Fruitful labor, legacy

ROCHESTER — Sixteen years after moving to the countryside, the family of Dean and Tonya Sanner of Firefly Berries is being honored as the Olmsted County Farm Family of the Year — and it is far from the only fruit of their labor.

When Tonya was a child, she often helped her grandmother, Betty Paape, in the family berry garden in northeastern Wisconsin. As adults, Dean and Tonya enjoyed picking berries at Sterling Fruit Farm near Rochester. The thought of moving to the country had always been appealing to the Sanners, so when the farm went up for sale in 2010, they decided to buy it and rename it Firefly Berries.

“Everything fell into place,” Tonya said. “It was a really bad time to buy and sell a house, because it was right after the 2008 financial crisis, but it worked out. … The previous owners didn’t want to sell the property to someone who wouldn’t continue to farm, and none of their kids wanted to do that, … so when we came out, it felt like they were interviewing us.”

The Sanners had grown strawberries, raspberries and blackberries before, but the previous owners also taught them how to raise Concord grapes in Minnesota to keep the farm running. They used to grow red currants, but they phased those out and are now growing elderberries and a small number of honeyberries. Firefly Berries also offers jams, jellies and grape juice, which is homemade by the Sanners.

Around 2017, Tonya started making dye for yarn. She had always been a fan of fiber arts and learned to knit soon after moving to the farm; she dyes yarn primarily with flowers and plants grown on site, such as marigolds, goldenrod, onion skins, Asiatic lilies, lilacs, blackberry stem bark, plum tree bark and pear tree bark.

“After harvesting the plants, I have to simmer them down to make the actual dye, and then, I will dye (the yarn),” Tonya said. “I’ll either do an immersion dye, where I just dip it all in and it’s the same color, or I do what they call variegated yarn, where you put the yarn in a pan and basically paint on it with dyes so it has different colors in it.”

Firefly Berries also raises cover crops such as white clover and buckwheat; Dean is generally responsible for field management and crop rotation.

“We don’t spray chemicals or anything on our farm,” Tonya said. “We hand-weed, use crop rotation and till.”

Tonya manages operations, customer service, web and product development, and social media while heading jam production and yarn dyeing. The farm also raises bees, and a friend, James White, is the beekeeper. The four Sanner sons — Lucas, Ian, Eliot and Lincoln Sanner — help manage the farm and its marketing and website. Dean’s parents, Dave and Merna Sanner, and Tonya’s parents, Lester and Germaine Paape, also help on the farm from time to time.

The Sanners are members of the Rochester Farmers Market, and they distribute their excess produce by working with Channel One Regional Food Bank and Community Food Response. Firefly Berries led Firefly Hats for Hope in partnership with the Emily’s Hats for Hope Initiative when it was still active; they helped collect and donate handmade winter clothing items to donate to those in need.

One of the ways the Sanners share their farming knowledge is through their partnership with the University of Minnesota Extension to train master gardeners. For Minnesotan grape growers, one of the most valuable pieces of advice Tonya can offer is simply to know your plants.

“In terms of grapes, we grow just Concords; I don’t think there are that many of us in Minnesota,” Tonya said. “Our seasons have gotten so unpredictable, the way the heat and heavy rains are, so we check on our plants regularly, looking for things like Japanese beetles because things can change quickly if we don’t pay attention.”

Tonya encourages other farming families to look at what they have to offer to their communities — not just in terms of products but also in knowledge.

“Don’t be afraid to reach out to places,” she said. “People aren’t always aware of what is available locally, especially if they grow something that’s a little less visible in the store. … Don’t be afraid to reach out and make connections to educate the public by getting involved and talking about what it is you do.”