Down on the farm
Today I took the kids to Mountain Meadows Farm in Heiskell, where we had purchased a CSA for the summer. It was a real eye-opener. Most people don't realize where their food comes from. We were lucky to see where a few of our weekly veggies and fruits come from today. Each week you can find Mountain Meadows (a family-owned farm) selling their wares in Market Square. I highly recommend you try their food!
In most supermarkets the food comes from a giant farm where the produce is shipped in. This system of agribusiness is capable of feeding thousands and millions a day, but at a cost. For one thing, that money goes out of the local economy. Worse, the fruits and veggies you typically buy are actually missing a lot of the nutritional elements our grandparents enjoyed (back when many more Americans were farmers). Did you know, for example, that lettuce is grown on huge farms in the desert, mostly in the sand, and they are devoid of anything other than the basic fertilizer compounds needed to make them grow? In years gone by those lettuce leaves would have trace minerals and other good stuff that did things like prevent cancer. Now they are mostly water, a bit of roughage and fertilizer (potassium, nitrogen, pot ash).
Anyway, the kids got to see corn stalks, lots of okra, eggplants and melons. They ate raspberries straight off the vines (and loved them!), and picked some flowers. It was terrific. You really don't appreciate the insane amount of hot, hard work that it takes to make enough food to eat. How our forefathers did it without Mexican laborers, I'll never know. Oh yeah, that's back when Americans weren't too good to do that kind of work. Nowadays it's pretty much the only way we're staying fed. If you don't believe in immigrant labor, talk to a farmer.
I appreciate the fact that Mountain Meadows sprays trace chemicals on their crops -- this adds nutritional value to your food. I also appreciate the fact that weather plays a huge role in what they are able to produce. For example, this year the strawberries all popped up at once, and so quickly they didn't make a lot of sugar. So they were less sweet than last year. Plus, the brutal heat has thrown off the growing cycle for many plants. In some cases, plants sprang up early, or not at all! The result was a bumper crop of early grapes, but now those won't show up in September, when they were supposed to.
Fungus is a big problem in our part of the country, and the farm uses fungicide because it's safer than eating, well, fungus. It also dictates what can or can't be grown here (like coffee, wine grapes, etc.).
While our climate is great, our water is even better. The farm drilled a well back when they were a pig farm, but it wasn't enough. Eventually they found a "water witch" (and were featured on The Heartland Series back in the day) who found a massive underground water source many years ago that has provided all they needed. It's amazing -- truly amazing -- how nature provides.
I hope the kids, who complained about being hot and tired, got something out of the trip. I hope that someday, if they are living in a big city, will think back to that country farm and realize that while food may grow on trees, it takes people working hard and understanding nature to get it to their plates.
In most supermarkets the food comes from a giant farm where the produce is shipped in. This system of agribusiness is capable of feeding thousands and millions a day, but at a cost. For one thing, that money goes out of the local economy. Worse, the fruits and veggies you typically buy are actually missing a lot of the nutritional elements our grandparents enjoyed (back when many more Americans were farmers). Did you know, for example, that lettuce is grown on huge farms in the desert, mostly in the sand, and they are devoid of anything other than the basic fertilizer compounds needed to make them grow? In years gone by those lettuce leaves would have trace minerals and other good stuff that did things like prevent cancer. Now they are mostly water, a bit of roughage and fertilizer (potassium, nitrogen, pot ash).
Anyway, the kids got to see corn stalks, lots of okra, eggplants and melons. They ate raspberries straight off the vines (and loved them!), and picked some flowers. It was terrific. You really don't appreciate the insane amount of hot, hard work that it takes to make enough food to eat. How our forefathers did it without Mexican laborers, I'll never know. Oh yeah, that's back when Americans weren't too good to do that kind of work. Nowadays it's pretty much the only way we're staying fed. If you don't believe in immigrant labor, talk to a farmer.
I appreciate the fact that Mountain Meadows sprays trace chemicals on their crops -- this adds nutritional value to your food. I also appreciate the fact that weather plays a huge role in what they are able to produce. For example, this year the strawberries all popped up at once, and so quickly they didn't make a lot of sugar. So they were less sweet than last year. Plus, the brutal heat has thrown off the growing cycle for many plants. In some cases, plants sprang up early, or not at all! The result was a bumper crop of early grapes, but now those won't show up in September, when they were supposed to.
Fungus is a big problem in our part of the country, and the farm uses fungicide because it's safer than eating, well, fungus. It also dictates what can or can't be grown here (like coffee, wine grapes, etc.).
While our climate is great, our water is even better. The farm drilled a well back when they were a pig farm, but it wasn't enough. Eventually they found a "water witch" (and were featured on The Heartland Series back in the day) who found a massive underground water source many years ago that has provided all they needed. It's amazing -- truly amazing -- how nature provides.
I hope the kids, who complained about being hot and tired, got something out of the trip. I hope that someday, if they are living in a big city, will think back to that country farm and realize that while food may grow on trees, it takes people working hard and understanding nature to get it to their plates.
Labels: farming
posted by Victor Agreda, Jr. at
10:12 PM
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