by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
When people describe Alex Bertsch as “down to earth,” they’re not kidding. He’s been working closely with the good earth for years, growing good foods and even starting his own earth-based business, “Epic by Nature Farm.”
The Sartell High School junior has a level-headed mission: to grow, sell or donate crops that are highly nutritious, grown in an eco-friendly way without the use of pesticides or herbicides.
Recently, Bertsch gave a talk from the stage at the Home Show in St. Cloud. The title of his talk was “Organic Gardening: the Epic Truths,” and Bertsch gave many tips prospective gardeners should remember as the planting season approaches:
- Water in the mornings, and then don’t over-water.
- Cover soil with some form of mulch – leaves, grass clippings, wood chips or other. Mulch holds in moisture, guards against splashes and erosion, keeps the soil soft and allows beneficial micro-organisms to flourish.
- Create a habitat for beneficial insects like butterflies, bees, aphid wasps and lady bugs. Such “friendly” critters will keep down harmful pests.
“It was my first time ever talking to a group from a stage,” Bertsch said. “I was a bit nervous, but I thought it went really well.”
It may have been his first talk from a stage, but it won’t be his last because he loves to share his knowledge about gardening and marketing with anyone who will listen – at schools, farmers’ markets and any other places where people gather to talk about and learn about nutritious foods.
Entrepreneur
Bertsch is not only a gardener but also an entrepreneur and homegrown philosopher. One of his main messages is this: People don’t have to shift their entire lifestyles to contribute to the organic, sustainability movement.
“Just buy one or two food items at a local farmers’ market,” he tells listeners. “And with help, little by little, they can shift our world to a more natural and sustainable way of life.”
Bertsch’s produce includes such staples as tomatoes, sweet corn and pumpkins, but his true specialties are salad fixings and nutrient-dense microgreens.
His salad greens include red Russian kale, arugula, spinach, spring-mix lettuce varieties, mustard greens and purple Santiago radishes. Microgreens are the seedling shoots of such foods as peas, broccoli and sunflowers foods. The seedlings, seven to 14 days old, depending, contain up to 40 times more nutrients than their full-grown counterparts. And they are infinitely versatile. Customers make shake drinks using them, they can be used in salads, eaten by themselves with or without a dressing, made into sandwiches or added to or blended with other entrees on a dinner plate.
Bertsch has almost 40 feet of indoor shelving space on which he grows his micro-greens under rows of grow lights. He sells them in five-inch by five-inch containers with the micro-greens still embedded in the sterilized soil in which they’d grown – a way to guarantee optimal freshness and maximum nutrients.
Bertsch sells his produce at the Sauk Rapids Farmers’ Market and at Mixin’ It Up, a gluten-free bakery in Sauk Rapids. His products can also be ordered privately. Currently, he is pursuing a way to sell them by orders placed from Mighty Farm Food Inc. He is also going to be a vendor at the Sartell Farmers’ Market this spring and summer.
Socially connective
Bertsch’s concept of social responsibility stems naturally from his passion for growing good foods, from working closely with the earth and from helping people learn about eating nutritious foods.
He’s an avid supporter of food shelves. Last March, when he was 16, he began a collection drive for the food shelves at Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army and brought in well over 100 pounds of food.
Bertsch also said he believes the sharing of good foods and knowledge about them will help strengthen the eco-friendly sustainability movement’s rapid growth, thanks partly to local farmers’ markets far and wide.
“I love to grow as sustainably as possible,” he said. “I like to start from the soil with composts, manures, mulches.”
Early green thumb
When he was only 10 years old, Bertsch discovered his young green-thumb knack for gardening.
“I kind of stumbled upon it,” he recalled. “I’d grow things in pots on the deck, seedlings in cupboards, and then one day my parents let me dig up a small spot in the yard where I could garden.”
When his paternal grandfather, Randy Bertsch, moved to Milaca from North Dakota, he plowed up a plot for his grandson to garden to his heart’s content. It wasn’t long before Bertsch bought his own roto-tiller. The gardening plot reached a half-acre in size.
“I might do sweet corn there and summer squash this season,” he said.
His other garden, near his Sartell home, is about 500 square feet.
“From the time I started, I wanted to grow foods that are more fresh, more quality, more local,” he said.
An ongoing impetus for his gardening is experimentation.
“I love to experiment, to try planting different things,” he said. “I even took a community-education class on how to grow mushrooms. My grandma (Zena Persons of St. Cloud) also took that class, and we inoculated two logs (with mushroom spores) and we grew shitake mushrooms.”
Constant learning
Gardening, Bertsch said, is a never-ending learning process. He listens to iPodcasts while gardening, learning about the subject along with programs about entrepreneurship.
His friends sometimes razz him about his iPod listening and his passion for gardening, but – all the same – they have been very supportive, as has his family – parents Carolyn and Matt, and siblings Madelyn, 11; and Adam, 8.
“My friends have helped me so much, almost every weekend,” he said. “It’s so good to bounce ideas off family and friends.”
Bertsch’s busy life is certainly not constricted by his hard work in gardening, marketing and selling. An avid outdoorsman, he loves to camp, fish and kayak.
His favorite school subjects are English, automotive metal, marketing and accounting. After graduation, he plans to earn a marketing-and-business degree in college. His passion for gardening, now both a hobby and a job, will no doubt keep him grounded for a very long time.
Teaching
Bertsch will teach sessions on how to make his own recipe, “Microgreen Blender Muffins,” from 9-11 a.m. Saturday, March 25 at the Mixin’ It Up gluten-free bakery in Sauk Rapids.
All are welcome to attend the free lessons.
The bakery is located at 106 Second Ave. N. near Jimmy’s Pour House in downtown Sauk Rapids.
Alex Bertsch
Broccoli microgreens are not only a blazingly beautiful fresh green but they are also incredibly nutritious.
