I’ve been loving all the dogwoods in bloom! This is my favorite one, beside the hoop house 🙂

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

Our grass fed Angus beef in these cuts: ground, stew, philly steak, cube steak, ribeyes, NY Strip, filet, sirloin, flat iron, skirt, huge beautiful briskets, eye of round roasts, bone-in chuck roasts, sirloin tip roasts, short ribs, liver,  osso bucco, hot dogs, corned beef and bologna.

We still have some beef left from the winter processing and that will be on sale at 20% off until it’s gone: 2 ribeyes and 8 sirloin steaks. Sirloins are great for kabobs because they cut nicely into cubes and are so flavorful and tender (don’t overcook!) They’re nice and lean, perfect for fajitas or steak tacos.

I’ll have kale raab and lots of beautiful kale in these varieties: curly, lacinato, red russian. Chard, chives,  sweet potatoes, wheat and tomato plants.

This week I have sungold cherry tomato plants, the super sweet orange cherry tomato that is so easy to grow and crazy prolific. I also have more Ildi cherry tomatoes and a variety of colors of full size tomato plants: Cherokee Purple, Kellogg’s Breakfast, American Original Beefsteak, and more.

Herb plants: Thai basil, purple ruffles basil, oregano, thyme, a couple lemon balm plants.

I’m also bringing a few Queen Sophia marigolds, they are edible flowers. It’s impossible to find edible flowers that are grown without any chemicals so I always grow my own from seed. The petals are really striking sprinkled over salads or cakes. I’m growing 3 varieties of edible flowers this year.

Coming up  I’ll have more  tomato plants, container Patio Baby eggplants, container Tumbling Tom cherry tomatoes and I don’t even know what else!

The crimson clover cover crop is just starting to bloom, I was hoping it would be in full bloom before it had to be tilled in for planting because I love seeing all that gorgeous red.

In the herb garden we have parsley, chives, mint, chocolate mint, lemon balm, sage, cutting celery. The green stuff in the pathways are mints – spreading out of their boxes. Still have thyme, dill, oregano, purslane, hibiscus, edible flowers, and a few other things to add.

We had rolled out landscape ground cover underneath the herb beds  – the whole area that’s now brown 🙁 and I worked like a dog spreading hardwood mulch at least 6″ deep on top of that so it would look beautiful, then Bermuda grass grew over every square inch of it and it’s looked crappy for 2 years. So now I’m ripping out the landscape plastic and planting regular grass so it can at least be green. I spent the whole morning yesterday digging Bermuda grass out of this one bed so I could put in basil.

It’s begun. I’m a hay widow.

I had totally forgotten about this recipe, but now with the herbs looking so fantastic it’s time to make it! Parsley, Lemon and Walnut Pesto on Roasted Sweet Potatoes – but I make it more like sweet potato fries so I can dredge them through a giant lake of the pesto haha.

🙂

See you tomorrow! Finally a warm Saturday.

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

Our grass fed Angus beef in these cuts: ground, stew, philly steak, cube steak, ribeyes, NY Strip, filet, sirloin, flat iron, skirt, huge beautiful briskets, eye of round roasts, bone-in chuck roasts, sirloin tip roasts, short ribs, osso bucco, hot dogs, corned beef and bologna.

We still have some beef left from the winter processing and that will be on sale at 20% off until it’s gone: ribeye, sirloin, cube, stew.

I’ll have kale raab and lots of beautiful kale in these varieties: curly, lacinato, red russian and rainbow lacinato. Collards, chard, sweet potatoes, wheat and more PLANTS!!!

Herb plants: Cutting celery, parsley, fernleaf dill, purple ruffles basil, thai basil, thyme,  zaatar oregano.

Tomato plants: I don’t have a ton this week but I will have a few of these – all of them very easy to grow and very prolific:

Ildi – very prolific small yellow cherry, 4″ pots

Bloody Butcher in 5″ pots

San Marzano roma in 4″ pots

Sungolds in 5″ pots – and I’ll have TONS more in a couple weeks in 4″ pots

Zarnitza in 4″ and 5″ pots – these are early, very prolific, what I would call “typical” red tomatoes,  heirloom variety,  the plants don’t get super huge and they are very stocky! I think they’d be great for canners. Crack resistant and don’t seem to be affected by extreme heat as I trialed these in the hoop house last year. They don’t have the flavor of some of the varieties I grow but make up for it in poundage 🙂

a few varieties in 1 gallon pots.

Coming soon I’ll have a great variety of heirloom tomatoes and the container cherry tomatoes so if you don’t get them this week, no big deal! The last frost date is April 15.

It’s going to be near freezing tonight so cover up your tender plants…

My Aunt Charlotte came to visit and she had to work the whole time 🙂  We got corn, potatoes, kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes and herbs and the last of the onions planted, with help from my sister and Shane too.

See you tomorrow!

Hello! Are you guys seeing these unbelievably gorgeous rainbows everywhere lately?

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

Our grass fed Angus beef in these cuts: ground, stew, philly steak, cube steak, ribeyes, NY Strip, filet, sirloin, flat iron, flank, skirt, huge beautiful briskets, eye of round roasts, bone-in chuck roasts, sirloin tip roasts, short ribs, osso bucco

Ground beef special – buy 5 get 1 pound free.

We still have some beef left from the winter processing and that will be on sale at 20% off until it’s gone: ribeye, strip, sirloin, cube, philly, stew. That’s a fantastic deal on nice steaks (you should see those ribeyes) and even better on stew beef –at $5.20 lb!!

I’ll have some kale raab and lots of beautiful kale in these varieties: curly, lacinato, and rainbow lacinato. Collards, chard, sweet potatoes, wheat and more PLANTS!!!

Cutting celery, parsley, fernleaf dill, Genovese and cinnamon basils, thyme, a few zaatar oregano. I can bring tomato plants if anyone wants, please text me 704.293.1777 or else I’ll wait another week. Although my greenhouse is packed full so I’d love to let some go to new homes 🙂 The last frost date is April 15.

My early cukes are still in the heated greenhouse because I haven’t cleaned out a spot in the hoops for them yet, I just keep potting them up. They’re in 5 gallon buckets now, sigh. Anyway this guy reached out to a baby okra! How funny. The okra is leaning away like NOOOOOOO. I try to tell myself it’s just a matter of chance but it looks kind of menacing, right?

Finally I asked Shane’s helper to finish cleaning out the hoops for me. He finished today and I just have 3 more rows of tomatoes to put in and the last row will be ALL tomatillos NOMNOM. Onions are in but we’re getting rain regularly so I don’t know if I’ll get potatoes, cabbage, cauli, broc, kale and sweet corn in this week or not.

There is just one wild dogwood on the edge of the woods beside the hoophouse, and I’ve been noticing for the past couple years that it is so beautiful in all it’s stages! Every season. I think it might be the most beautiful tree ever.

You can almost see the horn growing out of his forehead 😛

See you tomorrow!

This is what I’ve been doing, digging out chard plants with a shovel, piling them up, throwing them in the gator and feeding them to Moo and the lambs.

Usually Shane’s helper does this but for some reason that defies any logic I’m doing it myself. So I’m behind on transplanting onions (well mostly that’s thanks to the rain we got), potatoes and was behind in the greenhouse until my sister came and helped me knock that out this week.

As I empty out the rows I put in tomatoes.  At this rate all the tomatoes should be in by the end of next week!

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow until around 11. We are restocked on all beef cuts! And we have one quarter available as a bulk purchase too.

I’ll have our grass fed Angus beef in these cuts: ground, stew, philly steak, cube steak, ribeyes, NY Strip, filet, sirloin, flat iron, flank, skirt, huge beautiful briskets, eye of round roasts, bone-in chuck roasts, sirloin tip roasts, short ribs, osso bucco,. No soup bones, I requested them but the processor didn’t save them.

Shane wants to do the ground beef special again – buy 5 get 1 pound free.

We still have some beef left from the winter processing and that will be on sale at 20% off until it’s gone: ribeye, strip, sirloin, cube, philly, stew. That’s a fantastic deal on nice steaks (you should see those ribeyes) and even better on stew beef –at $5.20 lb!!

I’ll have lots of beautiful kale in these varieties: curly, Red Russian, lacinato, and rainbow lacinato. Collards, chard, sweet potatoes, wheat and PLANTS!!!

I’m so excited to start bringing plants. I love growing potted plants!!

This week I have these gorgeous cutting celery plants and parsley plants in 4″ pots for $4.

Cutting celery is actually an herb that is used the same as celery, except that it is super easy to grow (unlike celery), is very abundant, lasts all season and tastes amazing, like celery but with even more celery flavor. It lasts into winter and gets even better when the weather turns cold. Potato salad, juicing, soups, tuna salad…so many uses.

And parsley – remember I told you about the book I got called Medical Medium Life-Changing Foods? He says this about parsley (I drastically shortened/paraphrased it):

* whenever parsley is sold, it should come with a sign that says, ‘Fights acidosis more than anything else.’ Normally alkalizing foods only have the ability to promote alkalinity in one or two body systems…parsley can alkalize the entire body across the board.

*it is an all purpose pathogen & bacteria fighter

* it has great chelation effect that pulls out stores of herbicides and pesticides that you never knew you were hiding

*it’s a highly remineralizing food with an adaptogenic nature and will to survive that it passes on to us when we eat it. * I can vouch for that as my parsley from last fall is still growing after the whole winter without any protection.*

I’ve already set my cutting celery and spring parsley plants out as they are pretty hardy. Next week I’ll have these again plus dill, thyme and some cinnamon basil plants and I have some nice big tomato plants available if anyone is planting inside a protected area (let me know).

Just moments away from cucumbers!

See you tomorrow <3

That’s my pony. He used to give lessons to kids back in the day. I’m pretty sure he misses all the attention. One time I left his gate open and he went into the tack room and ate a 3 pound bag of apples including the bag. I said, well it was nice knowing you because I can’t afford the surgery to have that plastic bag unentangled from your intestines and I’m sure you’re going to colic and die a tragic, senseless death now. A couple days later I saw that the apple bag had left the building haha! No harm done.

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with lots of greens: chard, collards, red kale, lacinato and curly kale, beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, wheat.

I’ll have our grass fed, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, sirloins, ground beef, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, short ribs, liver, shoulder roast. Bologna, corned beef & hot dogs made with 100% grass fed Angus without added nitrates or nitrites.

We have meat coming back from the processor soon  so we would love to offer 20% off on all steaks tomorrow!

Ribeyes, NY Strip and sirloins are 20% off – also we will have one more beef quarter available at the bulk price of $3.50/lb plus processing.

I have onion plants available – it’s time to plant now!

Four varieties: sweet, red, yellow storage and red storage. There are approximately 100 plants to a flat which will plant a 36′ row. They’re $22/flat or $5/6 pack (appx 18 onions – plants a 6′ row). If you’re interested please text me at 704.699.2208 to let me know what you’d like. I’ll start planting this week and if no one wants any I’ll plant them all 🙂

I’m still using my onions from last July, stored in the fridge drawer. I also still have 3 quarts of chopped onions in the freezer so it really pays to grow your own!

Wasn’t the snow so beautiful!

I’m super busy in the greenhouse. All the herbs and tomatoes need potting up into 4″ pots.

I start the thyme in these plug flats, because the seed is invisible. The seeds come, and you open the envelope and you’re like, Where are the seeds?

You just have to believe.

Just sprinkle on the imaginary seeds; they can’t be covered because they are light-dependant germinators. When they’re ready I pot them up, 3 plugs to a pot.

I’ve been loving the carrots and beets! This is the last week for mine. I rarely grow carrots and I’m so happy to have them now. Have you tried making nori rolls?

SO GOOD.

Grated raw carrots and beets, avocado and cilantro or mint. BTW I ate my whole cilantro bowl in 2 days – SO SAD.

You just spread a little rice on a nori sheet and add toppings. You really don’t have to have a sushi rolling mat thing but it makes it a lot easier. YouTube has lots of videos 🙂

Ok, I’ll see you tomorrow! For the first time all winter, Saturday is not going to be the coldest day of the week.

Hello baby dill 🙂

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with lots of greens: chard, collards, red kale and curly kale, beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, wheat.

I’ll have our grass fed, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, sirloins, ground beef, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, short ribs, liver, shoulder roast. Bologna, corned beef & hot dogs made with 100% grass fed Angus without added nitrates or nitrites.

I made something super delish, which I copied from a restaurant. It’s potatoes and carrots roasted with a little oil ( I use coconut oil) smoked paprika, salt, pepper, ground coriander AND KALE. You roast the potatoes and carrots at 400  til almost done then add torn kale tossed in a little oil – roast 15 ish more minutes. The kale gets little crispy edges and it’s out of control. Then when it’s done roasting you toss it with olive oil, the freshly squeezed juice of a lemon plus the finely grated rind and a clove of finely grated garlic. The lemon KILLS IT. So good.

So right now I’m clearing out one of the hoop houses to plant tomatoes-a huge job. Chard roots have to be dug out of the ground, they’re so massive and there are 4 rows of that alone. I’ll have beets and carrots for this week and next week, then they’ll be gone and the only things left to clear out of that hoop are red Russian kale and chard but I’ll still have those in limited amounts from the other hoop for a couple months. Also in the other hoop are the curly kale, toscano kale and collards.

We’ll have beef back from the processor for March 25 market, and we took an extra one since 2 people ordered quarters, so if anyone is interested in a quarter or half, there will be one available.

Cilantro bowl, an experiment. You know how if you buy a cilantro plant and transplant it, it bolts almost immediately? Or even if you grow it from seed which seems to take aeons, then you only get to pick it like 3 times and it’s bolting. So I saw this on pinterest (eyeroll) where you plant it thickly then keep trimming the tops off while it’s still baby size so you have a constant supply and allegedly it won’t bolt.

I’ll keep you posted on the riveting developments 🙂 See you tomorrow!

How is it already March??

I don’t have any vegetable photos this week it’s just HORSES ALL DAY.

I left Sunday for the mountains with my sister and our horses for her birthday and came back Wednesday and so there was plenty of time for horse pics while I was away.

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with lots of greens: chard, collards, red kale and curly kale, beets, sweet potatoes, wheat.

I’ll have our grass fed, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, sirloins, ground beef, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, short ribs, liver, shoulder roast. Bologna, corned beef & hot dogs made with 100% grass fed Angus without added nitrates or nitrites.

Caratacus worked so hard on the steep mountain trails (couldn’t take pictures on the steep ones, was holding on for dear life)!

After 8 years of having an unpronounceable name, I’m just going with Carats (like carrots) because of all the explaining.

It was his first time away from home overnight. He was not loving his stall whatsoever and didn’t touch his hay or water the first night. He circled and whinnied and lost about 50 pounds by the time we loaded up to come home on Wednesday. His stall looked like it got hit by a poop-nado.

He got enough carrots and Stud Muffins for about 4 horses though, so he didn’t completely starve.

Definitely sending out a jailbird vibe 🙁

He would eat hay if I was in his stall, so I sat down on a hay flake and edited my photos. He would take a bite of hay and then stand over me chewing, dropping loads of hay in my hair and down my shirt – itchy! I scooted over away from the hay rack but he’d just walk over and chew over my head again 🙂 So needy.

Shane was in charge of the greenhouse while I was gone, it’s packed with all the baby plants for my livelihood this growing season…no pressure! He also had to do all my chores: feeding the horses twice a day, the chickens, dogs, cats and the hoop houses. He did a great job.

If he and I ever want to go away together, my sister has to be in charge of all that stuff for me. So needy.

I hope you’re coming tomorrow, dress warm!

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with lots of greens: chard, collards, red kale and curly kale, just a couple bunches of carrots, sweet potatoes, wheat.

We still have the GB special, Buy 5 get 1 free, philly steak is 20% off.

I’ll have our grass fed, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, sirloins, ground beef, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, short ribs, soup bones, liver,  eye of round roasts, shoulder roast. Bologna, corned beef & hot dogs made with 100% grass fed Angus without added nitrates or nitrites.

Oh my gosh, you have to see this Open Faced Steak Sandwich with Avocado Horseradish! I haven’t made it yet because it just came into my inbox, but Laughing Owl Farm has horseradish, and we have steak 🙂 You could even be super economical with the philly steak instead of Strip steak, because it’s on sale 🙂 and it’s delicious.

Actually I have horseradish too…but the digging…

I went to get set up for pre-sprouting the ginger and turmeric this week and found that although I had ordered pre-cut seed, I got whole hands. So I learned a new thing, how to cut up ginger for seed.

Not too shabby, right? Important note: You have to leave 1/4″ extra on the cut for shrinkage. That’s what she said.

I order certified organic ginger and turmeric seed from Hawaii where they propagate it themselves, it’s really high quality, disease free seed and I’ve never used ginger and turmeric seed from anywhere else.

These tomato plants are for setting out mid-March in the hoop house. I double plant them (2 seeds per cell) and you can see sometimes both seeds come up, sometimes just one and sometimes nada.

And sometimes, I accidentally have a whole flat where I forgot to plant ANY SEEDS then just keep watering and watering and nothing ever comes up and I’m like, these seeds are crap!!! Where do these people get off!!!

Anyway,  when both seeds come up I separate them (if I feel like it) and some lucky persons will be able to buy these lovely extra plants for early tomatoes in a few weeks, or I’ll keep potting them up to 1 or 2 gallon pots and sell them as nice big plants in late April.

So I’ll have some extra early tomato plants to sell, if anyone has a little greenhouse or high tunnel. Or WHO KNOWS, it might just go straight to 80 degrees in March in which case you can just plant them wherever you like. They’ll be ready mid-March in 4″ pots because that’s how I plant them in my hoop house. Then I’ll have another crop of early tomato plants ready around the first of April, and then main season ones late April.

I’ll also have all the “mainstream” herbs in 4″ pots ready for mid April or later, and other garden plants as well. You can scroll back to last April and see how beautiful they were. Growing potted plants to sell is one of my very favorite things.

I’ll see you guys tomorrow <3

The greenhouse is full of onions!…herbs, tomatoes, cabbages, and just all the baby plants.

I love how onions come up from the middle, folded in half. Then they unfold and stand straight up.

Cutting celery – kind of amazing that each tiny seedling will grow into a huge plant that can feed a family all season into frost…not like a celery-crazed family, but just a normal family.

I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with lots of greens: chard, collards, red kale and curly kale, sweet potatoes, wheat and since I’ve missed a few markets, we have some great specials on our delicious beef!

We still have the GB special, Buy 5 get 1 free PLUS, philly steak and NY Strip are 20% off.

I’ll have our grass fed, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, sirloins,  skirt, ground beef, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, osso buco,  short ribs, soup bones, liver,  eye of round roasts, bone-in chuck roasts, shoulder roast. Bologna, corned beef & hot dogs made without added nitrates or nitrites.

Last weekend my family came, with 4  horses and their dogs 🙂 We set up corrals for the horses and went trail riding in the Uwharries. It was my gray horse’s  first time ever riding off the farm and his first time on treacherous trails! Also his first time riding with so many horses, there were 7 of us and we met a lot of riders on the trails. I wasn’t sure how he would handle all the pressure but he seemed to have a great time and there were no problems.

See you guys tomorrow!

I won’t be at the market next week but I’ll be at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market tomorrow with lots of greens: chard, collards, red kale and curly kale, sweet potatoes, butterball potatoes, wheat and since I’ve missed a few markets, we have some great specials on our delicious beef!

We still have the GB special, Buy 5 get 1 free PLUS cube steak, philly steak and NY Strip are 20% off.

I’ll have our grass fed, Animal Welfare Approved Angus beef in these cuts: Ribeyes, NY strips, sirloins,  skirt, ground beef, stew beef, philly steak, cube steak, osso buco,  short ribs, soup bones, liver,  eye of round roasts, bone-in chuck roasts, shoulder roast and rump roast. Bologna, pastrami, corned beef & hot dogs made without added nitrates or nitrites.

It looks like we are almost out of pastrami, corned beef and bologna so if you’re a fan I’ll be happy to hold some for you…so I don’t have to see the sad face.

Also, Shane increased the number of momma cows 2 years ago and while we were getting them re-tagged a few weeks ago we got a good count on the market-ready  and future market numbers, so now we are happy to finally be able to offer bulk discounts on wholes and halves of our beef – $3.50/lb hanging weight (not live weight) plus the cost of processing and $4/lb plus processing for a quarter. Right now hang weight is around 800 pounds for a whole.

I tried some new recipes while I was away, both really good – Fat-Busting Collard Green Soup, I think the name had Shane very skeptical that it could be delicious and it turned out to be totally delish, and Creamy French Lentils with Mushrooms and Kale .

See you tomorrow 🙂