioplasty to open two arteries in his heart. One artery had a stint inserted to help keep it open. We have led a life full of ups and downs, much like our roller coaster week last week. We have been pruned to make us stronger too. Just like the hardy berries, the Fogle’s are a hardy bunch too. We have been pruned and grown closer, stronger, and healthier. In fact, this week marks our 37th year of marriage. Pretty good for the pair most unlikely to succeed.
Odd title? You wouldn’t think so if you joined us the last few weeks in the field. You see after the 17-year Cicada damage we suffered in June 2014, you’d understand. Pruning is best done in December-March so the cuts can callous and harden off. On some of the warmer days we have been out cutting back bushes. It’s a cold, snowy field and the footing is a little slippery. Secondly, you have to bend down and inspect each branch and remember we have nearly 5,000 bushes, so it seems like it takes forever. We’re still not done, but we’ll get there a little at a time as the backs can handle it.
I say cussing because It makes you physically feel sick to cut off so much of some of the plants and know how you are cutting down on your yield for the upcoming year. You have that to deal with emotionally. I keep telling myself those damned Cicadas layed the eggs in the little branches and weakened the bushes now to the point that they will not support the weight of all the berries they will be having now and in the future. If the damage isn’t cut out now, they will suffer later. So I cut and cuss.
At the same time, I praise the quiet time alone in the woods and in the field. I am so thankful we are where we are and we have a hardy bush that will survive, thrive and be so strong and large in 17 years, the next Cicadas will not be able to damage them this way ever again. Thus, the life of a farmer.
We had such high hopes for our crop this year and were so excited for the changes we were making to our farm. Yet another lesson in patience.
We ordered our Weed Badger in early April and hoped to be ready to till around the plants in May. I should never have trusted and sold the little riding mower that went between the small plants. The weed badger showed up last week! But it is going to be awesome. We need some practice with it, but it will do the job, we’re just set back a year.
On June 17th while mowing we noticed all kinds of damaged to the berry bushes. We couldn’t decide if the heavy winds the night before had damaged our plants or just what had happened. Turns out it was the 17-year cicada emergence. They really did a number on us. The females bury their eggs into the small stems of plants. Well our place is very wooded and was 17 years ago too, so we had a terrible infestation. It was like walking on crunchy shells everywhere in our fields. Turns out they were a problem. We had lots of branches die and many more erupted and weakened so they did not support all the berry production. Our crop suffered dramatically and probably will next year too. We’re thankful it’s only every 17 years!
Cicada Damaged BushCicada Damaged Branch
June 16th our Horizon Building arrived after a LOT of dirt work that was done, thanks to our son. The wonderful Amish crew had the building up in a week, mostly. It rained and rained all summer and the inside was muddy, our granddaughter loved mud stomping inside! The floor was finally poured (in the rain) August 27th. But we have a place to put all the equipment for winter storage and it’s wonderful.
Mudstomping Inside the Building
Through all the rain, weeds, and cicada damage, we’ve been so impressed at how hardy these plants are. Plants we put in the ground two years ago have really thrived despite the conditions they had to deal with this year. That field was neglected this summer with all the rain and the lack of a good way to mow between the plants and the cicada damage as well, but they look really good.
We keep believing the plants will be able to produce a nice crop for us. We have had friends with excellent yields. Meanwhile, we keep finding new ways to enjoy them.
5 cups flour (I usually use 2 c whole wheat and 3 unbleached white)
1 Tbsp baking soda
1 cup aronia berries
1 cup chocolate chips
Mix butter, shortening and sugars. Add eggs, vanilla and soda. Mix in the flour. Add the berries and chocolate chips. Berries may be fresh or frozen and will tend to turn the cookies a swirly purple when mixed. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes.
Fogles Organic Aronia Berries – A Homegrown Super Food!
