Market Focus: Family Farm Stand Brings Local Produce to Oak Forest

Tommy Stallinga, 19, of Lansing, has worked at Chicago Heights-based Zeldenrust Farm Market for the last three years. He's a friend of the family that runs the farm stand and was at the Oak Forest Farmers Market on Tuesday selling the operation's produce.

Oak Forest Patch borrowed a few minutes of his

Oak Forest Patch: What makes Zeldenrust special?

Stallinga: We do flowers, too. We have a greenhouse. We start planting in February and we do flowers up until the first week in June. Then we start planing produce. We have the green house and fields in back with a farm stand up front. Me and two other guys do a lot of the farming.

Patch: Are flowers your speciality?

Stallinga: I think it's kind of split. This year, we did really well in flowers. And produce is doing pretty well by itselt. It's probably split 50/50.

Patch: Does Zeldenrust hit many Farmers Markets?

Stallinga: We do five on Saturday, one (on Tuesday), one on Wednesday and one on Friday.

Patch: And you produce all of this in Chicago Heights?

Stallinga: Pretty much everything you see here is grown, except for the fruit because we can't do that. It's not warm enough. We get that in from southern Illinois. Other than that, it's all home-grown. We're known for our corn. It's really sweet and bicolor.

More information about Zeldenrust Farm Stand is available on the business' website.

The Oak Forest Farmers Market is every Tuesday through October in the parking lot of the .

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