for a quarter of ~ Darla Van Heerde ~

WhenDarla Van Heerde, 63, purchased nearly 40 acres of overgrown farmland in Esko, it immediately felt like home. Twenty-five years later, it is literally buzzing. Van Heerde’s sense of adventure, willingness to experiment and visionary attitude allowed her garden to grow into Pants Mary Land farm and apiary.

A retired doctor of family medicine and geriatrics, Van Heerde was raised on a farm in southwest Minnesota. A capable gardener, she chuckled and said she has a “guy” for everything: removing invasive plants, tilling and cultivating the land, supplying foodie ideas. She works with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) cultivating native plants and wildlife and removing invasive species. Boreal Natives, a division of Prairie Restorations, has also helped develop Pants Mary Land. Friends and family have worked alongside her, too.

To know Van Heerde, it is helpful to know who Pants Mary is. Through the Esko Historical Society, writer Davis

Helberg tells the story of Finnish immigrant Mary Winter. She called herself Housu Maija, or “Pants Mary,” because she wore men’s pants to work the land, raising cattle and selling real estate. She was a single woman, financially successful and generous. In 1909, Pants Mary owned Van Heerde’s acreage, so she named it after her to honor a kindred spirit, saying “we’re both working out here wearing pants.”

Visiting Van Heerde’s farm is an experience.

“I love show and tell!” she said with a patient confidence, commenting on developments: What used to be there and what she hopes for the future.

Van Heerde finished building her house in 2000. In 2004, an NRCS WHIP project built a wetlands restoration pond and Boreal Natives seeded prairie grass around the pond. They regularly schedule a controlled burn to keep native grasses growing and preventing invasive species. Geese return annually, hooded mergansers nest, and sandhill cranes, swans, blue herons, buffleheads, ringneck ducks and many other waterfowl regularly visit.

Van Heerde has a circle of apple trees out front, their variety names etched into bricks at the base of each tree. In 2012, she created more space for apples, cherries, pears, plums, apricots, highbush cranberries, raspberries and blackberries. In 2015, discovering Midwest Elderberry Collective meant planting elderberry bushes. In 2016, attending a seminar at Wrenshall’s Farm LoLa meant learning to grow

Continued on page 8 honeyberries. Applying for a high tunnel through NRCS in 2018 led to tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, radishes and microgreens, which, she said, “Pea shoots were the best!” To “have something green and fresh and you know where it came from,” she said, is satisfying knowing it was not “shipped in” from somewhere. Solar panels were installed in 2019, so her electricity bill was $3,259 less the first year. Boreal Natives helped create a pollinator-friendly area between the solar arrays.

A tour of the rest of Pants Mary Land reveals what else is growing: aronia, chokeberry, red currants and jostaberries (a blackcurrant-gooseberry hybrid). Onions, garlic, shallots, grapevines, rhubarb and asparagus do well, too. Celebrating growth, Van Heerde said, “I have the best life ever!”

In 2013, Van Heerde began keeping honeybees. Her “girls,” as she affectionately calls them at Pants Mary Apiary, produced the best harvest yet in summer 2020: about 800 pounds. Van Heerde believes working with the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), part of NRCS, to remove the invasive tag alder tree, helped increase honey production because a new field of yellow wetland-loving wildflowers, nodding beggarticks, bloomed where the trees had been; it buzzed with Van Heerde’s girls as well as native bees.

Two weeks of sub-zero temperatures this winter caused Van Heerde to lose eight hives. Although the queen had laid eggs and there were frames full of honey, extreme cold meant they would not break away from the warmth of clustering together. Van Heerde hopes to benefit from a partial reimbursement for weather-eligible events offered by a NRCS farm service agency program. Van Heerde has learned a lot from nine years as a beekeeper and admits there is always more to learn.

Because the farm yields more food than her family and friends can consume, she brings produce and unique canned goods made from what she grows to sell at local farmers markets. Favorites include garden marmalade (served with Serving

$4695 Per application salmon) and elderflower cordial (traditional British floral concentrate to dilute with water). Van Heerde’s daughter-in-law uses beeswax to make hand creams and lip balms, and Van Heerde makes intricate candles. Having brewed beer and mead (fermented honey) since the 1980s, she is delighted to collaborate with Duluth Cider by providing honey for their Glensheen Gold Honey Cider.

Going through divorce and the death of her son, Van Heerde felt like the land was truly a “gift from God.” Yet, it was not until her stroke in 2016 that she began to realize what a gift the land could truly be. While she appears pain-free, Van Heerde described the pain in her right cheek as “road rash.” Something as simple as a bedsheet produces the sensation of cutting into her skin. Touching the tip of her right index finger can feel like “shards of glass.” A slight breeze can hurt, too, moving the hairs on her right arm, tricking her brain into perceiving intense pain. Grateful to be able to retire from her medical profession, she has a purpose on the farm and the ability to rest when needed.

“I’m a doer, a grower!” Van Heerde said. D