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WRENSHALL — Jane Marynik didn’t see herself as a farmer. But after she took a landscaping job and one of her kids was diagnosed with food allergies, Marynik switched gears.
After earning degrees in biology and environmental sustainability from University of Minnesota Duluth and volunteering on farms and UMD’s Land Lab, the Superior woman launched Four Beans Farm , named in honor of her four children.
“I grow kids and veggies,” she said.
While she tends to her carrots, cabbage, squash-plus close to home, her bean operation is about 25 miles away: a half-acre in the middle of a potato field at Wrenshall’s Food Farm. And it’s kind of like farming times two.
The weather and soil conditions are considerably different. It’s closer to clay at home, and already cultivated and nutrient-rich in Wrenshall.
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At her house, it’s about 15 degrees cooler than at her patch of Minnesota land. “I have two different weather forecasts on my phone,” she said.
Marynik hopes to have a permanent space for Four Beans, but for now, she’s so appreciative to have a spot at Food Farm.
Today, she grows black and white calypso bean; maroon with white Jacob’s cattle; and white with maroon speckling Lina Sisco bird egg. “When you cook it, it’s really creamy on the inside,” Marynik said of the latter.
Marynik primarily sells her dried beans through the Twin Ports REKO Ring , and she belongs to the North Shore Farmers Collective , which sells their goods as part of a monthly subscription box.
Four Beans Farm is woman-run and family-harvested. Everyone comes out to help, and the two youngest kids work for ice cream, Marynik said, and it’s common for her to work away by headlamp and lantern.
“Farming is meaningful work, and for me, the way I want to grow, aims not only to support the environment, but leaves a better place for them,” she said.
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