Apples from the bluff.

Coffee blight has consequences far beyond your morning cup of joe.

There wasn’t a scrap of John Deere green in the whole place.

“Because of the CSA, we have a huge variety of vegetables in production. Some funny stuff: fennel, rutabagas, kohlrabi,”

Finding good, local sources for our food is a goal that People’s Food Co-op is rightly proud of, but the fact is, North America’s Upper Midwest grows disappointing bananas.

Apple season is upon us and varieties of apples for baking, bobbing, and just plain eating fill the co-op produce bins. Apples have always seemed to have a knack for taking advantage of the human craving for sweets, and humans have responded by planting apple trees all over the world.

Daniel and Hannah Miller farm 30 acres in the Zumbro River valley outside of Zumbro Falls, Minnesota.

Sno Pac has been one of People’s suppliers since the earliest days of the Co-op. Pete Gengler, the current CEO (and grandson of Sno Pac’s founder J.P. Gengler), remembers driving Sno Pac deliveries to People’s when the La Crosse store was located in the old Bruha’s Grocery building on Adams Street.

“I’ve never seen a year like this,” Jonas Hochstetter says as we walk along his rows of tomato plants. “The ground was too wet at planting. The plants aren’t as healthy as they ought to be. The tomatoes will be a month late. It makes you wonder when we’ll have our frost.”

“This weather has been very disruptive,” Jack Hedin said as he brewed us a cup of coffee in their office kitchen. “Anytime you get thrown off the bell-curve of your production schedule—we’ve got a number of things ripening throughout the summer—you compound your problems as your schedule compresses into a smaller season.

“A vineyard’s a lot more handwork, but you can’t beat working with your family.”