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I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmer’s Market tomorrow with:

A few tomatoes (very few), the most beautiful sweet peppers. So good with guacamole instead of chips. Or these mini pepper nachos! The brown ones are chocolate bells. Does it seem like I always grow foods named after other foods??  3 kinds of eggplant, okra, potatoes: German Butterball, Peppermint, Huckleberry Gold, Carola bakers; onions: the last of the sweet onions, red & cipollini and yellow onions; sweet potatoes; wheat berries.

Our grass fed, grass finished Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, filets, sirloins, skirt, flat irons,  ground beef, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, oso bucco  short ribs, brisket, soup bones (BOGO 50% off), liver, sirloin tip roasts, eye of round and bone-in chuck roasts, and bologna, pastrami, corned beef, hot dogs, & andouille sausage made from 100% grass fed beef without any nitrates/nitrites.

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Using the cultipacker to pack down broadcasted cover crop.

This week we did a lot of getting rid of summer stuff that was played out, cleaning up fields, tilling and putting down foxtail millet cover crop where harvests were done. I would’ve liked to have all that done already but I needed Shane to help me and he’s been super busy. I broadcast cover crops using this Earthway spreader. It’s hard to use, I usually fall down a few times (haha Have a nice trip! See ya next fall! The voices in my head.) because it’s apparently built for a race of giants? I’m 5’6.5″ and I can’t get it to fit right at all. Plus trudging all over creation in freshly tilled ground with 40# strapped to your chest in this heat…beyond exhausting. I finally gave out and Shane came and helped me finish where the potatoes had been, and then a couple hours later we got 3″ of rain. Phew, good timing.

Last year I conducted scientifical experiments to see if I really need to pack down my cover crops and it turns out YES I definitely do. According to my sciencery, germination was determined to be “lots faster” and “more better” if I run over it with the cultipacker (above).

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In the hot weather our Great Pyrenees livestock and human guardian, Nikoli gets off work at 7am and doesn’t clock back in ’til around 10pm. Nevermind that there’s a red coyote the size of a German Shepherd standing in the front yard sweating the chickens and I’m screaming bloody murder for Nik to come save us all. Oh nevermind that I just fell into a trench 2 feet away and twisted my ankle and I’m rolling around on the ground gripping my leg and wailing and might be in need of being dragged to the nearest bandage. I don’t even get an ear twitch.

This is a dog that heard a strange man talking loudly at me from almost half a mile away and came all the way out there to see if I was ok.  He chases hawks out of our yard and if I stumble or trip he’s about to drag me to safety –  but not when it’s too hot! No, it’s every man for himself all summer. He sleeps in his den all day and by den I mean under the cultivating tractor. BTW those are just his drool spots he’s not laying in oil. TRUST Shane Poplin’s tractors do not leak.

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The ginger and turmeric are looking pretty good! The farmers I get my seed from say,  “OH YES well if it’s not doing well it’s either had too much water or it’s too dry, or you used too much fertilizer or not enough fertilizer.” So I always feel like it’s just kind of a crap shoot and how the hell do I know why some of the leaf tips are brown and twisted.
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See you tomorrow!

 

 

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