“There’s very few 20 acre pieces of ground left in the city of Blaine,” said Dale Sprouse, who runs Papa’s organic farm with his wife Sandy.
Papa’s is located on Lexington Avenue in Blaine – in the shadow of new neighborhoods popping up across the street.
“It’s very rewarding,” Sprouse said. “We have a really good quality consumer base. The public has embraced what we do.”
Since 2017 Papa’s has been providing organic food to the area.
Said Sprouse: “I love it.”
Plenty of choices
Papa’s takes pride in growing organic products and felt there was a need to provide locally grown vegetables to the public that are not chemically treated.
“Most of the vegetables that the public consumes, synthetic fertilizer is used to make things grow, get big, green, yellow, whatever color it may be,” Sprouse said. “Then they also use pesticides to control the insects and herbicides to control the weeds.”
Growing organically is nothing new for the Sprouse’s. The couple started doing it out of necessity over 40 years ago.
“It’s way more work than I care to do at my age,” Sprouse said. “That’s why we employ young adults from our local community.”
There are plenty of au natural options to choose from at Papa’s road-side stand such as honey, peppers, salsa, tomatoes and much more.
“We started out with about 300 pumpkins that we grew and last count I think we’re down to about 60,” Sprouse said…”We grow garlic for the seed industry so we have four varieties of gourmet garlic available.”
Unique squash
Sprouse also grows a unique kind of squash.
“Some of them that the public probably has never seen,” Sprouse said. “But they’re really, really tasty.”
Zara Scott and her mom live across Lexington from Papa’s and buy their produce often.
“Me and my brother come here sometimes and we get cucumbers,” Scott said. “Today we got two spaghetti squashes, some garlic and honey.”
Scott likes the small-town feel of Papa’s.
“I like that they trust their customers with the honor system,” Scott said. “There is not constantly people over here and there’s many options. You know it’s fresh and you can see all the stuff right there.”
Papa’s popularity is catching on and he now gets business from beyond the North Metro area.
“We started out thinking we were going to supply products for local communities, which we have done,” Sprouse said. “But through word of mouth we have people that come from Elk River, Wayzata.”
Papa’s recently started providing fresh produce for the Spring Lake Park school system as part of the farm to school program.
