Minnesota Prairie Roots

Morgan Grain & Feed, located in Morgan on the southwestern Minnesota prairie.

I feel badly because somewhere during the process of putting together a feature package on country grain elevators for the fall issue of Minnesota Moments, a photo of Morgan Grain & Feed was omitted.

And then when I blogged about the magazine elevator stories several days ago and posted additional elevator pictures that didn’t make print, I couldn’t find my photos from Morgan.

The reason is simple. I have too many folders of pictures. And sometimes if I have only one or two images of something, those photos end up buried somewhere. Today I discovered the Morgan Grain & Feed shots in a file labeled “travel.”

That was after I thought I had searched everywhere a few days ago, finally concluding that I had inadvertently deleted the images.

So to Morgan Grain and Feed, this blog is for you because you’re too important to the Redwood County economy to be forgotten.

© Copyright 2009 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

The Twiehoffs' pickup truck sits outside their produce-filled pole shed in eastern Faribault.

Old-fashioned gladiolus are a mainstay at Twiehoff Gardens.

Perhaps it is the down-home goodness of the folks who run the place. Or maybe it’s the unpretentious way fresh fruits and vegetables and other merchandise are displayed in the no-frills pole shed. Whatever, the specific reason, simply put, I love Twiehoff Gardens along St. Paul Road in Faribault.

This is the kind of place where fresh means fresh.

Dried dirt still clings to freshly-dug potatoes and to the papery skins of onions. Sweet corn, picked from the field that morning, fills wooden crates. Gladiolus come clipped from a garden that lies only yards from the shed. Apples are from the orchard across the road.

There’s nothing glitzy about merchandising. Onions in a weathered trailer. Piles of fresh beans and cucumbers tossed in cardboard boxes. Tiny pumpkins on a shelf. Sweet corn displayed in old wooden crates. Crude, hand-lettered signs listing products and prices. Glads stuck in recycled, water-filled plastic buckets scattered around the cement floor.

Everything here speaks to wholesomeness, to an appreciation of the earth, to the Twiehoffs, who tend the land, reap the harvest.

There’s nothing fancy about this place. Nothing at all. And that’s exactly how I like it.

Bags of birdseed are always available.

Squash awaits customers.

Summer squash by the box full.

A homemade sign indicates the produce available.

© Copyright 2009 by Audrey Kletscher Helbling