Food forest gives visitors a taste of edible landscaping
As raspberry season peaked, Prairie Ally welcomed a record number of visitors eager to harvest the berries while exploring the vibrant food forest. Red currants also brought something new to many. Established in 2018, the food forest thrives with new edible and medicinal plants added each year. Kim Rockman notes, “Return visitors often share that they’ve added plants to their own yards and community spaces as a result of what they’ve seen and tasted at Prairie Ally.”
Recent completion of an Extension RSDP project has focused on improving soil health, enhancing watering practices and creating interpretive signage. This provided vital public education on soil health and gardening and introduced nitrogen-fixing plants for long-term ecological benefits.
Gary Wyatt emphasizes the importance of food forests for urban food security: “They can help people learn about and care for plants that produce edible fruits, nuts and vegetables.” With ongoing community engagement, Prairie Ally remains a hub for sustainable gardening and education.
Highlights
- Extension’s Master Gardener Volunteer Program in Rock County includes a variety of volunteer efforts, including an annual plant sale, garden tours and educational seminars.
- Minnesota’s first certified-halal farm, Kandi Acres, was started, offering halal options to several grocery stores in the area, thanks in part to an Extension hobby farm workshop and research about the state’s halal marketplace.
- In 2025, Rock County 4-H added robotics programming and had enough kids to form two competitive teams that went on to compete at regionals and advanced to state, where one of the teams placed fourth.
- U of M Farm Family of the Year: The Kruse family are known for their innovative Hereford cow-calf operation, emphasizing whole-herd health, rotational grazing and community involvement.
- Extension provides financial capability education for participants in the judicial district’s treatment courts, including adult and juvenile drug courts, and courts for mental health, veterans, family dependency and DWI/DUI.
- Minnesota Master Naturalist volunteers co-hosted a Fruit Production Workshop at Prairie Ally with Fruit Production Educator Madeline Wimmer, where they shared management tips for woody, perennial fruits from a whole-systems perspective.
Rock County office
Extension has 14 regional offices supporting all 87 counties in Minnesota.
Rock County partners with Extension to deliver practical education and research you can use at home, at work and in your community. More about Extension in our county.
About the Minnesota 87 project
Spend time in any Minnesota county, and you will almost certainly encounter University of Minnesota Extension. Our faculty and staff, volunteers, participants, alumni and partners are woven into the fabric of rural, urban and suburban Minnesota life. This project showcases Extension in action through photos, stories and a sampling of the many ways Extension has touched the lives of people in every county.