What a better way to spend a frigid afternoon than catching up on a few things… It’s good Aronia Berries need a cold season. We’re sure getting it now!
After a long fall and exciting preparation for the holidays, things are finally settling down a bit and I can once again re-focus. We’ve been busy making White Chocolate Aronia Fudge, Strawberry Aronia Fruit Spread all fall. We hope those who received some as Christmas gifts thoroughly enjoyed theirs! We’re always looking for new ways to use Aronia and trying to expand our market, and acquaint folks with the powerful purple berries!
We even spent a little time away from the farm in southwest Florida for the holidays with family and shared information about Aronia with folks at farmers’ markets there! It was fun, they were sharing information about a fruit juice full of anti-oxidants and how good anti-oxidants were for you. We told them we knew a little something about that! Because Aronia is a “super food” with their high ORAC score.
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.
Woody’s motto has always been if you’re not changing, you’re dying. So this is evidence we’re still kicking! This long winter has been preparation for organic certification, tractor and weed badger purchasing, and storage building preparation. You are looking at the future site of our new Horizon building. We had to move over 400 landscape blocks in preparation for the dirt work to begin and get some professional help to determine just where to place the building, but we’re nearly ready.
After 31 years with the same John Deere, Woody has said hello to a new Deere to graze in the fields. Abe will not be chasing this one away. It is necessary to do the work the old Deere, the Ex-Mark and Woody and I have been doing by hand. Thanks to Kendall, we’ll be outfitting it to weed the berries! We’re so excited. It has already made loading things around here so much easier!
In 2012 the late spring frost diminished what we thought we might harvest. In 2013, we have more berries and look forward to the berry production increasing every year. We have about 5,000 plants now which have been planted over the past 3-4 years. We currently have around 200 plants that may produce this year. Each plant has been raised organically, as is our yard, because of my sensitivities. We will be organic certified next season.
We are excited to share some of the photos of the plants this year and the changes from the archived photos to these current ones. If you go back through the blog you will notice the same trees in the background, just the plants are bigger. It is our way of scrapbooking the growth of the plants. I’ve also included a photo of the spring-flowering bush, the flowers were in full bloom the weekend of May 17th, it was quite a sight. We were filled with anticipation.
Fogles Organic Aronia Berries – A Homegrown Super Food!
