Month: June 2015

Does it seem like I’m complaining a lot lately? Well something is eating/ate the sweet potato plants, you can’t even see anything in the picture. How ya like that picture of dirt? Nice pic. Thanks. Based on the evidence I think it’s a dynamic duo of mice and deer.

We planted sweet potatoes slips on Monday, June 8. I know this because on Saturday the 6th I went to my neighbor Carl’s, of Carlea Farms, to pick them up and to see their newborn piglets. We found the mommy pig Wanda had died, within like the past 3 hours since he last checked on her. Heartbreak! So, then there’s not even time to wonder what happened or to be sad because there are 14 newborn babies to figure out how to feed, what to feed, how to get them situated and all that.  I visited them this week and they’re all healthy and super adorable.

I just came in from digging German Butterball potatoes for tomorrow’s market! The Butterless Potato! A delicious yellow fleshed heirloom. Shane helped me, now he’s gone to bale alfalfa and since there are storms coming he’ll have to pick it all up out of the field tonight and take it to the barn (he usually does that part in the morning) so I don’t expect him to be home til midnight.

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmer’s Market tomorrow, June 27. Here’s what I’ll have–

Veggies: Butterball potatoes, heirloom tomatoes including Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Azoychka Russian, Bloody Butcher, green giant and more! Cherry tomatoes mix, 3 kinds of okra, 5 kinds of cukes, lemon squash and zephyr squash, sweet potatoes, Tuscan garlic, kale, red and sweet onions, a few savoy cabbages, I can’t even remember what else.

Beef: hot dogs, beer brats, pastrami, corned beef and bologna all made from our beef with no added nitrates or nitrites. We’re almost out of dogs. Ground beef, stew meat, short ribs, oso bucco, liver, soup bones, bone-in chuck, sirloin tip roast, eye of round, sirloin steaks, NY Strips, ribeyes, filets, skirt and flank.

I begged a hay truck and flatbed trailer from Shane to cure onions. So there’s a wagon, a trailer, 2 flatbed trailers and a hay truck covered in onions. Every night I put them to bed in the empty hoop house in case of rain and every morning I pull them back out into the breezy shade.

The red ones are amazing on the grill.

Asian cukes make adorable pickle chips.

See you tomorrow!

It’s a mad rush to get all the wheat cut, the wheat straw baled and hauled out of the field, and then soybeans planted back.  We got an inch and a half of rain last night so all that’s on hold.

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow, and I have lemon cucumbers!

But I don’t have those fairytale eggplant that are also in the photo so don’t come to my table all excited for eggplant.

I think they’re the most delicious of all the cukes I’ve grown. In true organic fashion the plants are already starting to die off just as they start making fruit. Sigh.

Market Stuff

Veggies:  tomatoes, cucumbers – lemon,  crystal apple, Asian, mini white and regular slicers. Lemon squash and zephyr squash, fennel bulb, beets, 3 super cool kinds of okra; kale, sweet and red onions, cutting celery, savoy cabbage, sweet potatoes and I don’t even know what else.

Beef: Angus hot dogs, beer brats, pastrami, sliced corned beef, bologna (all without nitrates or nitrites) , ground beef, stew, cube steak, philly steak, short ribs, brisket, liver, soup bones, osso bucco.
Steaks: filet, ribeye, NY strip, sirloin, and flank.
Roasts: eye of round, bone-in chuck, sirloin tip

It’s been way too dry here, then last night we got a bad storm with a lot of wind and some hail, and straight up cats and dogs. 1 1/2″ of rain in less than an hour.

Know what that is? It’s nothing. It WAS my super beautiful,  non-GMO heirloom sweet corn that I have so much invested in, including the last of my saved seed.  Including soil test, hand weeding, cultivating, organic ammendments. I was so proud of it, and it was just starting to tassle.

Last night’s storm blew it down so now it’s just nothing.

Know what that is? THAT is a dog that is super stressed out because mommy won’t stop looking over at the corn field and throwing things and yelling bad words.

Dijon Roasted Cabbage. Find out why my 91 year old Gramma G. got hooked on it when I made it for her.

trellised  cucumbers  behind a row of squash

All across the world, thousands of organic squash plants are dying EVERY DAY because no one sprayed them for bugs. Or they used some kind of natural crap that doesn’t work.
NOW is the time to act!
Ok look. I have 12 gallons of squash and more than that of cucumbers. Before you know it all the organic squash will be gone from the farmers’ market.
I just made this easy SUMMER SQUASH TACO CASSEROLE –
I added a layer of cooked cabbage and onions between the squash and ground beef. I also used like 12 times the amount of squash it called for.
We loved it, I’ll make it again.
Or these easy grilled squash roll-ups with goat cheese (or cream cheese) I discovered last year. Obviously using zephyr squash instead of  zucchini.

Refrigerator pickles are SO easy and super healthy.
Dissolve 1 Tb sea salt in a little warm water in a quart jar, and pack it with cucumbers cut to your liking. Add half a cup of Bragg’s Organic apple cider vinegar, a hot pepper if you like, some herbs, a smashed garlic clove or 2, top it off with water. Marinate 2-3 days in the fridge.

Did you know that summer squash is a nutrient dense food?
How ’bout some manganese, vitamin C, magnesium, potassium and more PLUS all different varieties of carotenoids!!
Ward off that macular degeneration. Perhaps regulate your insulin. Put the smackdown on inflammation.

Crispy crunchy cucumbers have flavonoids, lignans and triterpenes. That’s protection against cardiovascular disease, multiple cancers AND free radicals plus you get the molybdenum. Need that.

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow.

Veggies this week:
fennel bulbs, beets, savoy cabbage
zephyr squash and lemon squash
cukes: slicers, Asian, mini whites
Red Creole heirloom onions and sweet onions.
Kale: dwarf blue, red russian, rainbow lacinato and regular (black) lacinato, sweet potatoes,
purple basil, cutting celery, parsley, and a few more.

Beef:
hot dogs, beer brats, pastrami, sliced corned beef, bologna, ground beef, stew, cube steak, philly steak, short ribs, brisket, liver, soup bones, osso bucco.

Steaks:
filet, ribeye, NY strip, sirloin, flat iron, skirt and flank.
Roasts: eye of round, bone-in chuck, sirloin tip