A Drive to Harvest Time Market Farmstand

Finding locally grown can be as easy as a drive in the country.

That’s where you will see farm stands like Laura Swiontek’s Harvest Time Market. The stand, located on County Highway 27 north of Fergus Falls, is where she sells vegetables, mixes, the farm’s maple syrup and her Tangzhong bread and buns, variety of bananas breads and scones in different flavors.

Three years ago she shared her idea of a farmstand with her aunt and uncle who helped bring her vision to life. Her uncle, a talented woodworker, built the stand for her. It has wheels so Laura can move it herself. Her aunt also helped them through the process.

As she set up her business, Laura Googled names for her business. Harvest Time Market was the winner.

Vegetables were, for the first year, her main sales and continue to be an important part of her farmstand. Laura grows a wide variety of produce including peppers like candy cane peppers, plus onions, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, onions , a variety of squashes both summer and fall plus pumpkins, asparagus, cucumbers and horseradish.

Laura enjoys growing and sharing the produce she works hard to raise for Harvest Time Market. Fresh tomatoes, green beans, squash and other seasonal vegetables are a part of what she offers at the stand. She has also planted hundreds to asparagus plants with more harvests to look forward to in the coming years.

She has, over the past two years, expanded her farmstand offerings to include baked goods, mixes, such as chocolate mug cake, cinnamon coffee cake, chocolate espresso and pancake mixes as well as the farm’s pure maple syrup.

At the heart of her offerings is her Tangzhong bread thanks to a recipe she received from her sister-in-law. Tangzhong is an Asian baking technique where a small portion of bread flour and milk is cooked together to create a mixture that is added to the dough. Eggs are added with the remaining ingredients.

“It almost seems too simple,” she said. Once baked, the bread has a good shelf life. It has become a favorite among customers.

Banana bread, scones and rhubarb apple crisp have also been available at the stand. Her friend, Carlie Noorda, adders her baked goods to the stand, also.

The stand is often visited by people in the area and others who have seasonal cabins and lake homes. While Laura and I were talking about her business, a car came up to the stand. The family, from North Dakota, spend weekends at their nearby cabin. Every week they come to the stand for baked goods and vegetables, they said.

The stand is open from May to October and operates on the honor system.

Laura has so much more planned for the future. She has planted 387 asparagus plants , which should be ready to harvest next fall plus she’s planted 140 bushes of raspberry, Juneberry and chokecherry. Fruit trees like plum, pear and apple have also been planted.

She lives with her husband, Jared and three sons on two and a half acres. The property has been their home since 2022. That’s where she’s planted the fruit trees and berry bushes, the garden and more than 300 asparagus plants.

Laura works alongside her husband, Jared and her father-in-law Tim in the family farming and cattle operation. Together they manage a cow-calf operation, background feeder cattle and raise heifers for breeding. Laura completed a class in artificial insemination and began doing much of the breeding work herself with Tim helping alongside.

While Tim farms more acres, the family shares the work of haying, planting and harvesting soybeans, corn and alfalfa along with caring for the cattle. They work as partners with each contributing to the farm’s success.

Recently Laura received approval from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture to set her rendered beef tallow at her farmstand. It adds another locally produced offering to the Harvest Time Market’s products.

Laura is no stranger to hard work nor to farming. She grew up on a Strasberg, ND farm and admits that she “hated farming.” But through all the chores and field work she assisted with, Laura says she gained a good work ethic.

“Now I love it,” she said of farming.

She attended South Dakota State University, earning her Bachelor’s degree in agricultural science. Her first job, after graduation, was with NuSeed as a territory manager which is where she met Jared.

Laura is a stay-at-home mom and assists with the farmwork while maintaining the gardening and farmstand. Her days are filled with raising the couple’s three boys, tending to the garden, baking and working alongside family on the farm.

Finding creative ways to make farm tasks more efficient and figuring out how things work are things Laura enjoys. When she wanted to reduce the time it takes to make maple syrup, she researched reverse osmosis systems. Laura watched YouTube videos and learned how others had built them. She ordered the components needed and put her own system together. Teh system she built removes about 50 percent of the water from the maple syrup before it is boiled. That cuts the tie needed to make syrup roughly in half. That is quite a process considering it takes around 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup.

Laura enjoys the gardening aspect of what she does, but she doesn’t have time to do more pickling of the produce nor canning or freezing as she would like.

Harvest Time Market is more than just a farmstand for Laura. It is a way to share the work of her hands, the products of her family’s farm and her love of growing and producing food for the community

You can find out more about Harvest Time Market on their Facebook page.