The Blueberry Years

“A truly inspiring story, in gorgeous prose, about one family’s journey into blueberry farming. Delicious reading.” —Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America

The Blueberry Years is a mouth-watering and delightful memoir based on Jim Minick’s trials and tribulations as an organic blueberry farmer. This story of one couple and one farm shows how our country’s appetite for cheap food affects how that food is grown, who does or does not grow it, and what happens to the land. But this memoir also calls attention to the fragile nature of our global food system and our nation’s ambivalence about what we eat and where it comes from.
Readers of Michael Polland and Barbara Kingsolver will savor the tale of Jim’s farm and the exploration of larger issues facing agriculture in the United States—like the rise of organic farming, the plight of small farmers, and the loneliness common in rural America. Ultimately, The Blueberry Years tells the story of a place shaped by a young couple’s dream, and how that dream ripened into one of the mid-Atlantic’s first certified-organic, pick-your-own blueberry farms.

Author Biography

JIM MINICK grew up eating blueberries, and for eight years he and his wife owned and operated Minick Berry Farm, a certified-organic, pick-your-own blueberry farm in Floyd County, VA. He writes a monthly column for The Roanoke Times New River Current. Currently, he lives in southwest Virginia on a forested farm with his wife and their three dogs.