This Week’s Harvest

• Shishito Peppers
• Fairytale Eggplant
• Zucchini
• Cabbage
• Sweet Onions
• Basil
• Sweet Corn
• Green Beans
• Salad Mix
• Carrots or Beets with Greens

Farm News

This weekend Ben and I watched the movie Minari. I have been wanting to watch it for awhile but a recent conversation with my sisters piqued my interest. They advised me not to watch it: “so depressing”, “nothing goes right for that family”, and “too close to home”, they warned. Needless to say, I ignored them and watched it anyway!

Turns out that we thought it was a really great movie that depicts farming and farm life so well it was uncanny. Perhaps one of the main reasons that the movie felt so realistic in its depiction of farm life is because it is semi autobiographical. It felt so spot on given our experience starting and growing Mile Creek Farm.

Knowing my sister’s reviews once we finished the movie Ben turned to me and said “That wasn’t depressing. That was a Monday!” In all seriousness, though, it is a sad movie and bad things happen to the family in their first year of vegetable farming. BUT, for me and Ben, all the problems felt so relatable, strangely manageable, and nothing worth quitting over. And actually to us the movie was so so hopeful. I could go on and on about the movie, but I don’t want to spoil anything.

If you haven’t seen it I strongly recommend you do! In addition to being about farming, which I assume would be of interest to all you readers of this blog, it also covers other interesting topics: relationship dynamics between husband and wife and grandmother and grandchild, religion, the American Dream as told through the lens of an immigrant family trying to make it in rural Arkansas.

The next morning after watching the movie and assuring my sisters it was actually a hopeful movie, Ben and I went out to pick sweet corn, aptly named “American Dream”. We talked about the movie pretty much the entire time.

Fast forward to Monday, and we are picking this week’s carrots. We had starting picking the bed last week and were so excited for these carrots! We don’t always have successful summer carrots and these were looking the best yet! They were a bright spot in a difficult, wet summer. We picked bunches for CSA last week and another 75 bunches for market on Friday with no problems. Today, we started pulling them and quickly realized they had all pretty much started rotting because of last week’s 5 inches of rain.

We sorted out good ones, and decided that even though this particular harvest was taking way too long, we’d see it through. We managed to get 90 bunches, enough for Tuesday’s CSA. We estimate we had another 300 bunches of carrots in the bed that will never come to fruition. I looked at Ben and said “just another Monday”. Then, doing what farmers are prone to do, I looked to the future with hope and said “maybe the other carrots will pull through”, referring to two more 450 foot carrot beds full of carrots that are 2 weeks younger than the lost bed. If they do, you’ll be the first to know! (Well, maybe my sisters will be)

Coming Up Next Week (our best guess….) Cantaloupe, sweet corn, globe eggplant, shishito peppers, sungold tomatoes, dragon tongue beans, garlic, salt and pepper cucumbers