Our story begins with my Grandparents.

Grandpa Paul

Let me start with Grandpa Paul. His Grandfather moved from Luxembourg Germany to South Dakota in 1903 to homestead 160 acres. Grandpa Paul's father took over the farm at the age of 21 after his parents retired. Their oldest son, my Grandfather Paul, went to the State College of Agriculture in Fargo, ND for one year to study farming. He learned that it was easier to grow corn in MN because MN got 30 inches of rain verses 8 inches in ND, where his father mostly grew wheat. After college Paul went to work for a 160 acre farm in MN and after a few years the owner died. He had saved up enough money to buy the farm and most of the equipment. Paul got married and had 12 children, my mother was the oldest.

Here is a story from G. Paul's history book. "We always had huge gardens. Mother canned all the garden food. We only bought sugar and coffee, when we went to town once a month. We'd take wheat to town and have it ground into flour. ..My dad always had a lot of potatoes. We had 50 bushels of potatoes in the cellar under the house."

That is a lot of garden food. Their garden must have been 1-2 acres in size and the cellar would have to have been full of food to feed the family through the winter.

I remember visiting the farm as a kid and seeing some of the fruit trees around the home. Years later I thought G. Paul was pretty smart to plant a bunch of fruit trees around the farm, but when I asked my mother she said G. Paul didn't plant the fruit trees. It turns out his father planted the fruit trees based on what he learned about fruit trees from his father who grew fruit trees in Germany. So the knowledge to grow and harvest fruit trees at my grandfathers farm came from his grandfather. Wow that is how knowledge to grow food is passed through generations.

Grandpa Sy

On my father's side, my Grandfather Sy also grew up on a family farm, but at the young age of 13 he was forced to go to work. It was 1937, the dust bowl and the depression pushed many farmers into bankruptcy. Young men were forced to go to work. Sy eventually bought a small home with 3 acres, but since he didn't have much land to grow food, he became an excellent fisherman. He spend much of his days catching and cleaning fish from the lakes in Central MN. I remember Grandpa Sy's tomatoes were always the largest and one day I realized why, he used fish as fertilizer in his garden. It turns out that fish are a great garden fertilizer because a fish is a slow release of nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

As you can imaging, my parents were well trained in growing garden food. I used to help my mother can 70 quarts of tomatoes and pickles every summer. She had at least 10 difference recipes to make with tomatoes, I think 'goulash' was our favorite.

I'm a 3rd generation gardener. I began growing my own garden when I bought my first house in 2000. Over the years I expanded my garden into fruit trees, which is what brought about this opportunity. It turns out that a lot of people want to grow some of their own food but gardening is a lot to works and requires several things like tools, land, water, seeds and knowledge. Fruit trees seem like an easier way to start growing some food.

In 2010 my father helped me plant the first row of raspberries on one acre of land that I bought a few years before. At the time I was not thinking of starting a nursery, I was just expanding my garden. We expanding this new garden location for 12 years before opening our nursery in 2022. For many years we were just giving away plants and trees to friends and family. It wasn't until after the Covid years that food prices really started to climb that lead a lot of people to start asking us about growing food, which lead me to open our nursery. My family has been involved in many of my expansion projects which makes them all very knowledgeable and helpful with the nursery. You could say this nursery has become a family business.

Maybe you have a similar story, I love to talk about fruit trees and gardening. Drop me an email Contact Us if you have a question about anything.

".. Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return." - Galatian 6:8"

We have several advantages over big nurseries. We meet with you face-to-face to talk about what your plans are and then we show you what we have and answer any questions. We can also show you some of the fruits that the trees will produce. We can discuss soil, irrigation, fencing and harvesting. We grow almost all of our plants/trees in our own gardens so we know they will grow in this zone and climate. Our prices include taxes so you don't have to pay more than the listed prices and we can make deals on the fly for larger orders.