They may not be the first to admit it, but William and Maxine Mormann are no novices to the farmers’ market battlefront.

For the past 12 years, the Mormanns have been earning a living by cultivating their 22-acre land into a sustainable and diversified garden, aptly named Tapestry Enchanted Gardens, in La Crescent, Minn. The farm’s yearly income is provided heavily by their profits gained at farmers’ markets throughout the area: events the couple attends up to eight times per week.

“The hardest part is actually keeping up with the other farmers,” said Maxine. “The sad thing is that everybody has a grocery store on their table each week, so to get customers, the more items you offer, the more likely they will buy from you. You will hold them to your table longer if you have a larger variety.”

And variety is what the Mormanns strive for. After several years of unsuccessful attempts at the commercial farming industry when William took over his father’s farm 35 years ago, the couple decided to have a go at gardening. Tapestry Enchanted Gardens now produces sweet corn, garlic, beets, grapes, blackberries, 3100 pepper plants and 24 varieties of heirloom tomatoes. Keeping up with weeding and harvesting this amount of produce would be difficult for any farmer, and for the Mormanns, they do it nearly all on their own.

The sun beat down and a cool wind whipped through the trees as Maxine and William took to the garlic crops Wednesday morning. According to their normal schedule, they had been up for nearly four hours already as the clock struck 9:00 a.m. Off in the distance, two local teenage girls assisted in the harvesting, earning extra cash during the summer months for half-days of work: the maximum amount the Mormanns can afford for additional labor. Everyone’s hands were caked with dirt as they took a 10:00 a.m. break in the shade of a homemade canopy behind the house, complete with retro, rusty refrigerators stocked with cool cans of soda and bottles of water.

“We still owe a mortgage on our house; we pay liability insurance, seed to get started, rent for the farmers’ market spaces, gas to run the tractors and tillers and cars to get to the markets: Some people just don’t understand how much it actually takes to get that produce there,” said William, recalling multiple times when customers haggle over mere pennies’ difference compared to other farmers. “Sometimes I think people assume the food dropped from the sky.”

Maintaining their seriousness about what they do is important to the Mormanns. Several years ago, the couple rented out pieces of their land to other independent farmers—numbers that reached 36 families at one time. The unreliability of how their renters treated their land and produce close to the farm’s own livelihood led the Mormanns to cease all contracts the next year and regain control of their chemical-free way of farming.

“We put so much into this and we try to be sticklers about our legitimacy,” said Maxine.

Competing in a tough economy has been the hardest struggle for Tapestry Enchanted Gardens. Oftentimes, loyal customers will ask the couple to sell their wares to local supermarkets and grocery stores, only to realize the Mormanns have been trying for years to do just that.

“You’re dealing with the wholesale market, and it’s really hard to make ends meet as it is,” Maxine said. “They are there to make money, so the profit just isn’t there for us.”

The attitudes of customers have also changed throughout the years, according to the couple.

“It’s like the gardening thing skipped a generation—everyone is so used to seeing store shelves stocked with everything all the time, that they’ve lost track of what’s actually in season,” said Maxine. “When people don’t make a lot of money, they are forced to have a ‘Wal-Mart mentality’: cheap, cheap, cheap. But food shouldn’t be cheap. It’s what sustains us.”

When the couple completes a 12-hour work day or finishes harvesting crops by the glow of a flashlight—to which Maxine said watermelons are not the crop on which to test this technique as tripping on the larger fruit can be very easy—their hard work is rewarded by the quality of food they put out on their folding tables each week.

“Your food is only as good as the grower you’re buying from,” said William.

Meet William and Maxine Mormann of Tapestry Enchanted Gardens every Wednesday and Saturday at the Winona Farmers’ Market.