Farming with Wild Abandon
We used blackberries from Wild Abandon Farm in QueenBurger’s Blackberry Shiso Slushee.
“We jumped into this with wild abandon,” Shari Becker explains of the origins of Wild Abandon Farm in Pittsboro, NC. Four years ago, she had quit her job without knowing what was next when she and her husband Noah Becker purchased a 23-acre rural property. They wanted more land to raise their family on; once they owned the land, they wanted to make it productive.
Noah grew up picking wild blackberries in the mountains of North Carolina. Now his family cultivates blackberries, blueberries and black raspberries. By amending the soil, pruning, and mulching, they have coaxed their acre of no-spray berries to grow and thrive, producing enough to offer U-pick to friends for the first time this year.
“We’re really excited with how they’re taking off now and the new growth this season,” Shari says.
Shari and Noah became interested in farming by talking with farmers during regular visits to the Pittsboro Farmers’ Market. Noah says he doesn’t describe himself as a “farmer” because he has a full-time technology job, but the rural lifestyle is central to their family.
Every day, nine-year-old Evie and ten-year-old Owen care for the family’s chickens after breakfast. “Our kids have more of a connection to their food,” Shari describes, “and we bring that to their school to let other kids experience it as well.” They helped organize a farmers’ market at school where students used pretend currency to buy real produce from local farmers. Evie loves cooking and on the day we visited the farm, she was already planning a meal to cook for the family that night.
Shari’s parents, who came to the United States as refugees, also spend a lot of time on the farm. Her parents are Chinese, but they grew up in Cambodia. They escaped the Cambodian genocide when three churches in Durham worked together to bring the family to the United States. “They came to the United States with nothing,” Shari describes.
Shari thinks spending time on the farm has been therapeutic for her parents. Her mother methodically removes Japanese beetles from the berry plants. Her father has planted fig and persimmon trees in the chicken coop in hopes of providing the chickens with a treat. They keep a garden where they grow vegetables and herbs like lemongrass, which Evie likes to use in her cooking.
The farm has changed the way the family eats. Growing up, when they ate traditional Chinese or southeast Asian cuisine, Shari’s mom would make her own pastes and curries from scratch. But, when they ate American food, she used processed ingredients because “that was how Americans ate.” This was a symbol of succeeding with limited resources and fitting into American culture.
“The way we eat now is very different,” Shari says. “It’s been a more healthy and natural transition to fresh ingredients, and it feels right to eat the way we do.”
When we visited the farm, Shari mentioned that her parents may keep to themselves, but as we prepared to leave, her father walked over and placed a bright yellow melon in our hands as a parting gift.