Last month we visited Rodger Lenhardt of Norm’s Farms in Pittsboro. Norm’s Farms makes a variety of elderberry products as well as co-sponsoring the annual Elderberry Festival in Carrboro (coming up on August 22).
Rodger shared the history of Norm’s Farms, named for his father. He grew up on the family farm in Missouri. He remembers spending an entire summer building a fence with his dad, to whom he credits his work ethic. In 2007, when his father asked him to take over the farm, they were growing soybeans and other commodities used for animal feed. Rodger wanted to grow something perennial and establish a more permanent agricultural system on the farm. So he planted a cover crop and considered. He decided to start with elderberries, and with his family, Ann and Erin, he founded Norm’s Farms.
Norm’s Farms products include pure elderberry extract, elderberry syrup (with honey, cinnamon, and clove), elderberry jam, elderberry ginger pecan jam, and elderberry blueberry preserves (which are on sale this month). Elderberries are much touted for their high nutrient density and medicinal properties. People use them to help with sinus congestion, ease muscle and joint pain, and ward off colds and flu. (Hippocrates wrote several pages about the elderberry in 400 BC, earning them the title of “nature’s medicine chest.”) Rodger gave us each a spoonful of the extract (which is tart) and the syrup (which is delicious), as well as sparking water flavored with elderflower syrup, a product they hope to have on the market soon. You can find recipes and product information on their website, http://normsfarms.com/.
The family farm is still in Missouri, so the harvested elderberries are cleaned and frozen, then shipped to Elizabethtown, NC, where they are stored and processed into Norm’s Farms products. Norm’s Farms also serves as an elderberry nursery, selling plants and assisting new growers. They helped propagate the robust native North Carolina elderberry from a plant found at an old plantation site. They currently have a network of 50 to 60 farmers with 350 acres planted in 13 states, including some in North Carolina. As the elderberry plants flourish, the new growers will be able to provide berries for Norm’s products.
At the farm, they build the soil by using nitrogen-fixing legumes as the cover crop between elderberry rows and by grazing small animals and chickens in the alleys between orchards. Draft ponies (which Rodger calls “a composting barrel with teeth”) also help restore the health and vigor of the property and avoid the use of a tractor. A pond irrigates the orchards using a gravity system. “We believe that with our agricultural system, which is somewhat unique, we can work toward healing the planet,” rodger told us. “We can be a good example to other farmers on how they can grow these plants sustainably, without the use of toxic herbicides and pesticides.”
Elderberries are only one goal, however. While Norm’s Farms will continue to produce elderberry products and expand their supply of the berries, Rodger has begun densely planting orchard trees (mulberry, paw paw, persimmon, hazelnut, service berry) among the elderberry bushes, some of which will be phased out as the trees mature. The farm has a 100-year plan, a 500-year plan, and a 1000-year plan. “Elderberry is at the core of this thing for our value-added product-line, but as we move forward into the future, we hope to have lots of different types of really good wholesome foods for body and spirit.”
Norm’s Farms is a sponsor of the annual Elderberry Festival, a block party in Carrboro on the third weekend in August. “The event is really all about community resilience, sustainability, and food security,” Rodger says. Together with Steel String Brewery, Tyler’s, Second Wind, and The Station, Norm’s hosts the festival with five free music stages, crafts, and food. This year it starts at noon on August 22: visit http://normsfarms.com/elderberry-festival-2015/.