The Market Shopping List

Vegetables

Always grown with organic methods- compost, cover crops, organic fertilizers, organic pesticides if needed.

No synthetic chemicals. No synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or fertilizers.  

Potatoes- Boiling and Roasting! These are new potatoes- which means that the skins are not thick. So tender and delicious!

Scallions- What a zing! This is one of the last weeks for scallions

Beets- Fresh and sweet 

Cucumbers- Crisp and sweet

Kale-  Out of season for now- It will be back in late September

Pastured Pork
Delicious pastured pork. Taste the quality. Our hogs are fed GMO-free certified organic grains and raised outdoors on pasture.·        

Thick bone-in chops
Country sausage
Spare ribs and country backbones
Spicy chorizo sausage
Sweet Italian sausage
Thick sliced side meat
Ground pork

 Free Range, Pastured Eggs-

Our hens are raised outdoors in the sunshine! The pastures are green and the hens are exploring with the sheep flock. 

Our laying hens are fed non-medicated conventional grains and rotated through pastures with their portable hen wagon coop. (We are not using organic grains this year, ask us at market about the switch back to conventional grains for just the layer hens)

Pastured Chicken-

Chicken: Cut-up, whole chicken ..all of our meat chickens are fed Certified Organic Grains) The meat chickens run and flap through grass pastures.  Sunshine and fresh air make for healthy birds.  We raise the Freedom Ranger meat chicken breed on grass pastures, and we feed 100% certified organic grains, GMO-free.

>>>See our Herb Roasted Chicken recipe here.<<<

Weather challenges are always huge obstacles for farmers. 

What is more disheartening is to have losses from weather, harvest what you have left in the fields, and then not sell the harvested vegetables at the Farmers' Market.  

Every little purchase counts.  (Even the $2 ones.) Pass it along to your friends!

We haven't had any severe damages with the flooding and wet weather (no floating cars or animals or completely wiped out plants), but many plants have been struggling and not producing well  (lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, squash, eggplant, potatoes, basil)  That's because it's been cool and the field has been flooded or saturated with water.  (roots don't like to drown.)

This is for all you out there that have wanted to know the details..We don't want to sound negative, but here's a bit of the damage in the vegetable field.  The water table is at the surface of the field for the 7th?(stopped counting) time.  This means there are small ponds and standing water in many places.  The squash blossoms have rotted on the plants. The bell peppers plants are alive but toppled over almost to the ground.  Some potatoes have rotted in the ground.  The weeds are ferocious and grow 3 inches a week.  Some beans plants and cucumbers plants are rotting at the base of their stems.  The pigs are happy "as a pig in mud," but we are keeping them moving around the farm into new paddocks so they don't make mud bricks!

The Positive Side...

We'll have some beautiful tomatoes and peppers if the plants can handle the weather stress.  We currently have beautiful cucumbers. Beautiful!  Beets aren't a sexy vegetable like a tomato. They just aren't natural divas like tomatoes are.  But we have some very handsome beets.  Very sweet tasting and good-natured beets for you to enjoy

And...We've got our packets of amazing organic seeds, the organic fertilizer, and a positive outlook on beautiful fall vegetables.  More kale, Swiss chard, lettuce, radishes, Hakerai turnips, carrots, beets, arugula, and scallions.  And hopefully peppers and tomatoes will produce well all the way into the end of September.  Sweet potatoes should be making an entrance around the 3rd week of September.

Here's to fine summer farm eating!