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.

Adrienne Caldwell from Powerkraut has hit all the current food buzzwords. Her product is local, made in Viroqua, Wisconsin by a small independent business. Sauerkraut and Kim Chi are traditional “Slow Foods,” hand-crafted and truly made the old-fashioned way. In addition, they are fermented foods, which are said to promote healthy digestion and growth of helpful intestinal flora.

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.

Brian Fredrickson is serious about his honey. Produced on their “virtual farm” comprising 5 orchards and 300 hives at 18 bee locations throught central and southern Minnesota, Ames Farm honey is “a floral portrait” of our region. Each jar is labeled not only with the type of flower the bees fed on while producing it, but also with the number of the hive. After you buy a jar, you can take it home, log on to your computer, and find out exactly where it came from on the Ames Farm website.

If that isn’t good enough for you, how about the taste?

Alaffia formulates their premium shea butter skin care products using their own handcrafted, shea butter and other indigenous ingredients. The goal of their simple, effective formulations is to preserve the integrity and effectiveness of the shea butter and indigenous ingredients in the final product. They do not use petroleum derived products or parabens, and they do not test on animals.

When you make the best butter in America (awarded by the American Cheese Society, 3 years in a row), you must be doing something right! Linden Hills Co-op is proud to carry PastureLand’s butters and cheeses, from Minnesota family farms. Michelle and Roger Benrud, who are members of the PastureLand Co-op, will be our guest speakers at this year’s annual membership meeting October 28! Here’s a little snapshot of life on a PastureLand farm.

Morning at PastureLand

We get up to milk the cows early, before it even starts to get light. Usually it’s pitch black out.

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”

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.

Many people have learned the “inconvenient truth” about global warming thanks to Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary. What may also be inconvenient for many in today’s society is learning about all of the harmful and toxic substances used in everyday, mass-market household cleaners.

Take a look—what is underneath your sink? While the ingredients may or may not be listed on your household cleaners, if there is a toxic warning label or instructions on calling poison control if ingested, you know it can be harmful to you, your family and the environment.

Living the Sassy Life
By Kathy Gerhardt

The tag on the children’s clothes at Linden Hills Natural Home reads in part: “Superb comfort. Inspired design from organic and recycled fabrics…this is what fashion should be. This is Sassy Knitwear.”

Designed and hand-sewn by Molly O’Brien, these clothes are not only sassy, but smart, too: smart in design, smart in comfort and smart in that they are created and delivered with as little impact to the environment as possible.