ASK A PROFESSIONAL: Is eating local easy?

Here we are at week two of the Locavore Challenge. This week, we’re visiting Pome on the Range Orchards and Winery in Homewood.

You’ll remember from last week’s Ask the Pro column that locavores try to eat only foods produced and grown locally.

The Ottawa Herald’s photographer Elliot Sutherland and his wife, Teresa, have taken the Locavore Challenge and are trying to eat at least one meal per day that is completely made up of locally grown products.

The first apple trees were hand planted at Pome on the Range in 1983 by Mike and Donnie Gerhardt. Today, about 5,000 apple trees cover 25 of the orchard’s 50 acres.

Another 12 acres are planted in 1,000 peach trees. This year, 70 Asian persimmon trees were added to the mix.

The orchard also produces plums, cherries, pears, blackberries, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, zucchini and green beans.

This being the month of August, the Sutherlands also can choose from okra, sweet corn, onions, tomatoes, summer squash, cantaloupe and watermelon.

Other seasonal fruits and vegetables you can expect to be available at Pome on the Range include asparagus, strawberries, acorn, butternut and spaghetti squashes, turnips, peppers, pumpkins and gourds.

Mike Gerhardt said he believes that fresh is best and people want the best.

“We’re always hearing, ‘eat your fruits and vegetables,’” he said. “This is a way to do what they subconsciously know they need to do — because it’s good for them — but this way, it tastes good, too.”

Buying local also is an easy way to stimulate the local economy, something else Gerhardt said folks want to do.

“You know, when things are tough economically, people like buying from people they know,” he said. “They feel more secure and comfortable buying the product.”

A nice home-cooked dinner-for-two of locally grown food just isn’t complete without a bottle of wine and the Sutherlands will find a nice selection of locally produced wine at Pome on the Range.

If your taste runs to sweet wine, you’ll be delighted with the elderberry, apple, peach, apple-strawberry or apple-red raspberry wine choices.

The elderberry wine also is available in a semi-sweet or dry variety, as is the blackberry.

Other apple blends wines include apple-cherry and apple-cranberry.

Blackberry Spice is a German style wine spiced with cinnamon and cloves.

The newest wine this year is Homewood Hooch, an apple-raisin wine that tastes remarkably like grandma’s raisin pie.

Apple cider, made from Pome on the Range apples, is just one more feel-good food item available.

“The home-grown, fresh-grown food craze, or locavore, is also about nostalgia,” Gerhardt said. “Anyone who grew up without air conditioning remembers having dinner outside on the picnic table under the shade tree.

“When dinner was over, we’d cut open a watermelon for dessert. Then we’d wash the picnic table down with the garden hose.

“Buying locally grown food is a way to recapture those feelings and recreate those memories of another era.”

Pome on the Range Orchards and Winery is located at the Homewood Exit 176 on I-35. Their summer hours are Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday noon to 5 p.m.

Monday, you’ll be able to view this week’s locavore video, shot at Pome on the Range, by going to www.ottawaherald.com; click on News and then Local Video. There will also be a video link on the Pome on the Range Web site www.pomeontherange.com

Linda Brown is marketing director for The Ottawa Herald. E-mail her at lbrown@ottawaherald.com.