Fall greens are back!

Freshly harvested vegetables and pastured pork for you.  See you at market in Morganton and Conover today!

This week’s garden harvest-raised using 100% organic methods-no chemical fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides.  Hooray for poison free food!

The cooler weather has brought the return of crops that we haven’t enjoyed since spring.  Kale, swiss chard, arugula and baby lettuce mix are back!  But now we get to enjoy these same greens with some of the lingering flavors of summer-red peppers, basil and tomatoes are still around!

Kale- We have been sautéing the kale with red peppers.  Served with some sausage or bratwurst mmmmm…  This week we have all three of our favorite types of kale, tender red Russian, heirloom lacinato (dinosaur kale) and traditional full bodied curly kale.

A tender favorite-red russian kale

Swiss Chard- a great addition to late summer mixed vegetable dishes.  Use in place of spinach for spinach and rice stuffed sweet peppers or in a tomato sauce served with pasta.

Swiss chard in neat rows.  Quick get a photo before the weeds take over!

Arugula- Fresh salads! How about some red pepper with the peppery arugula?

Radishes-delicious, crisp, and with the right amount of bite French breakfast radishes (sorry a smaller harvest means they will only be available in Morganton this week-more to come though)

Lettuce Mix- Tender and buttery baby lettuce mix. Mix with arugula.

Cherry tomatoes- little gems of sunshine. Intense flavors.  Yellow, red, gold, black-purple tomatoes.

Basil! Time to make pesto. The clock towards the frost is ticking. Only 3 more weekends til a frost is likely. I like to freeze my pesto in pint freezer bags.  You can also freeze it in ice cube trays and then store in a freezer bag. Oh, the basil. The aroma of summer! 

Bell Peppers, Sweet Bell and Italian Frying Peppers- no synthetic chemicals.  Red and ripe! So sweet and ripe. Amazing raw or cooked.

The fall garden area with the tomato hoops in the background

Pasture Raised Pork:

Remember, hiding in our coolers are all cuts of our delicious forest/pasture raised pork.  We feed the hogs certified organic grain so you know that not only is the animal healthy and happy but it is also eating a chemical free, GMO-free diet.  Why should we feed our animals something we would rather not eat?  By feeding only certified organic grains to all our animals, hogs, layer hens, and meat chickens we help to support more diverse, environmentally sustainable organic farms.

Try the sausages: This week we recommend any of our sausages Italian, Bratwurst, or Country Sausage, as a great pairing with the fresh greens coming into season.  Or perhaps you need to get out to the grill just a few more times this fall with some Spare ribs, or Pork Chops.  

A pictures worth a thousand words

Wet, rainy greens harvesting

The greens are officially here!  The past few weeks we've had a little bit of arugula at market.  But this Saturday we'll have a more full selection.  Kale, Swiss Chard, Arugula, and baby Lettuce mix.  Hooray for fall greens!

Back when it was sunny-some pretty new hens!

Rain, eh? I’m sure you know that nice gentle rain once a week is preferred over 5 inches of rain in 3 days.  The fields are flooded with standing water.  The animals are hunkered down to stay dry and warm. The pathways in the garden are filled with slurpy mud that sticks to your boots.  Sheets of rain approached the vegetable field this morning. I saw (Marie) the solid sheet of rain hit the far hill and ran for cover, abandoning the Swiss Chard.  Stubborn ole’ William kept harvesting, thinking it would let up. Nope. The rain got harder.  So while I was harvesting cherry tomatoes inside the cozy, dry hoophouse, William was outside in the rain.  People live in monsoons all over the world right? When we went to the other farm to harvest the much needed vegetables for your boxes, we both thought that the rain would let up for a few hours.  When the rain didn’t let up, we kept harvesting.  We needed the veggies for tomorrow, so slogging in the muddy field it was.

And through all of that, my feet stayed dry in my wonderful Muck boots.  It wasn’t until I got into town and walked through several inches of water that one of my feet got a little soggy.  Apparently one of my boots has a giant 3 inch crack in the sole that only leaks when I step in standing water, not when I stand in mud.

Nothing like strong monsoon days to help you remember to be thankful for dry roofs and clothing!

It all comes together, sheep and chickens grazing cover crop in a fallow vegetable area.  Food, fertilizer, and multi-species grazing!  All under the watchful eye of our livestock guard-Tazzy

Greetings from Bluebird Farm,

See you at the Morganton and Conover Farmers’ Markets tomorrow (Saturday) until noon.

Attention! Attention! We have baskets of freshly harvested yummy arugula!  I think it is time for arugula, watermelon chunks, chopped red peppers, and a drizzle of sweet white balsamic vinegar...Cheers to green salads once again!

Sweet Red Peppers, 

These peppers want to be served with our Sweet Italian sausage, basil, fresh cherry tomatoes, and a nice pasta or polenta!

Pastured Pork- We have a good supply of pastured pork…

Mild Country Sausage, Hot Country Sausage, Sweet Italian Sausage, Bratwurst Sausage, Ground Pork, Thick Pork Chops, Spare Ribs, fresh bacon(uncured.)

Limited supply of boneless ham roasts and shoulder roasts.

This week’s garden harvest
Arugula- fresh greens again

Cherry tomatoes- little gems of sunshine. Intense flavors.  Yellow, red, gold, black-purple tomatoes.

Basil! Time to make pesto. The clock towards the frost is ticking. Only 5 more weekends til a frost is likely. I  like to freeze my pesto in pint freezer bags.  You can also freeze it in ice cube trays and then store in a freezer bag. Oh, the basil. The aroma of summer! 

Bell Peppers, Sweet Bell and Italian Frying Peppers- no synthetic chemicals.  Red and ripe! So sweet and ripe. Amazing raw or cooked.

Jalapenos and Hungarian Hot Peppers- Spice it up.

Hot Jalapeno pepper time!

Pastured Chicken- Free range on grass pastures, fed certified organic grains. Flavorful and tender.

-Packs of 2 leg quarters and 2 wings

-We won’t have more whole chickens until our next flock is ready on October 10^th. Stock up at in October; it will be the last flock of the year, and we won’t have any of our chicken in our freezer this winter.  We will take orders for chickens in mid September. (next week)

Pastured Free Range Eggs- The hens will soon be back in the bottomland pasture with their sheep friends and guard dog.  The littlest piggys will have to say goodbye for now to their old friends the hens.

All our animals are fed certified organic grains.

Sweet Italian Basil- It's time to make pesto.

Summertime Sunflowers and Veggies

 Summertime Sunflowers and Veggies
Sunflowers with tomato hoophouse in background

Marie with sunflowers at Silver Creek

This week on the Farm

Bluebird Farm was a happening place this past week. 

In the vegetable field:

                The dry weather is making it difficult to germinate seedlings.  Beets, carrots, and lettuce mix are all struggling to crack through the dry crusty ground.  The good news in the fall garden is the transplants.  Weeds had started to grow in the vegetable field.  But it isn’t very hard to kill them when the sun is beating down.  Just a little disturbance with the tractor and they’re dead.  After preparing the beds we had two big work evenings to plant all the babies (one good thing about earlier evenings is that when we work to dark its only 9 pm instead of 10 pm!).  12 rows of chard, 12 kale, and 4 each of collards and broccoli are now happily growing away. 

 

Baby kale, Swiss chard, and collards before planting

 

William and baby kale plants after planting

In the pastures:

                On Sunday it was time to move the sheep.  Normally it’s a short easy move from one paddock to the next.  But this time it was a big move.  They’d been happily grazing on the hillside for the last two months or so.  But they had reached the end of the grass.  So we had to move them back down to the bottom land across from the vegetable field.  Luckily for us we had some out of town friends visiting so we put them to work (they may not have thought themselves so lucky!).  The sheep behaved pretty well on the move.  But they did miss one turn.  They didn’t want to walk into the tall unmowed grass so they ran the entire length of the field down the nicely cut road-they thought it was the best race track ever.  So I had to run all the way around them and get them turned around in the right direction.  Fortunately, after their long run they were too tire to misbehave anymore.

 Big pigs get a summer treat! The ground is very hard, so we let them gallivant around in the lush sheep and chicken grass pasture. 

                Today we opened up some piglets onto our pastures.  The ground is hard from the dry weather so they can’t turn the soil over too much.  We just want them to munch on the grass and other plants growing in the pasture, not rip the whole thing up.  It took the pigs a few minutes to cross their old electric fence (they think its still there and really don’t want to get shocked).    But once they were across into the green grass they had a blast running around and grazing. 

Enjoy the food!

William and Marie

Animals around Bluebird Farm
Cattle in the high pasture.
Hens enjoying the shade in empty veggie field with hoophouse in background

Wheee...baby pigs running!

Baby pigs and hens

Greetings from Bluebird Farm,

See you at the Morganton and Conover Farmers’ Markets tomorrow (Saturday) until noon.

Pastured Pork- My oh my, what tasty pork chops you have!

Have you been dreaming about our pastured pork? Even our personal freezer has been empty, but now we have a full offering of wonderful pork for you.

Mild Country Sausage, Hot Country Sausage, Sweet Italian Sausage, Bratwurst Sausage, Ground Pork, Thick Pork Chops,  Spare Ribs, Boneless Ham Roasts, Shoulder Roasts, Fresh Bacon (uncured.)  

Get the roasts and pork chops while they last.  We should have a good supple of everything else until our next hogs are ready in mid October.

This week’s garden harvest, grown with organic methods, of course

Yard Long Red Noodle Beans- Meaty and sweet.  Chop these very long beans (almost a yard long) into bite sized pieces and sauté. 

Cherry tomatoes- little gems of sunshine. Intense flavors.  Yellow, red, gold, black-purple tomatoes.

Slicing tomatoes- The season is winding down; get them while they’re ripe! There are not as many ripe tomatoes.  Can the tomato glory days really only be 1 month long?

Basil! Oh, the basil. The aroma of summer!  Pesto? I love pesto on pizzas. See pesto recipe below.

Bell peppers, Sweet Bell and Italian Frying Peppers- no synthetic chemicals.  Red and ripe!

So sweet and ripe. Amazing raw or cooked.

Cucumbers- Just a few cukes still coming in from the last plants of the year.  Sweet crisp summer flavor.

Summer Squash and Zucchini-They are all gone! Done for the year.

Pastured Chicken- Free range on grass pastures, fed certified organic grains. Flavorful and tender.

-Packs of 2 leg quarters and 2 wings

-We won’t have more whole chickens until our next flock is ready on October 10^th. Stock up at in October; it will be the last flock of the year, and we won’t have any of our chicken in our freezer this winter.  We will take orders for chickens in mid September.

Pastured Free Range Eggs- The hens have new friends! They welcomed 12 small piglets in their pasture.  Little do they know…those piglets will be 250 pounds in no time!  Multi-species grazing is a unique part of our farm.  All our animals are fed certified organic grains.

Pesto version 1

This version is very thick! Great for spreading.

Ingredients
1 big cup of basil leaves
4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 ½ tablespoons of roasted pine nuts or walnuts
3 tablespoons of original parmesan cheese
1 ½ medium sized garlic cloves

Directions

Carefully wash the basil leaves and pat excess water from them.  Finely puree the garlic in a food processor or mince by hand if you are using a blender.  Add the basil and olive oil and puree for a minute or two. When it starts to look like a paste add the pine nuts,and continue pureeing. After you obtain a nice puree, add the parmesan cheese, season with salt and pepper and continue mixing for another 2-3 minutes.  Let the pesto rest before you use it, so the flavor will unfold. 10 minutes should be enough. Use it with your favorite pasta dish or try another dish, such as pesto chicken.

Pesto version 2- This version is thinner and more sauce-like than version 1.  Great for drizzling over a large sauté of mixed summer vegetables and pasta.

Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic
½ cup fresh basil
½ cup olive oil, approx

¼ cup roasted walnuts or pine nuts
Salt to taste

Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions same as version 1.  Add Parmesan cheese if desired.

Pesto Tips

Pesto can be made with almost any nut. I have had excellent pistachio pestos as well as roasted almond, pecan, cashew, or walnut pesto.

A homemade pesto sauce should be kept in the fridge if you don’t use everything in the same day. You can store homemade pesto for about 1 week, if you store it in an airtight jar or container and cover the top of the pesto with a thin layer of olive oil.

To freeze pesto, leave out the parmesan cheese. You can add the cheese after thawing. Divide pesto into meal size portions. Freeze in freezer bags.

From 8-7-2012 farm cherry tomatoes

Greetings from Bluebird Farm,

Saturday Farmers Markets tomorrow.

Conover 7:30 am til noon

Morganton 8 am til noon

We have pork again this week. Country sausage, Italian sausage links, ground Italian sausage

Try a fancy tomato sandwich.  Well, not fancy, just garden fresh.  Toast your bread lightly and spread your favorite savory goat cheese on one or both sides of the bread.  Sprinkle chopped leaves of fresh basil over the goat cheese, layer sliced garden tomatoes, and add a dash of salt and fresh black pepper.  Serve on a plate with salted chopped cucumbers.

This week’s garden harvest

Cherry tomatoes- little gems of sunshine. Intense flavors.  Yellow, red, gold, black-purple tomatoes.

Slicing tomatoes- Wow. The prima donnas of the garden.  Tomatoes can be finicky little garden plants.  But the vine ripened flavor of an organic slicing tomato is worth it!

Basil! Oh, the basil. The aroma of summer!  Try a fancy tomato sandwich.   See the sandwich idea above.

Bell peppers, Sweet Bell- no synthetic chemicals.  Peppers are another item that is on the Dirty Dozen list for conventional produce that is sprayed heavily with pesticides and fungicides. 

Cucumbers- Sweet and crunchy. Get your cucumber fix- the cucumber season is now, not in October-May.

Summer Squash and Zucchini- Flavor!  We’ve got some tasty varieties.  Nutty, firm, with a tender texture.  We’ve got 5 different types of squash and zucchini for you. Choose from, Slik, Goldy, Parthenon, and Zephyr.

Pastured Pork- Country sausage, Italian sausage links, and ground Italian sausage.

Pastured Chicken- Free range on grass pastures, fed certified organic grains. Flavorful and tender.

-Whole chickens

-Packs of 2 leg quarters and 2 wings

Pastured Free Range Eggs- All our animals are fed certified organic grains.  Our hens love the color red.  Red means juicy tomatoes! Any tomatoes with cracks or splits that won’t ripen properly get flung into the hen pasture- and they go wild.

Our forest pigs are enjoying the forest jungle!

On the Farm

It’s been one of those weeks where the farm just seems a little out of.  It started last Wednesday the 18th.  On Tuesday last week we purchased 13 piglets from some friends of ours.  By Wednesday morning they’d figured out they fit through their corral panels.  They also discovered that the very brushy woods were a great place to root and hide.  So after harvesting basil for the CSA, Victor (Marie’s younger brother) and I got to spend a fun filled two hours literally crawling through briars to catch piglets one by one.  The briars were so thick that the piglets were getting stuck.   From there on out for the week we were behind schedule.  Then, right when we thought we might get to catch up on some tractor work-more rain!

One of our good pigs inside its fence where it should be

You’ve probably been hearing about the national drought ruining crops all over the country.  Even much of North Carolina is experiencing some drought.  Farmers I sell next to at farmers market from as close as Catawba and Lincoln counties worry about no rain on their farms.  We are not looking forward to the upcoming animal feed bills.  However, at least in our little corner of Burke County, it has been raining plenty.  These days the most noticeable result of all the rain (besides constantly wet feet) are the weeds!  When its harvest day we wade through waist high weeds, push them aside like curtains, peer under and over and find that red tomato or cucumber or squash.  In spit of the rain we have finally made some progress getting ready to clean up the garden for fall.  Today we removed old irrigation tape so we can get the tractor back into the field.  As soon as it dries out some that is.

Squash Blossom with bumble bees

Beef

            We are now working with our family friend and farming mentor, Jace, to raise some grass based and organically fed beef.  Jace is a longtime family friend, helpful farmer, and the landowner where our main vegetable fields and sheep pastures are. We have helped to create a beef raising protocol with him to create healthy, lean, and tasty beef.  The meat we have available now is 100% grass fed.  Many cattle are raised on pasture, but finished out (grown to full size) using corn.  The addition of corn drastically alters the fat profile of the meat creating a more unhealthy mix of omega-3s and omega-6 fatty acids.  100% grass creates the healthiest balance available in meat (except fish). 

            Right now the heat has greatly reduced the quality of the grass.  So the animals we have out on the pasture right now are grazing but can’t get their full nutrition requirements for optimal growth and beef quality.  We have worked with our certified organic feed supplier to create a ration that is low in corn and 100% certified organic, so no GMOs or chemicals in the feed.  These animals are still always grazing on fresh grass, moving frequently, to ensure that the grain is a minimal part of their diet. 

            Right now we have Beef available on Wednesdays 10-3 at Hickory Farmers Market and by special order at the other markets.  You can always come by the farm on Wednesdays from 4-6 pm.

Your farmers,

William and Marie