I heart you 🙂

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow ’til 1 with:

Hard red winter wheat! Instead of cleaning it ourselves, which we have been seriously dreading – it’s a HUGE pain and always causes lots of arguments (but also free),  we decided Shane would just take it to the seed cleaner that cleans his triticale.

BTW, the seed cleaner guy said our wheat looks a lot better than the other organic wheats he’s been running 🙂

Watermelons! This is the big week for watermelons but there will be more to pick when they’re ready. Tomatoes, okra, potatoes: German Butterball, Carola & Huckleberry Gold.  Onions, green bell peppers and red & orange mini bells, sweet banana peppers, jalepenos and 3 kinds of eggplant: purple, Rosa Bianca Italian and mini fairytale.

I’ll have our 100% grass fed & grass finished, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts:

Filet, Ribeye, NY strip, flank, flat iron and skirt steak, sirloin steak, osso bucco, short ribs, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, brisket, sirloin tip roast, eye of round roast, boneless chuck roast, liver, and sliced pastrami made from our 100% grass fed Angus beef, no added nitrates or nitrites.

The first batch of hot dogs made at Piedmont Custom Meats in Asheboro are back! Made from our sirloin, eye of round, chuck and brisket (hells yeah!!) and this is the ingredient list: Sea Salt, Spices, Evaporated Cane Syrup, Paprika, Cherry Powder (Cherry Powder, Evaporated Cane Syrup), Onion Powder, Natural Flavor (Celery Powder, Sea Salt). I think the cherry powder is for color. We made them for dinner just now.

We have the special package buy again this weekend:  a sirloin tip roast,  cube steak, philly, and 2 lbs ground beef for $45 with a savings of over $5.

Ground beef special – Buy 5, Get 1 free.

Bulk pricing on our beef: quarters, halves and wholes – $3.50 lb hang weight plus the cost of processing (.75/lb)

How do you know if your watermelon is ripe?

You don’t. You can’t.  The ripe ones and the unripe ones can look identical, even if they have the creamy yellow spot on the bottom. I’ve had ripe melons with no creamy yellow spot on the bottom. I’ve found the only way to know is by the Curly-Q where the stem attaches to the vine. The one above is not ripe, because the Curly-Q is still green.

This Curly-Q is dead so the melon should be ripe. But there’s no way to know the Curly-Q status of the melon once it’s picked 🙂 You have to rely on the picker. No amount of slapping, tapping, rolling or picking the melon up and putting it back down will tell you if it’s ripe. Even this isn’t 100% foolproof but it’s the best test I’ve found.

With all the rain, the veggies are growing huge. The colored mini bells are twice their size and the green bell peppers are jumbo. Good for stuffing Southwest style!

The  big boys are enjoying green pastures again, thanks to the rain.

Pappy is enjoying his melon rind.

Moo, however, cannot be bothered with my junky melon rind. He’s gotten a little uppity since he started wearing shoes. You can just barely see the bottom of the black shoe on his back foot there in the photo. I’ve already told you about his messed up feet…the shoes help a lot.