Why We Farm

The Internet has launched a whole new passionate art form in which participants photograph the fancy foods they are served at restaurants and share their shots with others. These near-professional quality photographs are clearly a labor of love, but I respectfully submit that family farmers can one-up the foodies, because our photographs (even if they aren’t taken with awesome cameras) show the very source of the finest eating the world will ever know.

Above you will see the ingredients of today’s lunch, including the very first tiny stupice heirloom tomato to ripen in our big tangle of plants. And yes, it was warm from the sun in the palm of my hand when I picked it. The snow peas – those jade jeweled pendants that garland our fencing in such opulent profusion – are giving us some of their last snapping sweet goodness as the weather grows hotter. Briefly stir-friend, they are like candy. I couldn’t wait one more day to gather our first two ripe crooknecks, dainty though they are. Sliced into golden coins and stir-fried in the merest wisp of sunflower oil, they melt on the tongue. As for the new potatoes, no other plant I know of distills Earth’s minerals into such profoundly perfect cream. It is heresy to do other than dig, quickly boil and dress with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and our ferny dill.

I contend that there isn’t a restaurant in the world, no matter how high the price per plate, serving a better lunch than this one right now, but that family farmers are blessed to eat this way every day when the harvest is good. This is why we compost and amend, grow only organic, save our seeds and plant, weed, water and sit among our plants, talking, laughing, singing and praying.

Move into the tiny house with the big yard. If Americans are as devoted to dining as all of the social sharing food photos suggest, they will find the ultimate in gustatory pleasure right in their own dirt. And while it’s true that a number of praiseworthy restaurants work hard to source some of their ingredients from local growers, you just can’t duplicate the farm to table flavor.

My dear foodies: if you’ve never eaten from your own seed, what joys await you when you bid farewell to the fancy chef and pick up your trusty shovel!

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