I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market on Saturday. Here’s what I’m bringing:

Veggies:
beautiful lettuce leaf basil pots, curly kale, red russian kale, spinach, kale raab(!!), sweet potatoes, herbs, some cabbage transplants and I would have collards except I spent like an hour hunting for aphids in the hoop house to feed to the baby praying mantises that just hatched in the greenhouse! Check them out on my facebook post.

The ONE YEAR I don’t have any bug pests in the greenhouse is of course the year some praying mantises hatch in there so will probably starve to death. SAD FACE. I really like praying mantises. I think the plural is TECHNICALLY mantids.

Beef:
ground, cube steak, stew beef, short ribs, osso bucco, liver, soup bones
Roasts – bone-in chuck, sirloin tip, eye of round
Steaks – flank, skirt, flat iron, sirloin, filet, NY Strip, ribeye
Hot dogs, beer brats, pastrami, bologna

The pigs are HUGE. I can’t believe how fast they grow, like compared to cows. I was telling my auntie about how they are so cute, when I call them they come running as fast as they can. Like racing pigs! They jump big logs and spin out around corners and run around in circles hopping and spinning like bucking bulls.
But they’re kind of obnoxious at feeding time, pushing me with their hard snouts and sometimes I think they might bite my knees. One night they knocked me over and I landed on one of them. They’re super solid and sturdy though, you couldn’t budge one if you tried. Then another time I got my boot tangled in the electric netting and I fell in the mud. Bahaha! They descended upon me quickly but were just fighting over the feed.

My auntie said, when my mom was working as a home health nurse where you go to peoples’ homes and take care of them, she had to bandage this older man’s feet. She asked him what happened to his feet and he said he fell down in the pig lot and the pigs ATE HIS TOES. They. ate. his. toes. off.
Daaaaaaang. I guess it’s all fun and games until somebody falls down.

onion transplants

My sister came on Tuesday and we got the onions set out in 7 1/2 hours. I was SO relieved, but now I’m back to panicking because it’s way too wet to set out the kale, cabbage, cauli and broc plants and more rain coming.

AND a super delicious recipe for Beef Stroganoff. Some brandy, a little sour cream, sliced mushrooms – nom nom.
I used ground beef instead of steak.