This Week
We have a few salad and shoots mix up for grabs as extras. This is probably the last week for cabbage and potatoes. We have some great root crops like carrots, beets, and radishes. I love the simplicity and taste of a roasted root medley. I added lots of jam options, so remember that you can always swap veggies for jam!
Next Week
We will keep rolling with peaches and tomatoes from Thompson's Produce, plus next week we will add watermelons! We are planting some lettuce this evening, so hopefuly in two weeks our salad mixes will make a return. You can always order some chard, mustard greens, and arugula to mix your own too. I am keeping my eyes open for chanterelle mushrooms, but the weather has not yielded any good flushes this season. We are hoping to make some more jam this week, so look for some new flavors.
Farm Update
I reconnected with growing food in 2015. Growing up, it just part of life every summer. Here is a photo from the good ol' days and a photo from my hugelkultur garden in 2016 when I started growing vegetables again.
I was so inexperienced in 2016 that I mistook young radish leaves for lettuce! Early on, there were a few questionable salad choices that were a little woody, and sometimes prickly. But I was determined to grow food for myself. I had been buying a lot of mix from the store. I couldn't afford to buy the organic blends. Back and forth from my commute to ULM I stopped by three times a week to buy what they marked on sale. I learned that if I found a bag with a past expiration date, I could get the produce manager to put a yellow tag on it, sometimes for just $0.99. I would go through every single mix they offered looking for past dates and leave the store with a big haul.
It didn't take me long to really feel an overwhelming need to start growing my own. Growing food was something I couldn't get off my mind. It was like the burning feeling of freedom and independence that are just out of reach, that remain swelling inside history's revolutionary figures before they took action. It seemed like such a radical departure from my life's trajectory of study and analysis of literature, yet I had all of these memories and emotions from my past experience of growing food for my community when I was a child. Looking back, I was at a crossroads in my life. I choose the more unknown path that I thought could create a lifestyle that wanted. A life that is in-tune with the natural world, connected to the preservation of the environment, and that brings me meaning through the act of sharing food I grow.
I set a plan in motion. I sourced a bunch of rotten logs and buried them. I cleaned out a cow barn, raked and mowed all of the yard's leaves, and layered everything in this huge pile. I visited a few local nurseries and asked of they had any old seed starting trays I could use. They gave me around 30 old, 100 cell trays all busted on the ends, so that's what I used to start all kinds of seeds. I even bought 50 baby chicks. Over the next few years, I really mastered growing a lot of different leafy greens and cooler weather crops, because that's what I like to eat. In 2016-17 I literally walked around campus selling kale, chard, radishes and eggs out of a rolling ice chest. One of my favorite memories is showing up late to the English Dept. Helicon release with an incredible bowl of salad greens. I'll never forget all the dandelions, carrots, and nasturtiums I used for garnish. It was a great feeling to share part of my garden with my classmates and professors. To this day, former educators are a big cohort of farm share members. I completed the English program, because I love writing and literature. I received so much support from my professors when I decided not to pursue graduate school, but instead focus on starting Current Farms and creating a lifestyle that I knew would bring a lot of joy and meaning to my life, plus make my community a better place.
I still haven't lost sight of why we started our farm, and I think that it has really made us stand out among other area farms. We have identified an unfulfilled niche in the local food web. When folks ask what we grow, I say we specialize in salad greens, leafy greens, root crops, and seasonal vegetables. It's just my brother and myself working our farm, so we decided early on to abandon a competitive mindset, and instead focus on building relationships with other local farms who could fill in a few inventory gaps we were missing. Being a new farm, we don't quite have established fruit trees. We also don't have acres of land to have melon patches. We sure don't have time to manage a chicken flock large enough to raise profitable free-range eggs. I think that sourcing select crops and products from other farms is one of the best aspects of our farm share service. It is a good lesson for putting aside pride, and supporting other local growers who are out there working long days just like us. The hard part isn't growling vegetables--it's getting them into customers hands, while making a profit to grow the farm. That's why we are so grateful for having you as a subscriber. Each week, we know exactly what needs to be harvested, and when and where to deliver it. This frees up so much time to focus on the infinite number of tasks on a farm.
I hope y'all have a great Father's Day! Our Dad is an important member of the family farm. He is our technician and is always able to fix something broken. He is a lifesaver when it comes to tractor or small engine repair. Dad built our walk-in cooler when we were busy in August of 2020 starting our first garden beds. He's even been known to top a bin of radish when we are in a bind. He instilled in me at a young age the importance of having a small garden, and I really owe him a lot for passing down our agricultural roots. Here is a photo of him helping me make a kitchen garden in 2016.
