by Jeanette Hurt | Photography by Shane Luitjens
“For me, as a farmer, it’s always great to interact with my customers, and it’s great to see that there is an interest in what I am doing.”—Tim Huth
Eager to see where their food comes from, travelers are flocking to Milwaukee for a farm-fresh vacation experience.
Tendrils of sweet peas and tender lettuce leaves push forth from well-tended rows. The air is perfumed with the sweet smell of moist earth and tangy herbs, and a small herd of goats greets visitors.
Growing Power’s small roadside store and greenhouses make you feel like you’re right in the middle of rural Wisconsin’s farmland, but this nonprofit is actually the last working farm within Milwaukee’s city limits. Will Allen, founder and director of this sustainable, urban farm, estimates that it welcomes more than 5,000 visitors a year from all over the country.
Inside one of
Growing Power’s
greenhouses
“People drive up and see the greenhouses on the street, and then they come inside and see this integrated food system that we’ve created,” Allen says. “I think this is agriculture of today, and it’s also agriculture of the future.”
Growing Power may be standing alone as farmland in the city, but many outposts can be found in the surrounding area. Though southeastern Wisconsin is the least agricultural section of the Dairy State, farming thrives—and opportunities for visiting farms abound. “For me, as a farmer, it’s always great to interact with my customers, and it’s great to see that there is an interest in what I am doing,” says Tim Huth, an organic farmer whose business, Living Off the Fat of the Land, rents fields and infrastructure from Michael Fields Agricultural Center in East Troy (40 minutes from Milwaukee). “They bring a different perspective, and it’s absolutely rewarding to visit with them. They all come out with big, starry eyes, and they leave very happy.”
Will Allen introduces a group of eager students to many urban agriculture opportunities, which include farming tilapia in a pool.
Visiting local farms in the Milwaukee area is becoming a popular activity as the phenomenon of eating local picks up steam. In fact, the concept made headlines when the New Oxford American Dictionary declared locavore (a person who advocates eating foods made in or around where he or she lives) 2007’s “Word of the Year.”
“I’ve just been seeing an increased awareness of people asking me where food comes from,” says David Swanson, owner of Braise on the Go cooking school and educational officer for the Southeast Wisconsin chapter of the Slow Food movement. “I see a lot more people wanting to get back to the land.”
Most working farms in Southeast Wisconsin allow visitors, but the experience is a bit different than a day at a petting zoo. “People are usually surprised when they visit us,” says Lynn Lein, owner of Yuppie Hill Poultry in Burlington (an hour from Milwaukee). “When people think of family farms, they think of the pretty little red barn with the picket fence and the chickens running around. We don’t have that pretty little red barn or a picket fence, or animals running around.”
Once people get over their misconceptions, though, the learning begins, and, in many cases, visitors become repeat customers. “I have some people who drive out here every week to pick up their eggs,” Lein says.
Overcoming misconceptions and reconnecting with the food we eat are perhaps the biggest benefits to visiting local farms. “There’s a big disconnect in our culture regarding where food is being produced and what we’re actively eating,” says Dori Sorensen, a farm and food educational coordinator at the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, a nonprofit farm and agricultural center that promotes connections between farmers and consumers. “It’s really valuable for our spiritual and physical well-being to be more conscious of what we’re eating, and all the attention, care and hard work that goes into producing food.”
MARKET FRESH
These spots in Milwaukee County are more than just pick-up points for produce.
SOUTH SHORE FARMERS MARKET
Braise’s
David
Swanson at
the South
Shore
Farmers
Market
South Shore Park 2900 S. Shore Dr., 414-744-0408 Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon through mid-October
The fragrance of sizzling bacon and sausage wafts across the stalls and practically seeps into the foliage at South Shore Park. It’s no wonder that the line grows exponentially as Lynn Lein, of Yuppie Hill Poultry in Burlington, and Scott Wilson, of Wilson Meats, cook their meats and eggs. People snatch up breakfast sandwiches just as fast as the crew can assemble them, nibbling away as they walk past the stalls of fragrant flowers, rows of fresh tomatoes and even the Volkswagen coffee cart.
Cindy Chapman sells
vegetables at the
West Allis Farmers
WEST ALLIS FARMERS MARKET
1559 S. 65th St., 414-302-8600 Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
This is the granddaddy of Milwaukee-area farmers markets. With nearly 90 years of operation, not only is this farmers market perhaps the oldest, it is definitely the largest: It covers more than a square block.
First Courses
One cooking school is bringing the classroom to the farmhouse.
David Swanson, chef and founder of the traveling cooking school Braise on the Go, holds classes smack dab in the middle of working farms. “When I first launched this three years ago, farmers were hesitant, and they would say, ‘Oh, this is a working farm. It’s not beautiful enough to visit,’” Swanson says. “But then people came away amazed.”
Swanson also hosts Sunday suppers on farms. “People come to the farm, the farmer gives a quick tour, and then they sit down at a big, communal table where we eat together,” he says. “The dinner is made with ingredients harvested at the farm. It’s not about trying to impress the culinary world; it’s more just to showcase great food.”
“People have lost touch with where their food comes from,” says Dan Strongin, a partner in Saxon Homestead Creamery, a farmstead cheese-making operation in Cleveland, Wis. (an hour and 15 minutes from Milwaukee). “Agritourism gives people a chance to get back in touch, and it also gives people more of a sense of pride in place. What’s nice is that you can really see the effects of family farms [on the community].”
Some farms allow guests to partake in the farming, offering “you pick ’em” opportunities. “You can buy peas in the store, but picking them off the vine is just unbeatable,” says Bob Barthel, owner and fourth-generation family farmer of Barthel Fruit Farm in Mequon (35 minutes from Milwaukee). “There’s nothing like the fragrance or the juice of a tree-ripened pear. It’s just wonderful, and we have families who come out and spend the whole day here.”
Barthel, who has been running the farm for 30 years, says his great-grandfather homesteaded here in 1839, and it was originally a dairy farm with an orchard. “He used to have 16 trees per acre, and now I’m doing 1,100 to 1,500 trees per acre with high-density dwarf plantings,” he says.
Yuppie Hill Poultry owner
Lynn Lein with “her girls” Ellen Haynes, a retired nutrition-ist, is a frequent visitor to local farms, and she often preserves tomatoes, peaches, strawberries and raspberries either by canning or freezing them. “There’s something to be said for how our grandparents and great-grandparents lived,” Haynes says. “There’s a certain satisfaction, too, that comes from preserving food. When I had three little babies, there was something wonderfully satisfying about putting up pears and then having a full cupboard, knowing that, unlike the meals I made, [the pears] weren’t going to disappear overnight.”
If nothing else, visiting farms can be a balm for pressured times. “Visually, there’s just something appealing about a farm,” Huth says. “When you get onto a farm of any kind, it’s hard to see any ugliness in it. Plus, people can see what the landscape looked like before the cities swept in, and they can also see the small-town, subtle strength that farming communities have.”
Rebecca Loss, a marketing specialist and graphic designer, said she comes away with a different perspective after visiting a farm or one of Milwaukee’s many farmers markets. “It’s just nice to put a name and a face to where your food is coming from,” Loss says. “It almost feels like you’re growing the food yourself because you come away with that homegrown feeling … Plus, nothing, and I mean nothing, tastes fresher than what you can get at a farm."
MIDWEST AIRLINES offers daily flights to and from Milwaukee. Details can be found at www.midwestairlines.com.
IF YOU GO
Barthel Fruit Farm
262-242-2737 barthelfruitfarm.com
Braise on the Go
414-241-9577 braiseculinaryschool.com
Growing Power
414-527-1546 growingpower.org
Living off the Fat of the Land
262-951-0794 lotfotl.com
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute
262-642-3303 michaelfieldsaginst.org
Saxon Homestead Creamery
920-547-4108 saxoncreamery.com
Yuppie Hill Poultry
262-210-0264
