It’s the culmination of months of planning, hard work, and praying for good weather. Harvest time is both the symbolic and actual end of a year’s hopes and dreams for farmers throughout the heartland. Paul Ryan visits a Washington wheat farm to witness this crucial, beautiful event.
    There are a lot of places in the Heartland where the catchphrase is “buy local.”  Good advice for keeping dollars flowing through your own community.  But how do you also help your local farmers?  Farmers' markets are one way, but across the heartland, other ideas are taking root and even some local and state governments are lending a hand.
    It's a truth shared by both farmers and food fans, grocers and gourmet if you want to promote a product, put on a festival! Paul Ryan found one remarkable success story in northern California. It's where, nearly thirty years ago, garlic growers got together with local lovers of the aromatic herb.  The result a world famous food fair that's now considered a model of successful marketing.
    If those of us who enjoy tea at our breakfast table tried to buy “locally-grown,” they’d be sorely disappointed. That is, unless they happened to live in the Charleston, South Carolina area. That’s where our country’s only tea plantation is.  It’s the crown jewel in one family’s thriving business. 
    Finally, there’s another beverage we’re seeing more of these days that may not quite have the refinement of a cup of tea but it’s trying. Paul says it’s apple cider, hard apple cider. One couple in Oregon decided it’s time to update hat old blue-collar refreshment and compete with some of those highbrow bubbly spirits coming from France.