Greens Well Stocked this Week!

Store is well stocked & it's winter market week!

Greens in stock  - zesty micros, mizuna micros, radish micro, pea shoots, salad mix. (Regular harvest updates posted to IG/FB.

Also available in the farm store: radishes, carrots, red onions, apple butter, elderberry syrup kits, herbal tinctures, eggs (limited).

Saturdays Winter Farmers Market will be held 10-12 at Drummers Garden and Floral, Mankato. Last time there was still 22 vendors! It's a fantastic market to shop.

My Happy Place: in the greenhouse

 My happy place.

Sun is shining and it’s 80 in the greenhouse, I get to play in the dirt and grow healthy, organic food for my community.

I don’t have to pull any weeds in here.

These coldest of cold days in Minnesota winter we need to find our happy places. I’m learning to love the kitchen as one of my happy places to create - an extension of my pantry I adore. Books and puzzles are a happy place of mine. Lol, and rearranging in the house.

I’m a little spoiled to have the greenhouse as one. This feels really, really good after working many 50 degree mornings last week.

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If you are new around here we grow organic winter greens September-March in our passive solar winter greenhouse. Salad mixes, pea shoots and microgreens! As well as organic garden transplants in the springtime!

Our January Challenge: No Grocery Shopping

Trying something new this January. No grocery shopping.

John mentioned this, which I had been meaning to propose to him. I had seen the #threeriverschallenge (on Instagram) and thought it would be fun to try!

Your rules can be whatever you want - grocery shop 1x instead of 3xweek. Only bananas and coffee. Cut your budget in half. Shop your cupboards first. Whatever works for you!

For us this is going to look like no grocery shopping at the store. I’ll still be heading to Nature's Pantry Farm for raw milk and cream. I'll post some updates on IG/Facebook, mostly in our stories.

We have meats, preserved produce and grains stocked in the pantry. Have a small stockpile of chocolate and coffee .

The goal is to save money on groceries, use the bounty we have put up all year rotate through some of our pantry stores, and use up some items we use less often.

Today’s lunch/dinner is spicy sausage-kale soup (think Zuppa toscana), with potatoes, onions and garlic from the pantry, kale from the freezer and our homegrown pork sausage. This is one of my fav recipes for our sausage.

What do you think about this idea?

Upping Your Game: Swap Your Fats

Pasture raised eggs cooked in bacon grease from pastured happy hogs. If you are looking to change your diet and make healthier options I suggest starting here.

Fats.

Yup, fats. If nothing else swap out your fats. Eliminating all seed oils from your diet (they are rancid & inflammatory), use animal fats primarily (butter, lard, bacon grease, tallow, ghee); we also use coconut oil and olive oil.

Animal Fats+

• Butter
• Lard
• Bacon grease
• Tallow
• Ghee
• Coconut oil
• Olive oil

Swap your meat for pastured raised, raised locally, and grass-fed. That goes for your eggs too. Think it’s too expensive? Eat a little less. Wouldn’t you rather pay your farmer than the doctor?

Pasture raised meats/eggs/dairy are a nice natural way to add vitamin D to your diet, which most people are deficient in - especially this time of year at our latitude.

I’m going to lather some butter on my toast (and plum jelly) and compliment this breakfast with a glass of whole, raw milk (and microgreens, of course). All the fats.

Don’t forget the whole reason FAT got a bad rep was because the sugar industry ran a smear campaign against it for their benefit.

Fat is essential for healthy functioning, our brains are made of it. We can’t live without it.

Holiday Greens

Greens are fully stocked in the farm store. Best Selection will be today and tomorrow at the farm store, then Saturday at the Winter Mankato Farmers' Market. I'll have a small amount of greens in the farm store on Saturday, but Saturdays are slow here, so most inventory will get pulled for market sales. I'll always set aside orders in the farm store, if you know you are coming! The store will also be open Monday and Tuesday next week, then closed until the 27th.

Pea Shoots are available in 2oz clamshells and (limited) 1/2 lb bags.

Microgreens are available in 2oz clamshells - Zesty Mix, Mizuna (mild), Pac Choy (mild/spinach-like) and Radish.

Arugula greens and Salad Mix are also available. This is the last of the straight arugula.

Also in store...red onions, radishes, eggs, apple butter, plum jelly (4 left!), herbals tinctures, elderberry syrup kits, carrots. May have some winter squash next week. Applesauce will eventually make it back to the shelf! (No apple rings this winter, they were the first thing to go with the apple crop loss.)

Buying Meat in Bulk: Personal Pork Harvest

Pure bred Glouchestershire Old Spot, our favored breed.

Hey farm friends, I wanted to give you a look at what our whole and half hog we harvested for personal use looked like. Buying in bulk is a great option to get your best price, stock up and be prepared, make meal planning easier, support local farms and try new cuts.

•Personal cuts from a whole and half hog, with video links.

•Costs of butchering, and how to save money.

•What our freezers look like.

This is our spring 2021 pork harvest. We kept a hog and a half back for ourselves, as we had been out of pork (and bacon!) for a long time.

Whole hog harvest, smallest hog.

Above is the results of our whole hog harvest. As per usual we keep the smallest of the herd (another reason we took an extra half this time around). This one is pretty typical of how we cut a whole hog for our use. There is fresh side pork (bacon), chops, roasts, hams, lard, hocks, ground pork, ribs and country style chops. (We have a back up of unused organs, so I did not keep any this time. We generally use the organs for the dogs.)

Video of our whole hog cuts.

Half hog harvest.

Above is the results of our half hog harvest. We occasionally process our pork like this, more specialty, focused on brats, bacon and ground pork. We have cured bacon, ground pork, fresh and cheddar brats, hocks and chops here.

Video of our half hog cuts.

Costs of Hog + Processing

Let's talk about costs a little bit. It's really interesting to look at how we process the whole hog versus the half hog. The whole hog had a hanging weight of 153lbs, it was a small hog. The half hog had a hanging weight of 92lbs (the whole would have been 184lbs). Because of how we chose to cut the half hogs, with more speciality and processed items (brats) the processing costs were actually higher for the half hog. The brats and the smoking both added cost.

So, another way to save money on a bulk meat order is by how you cut it. Your going to pay more money for brats, patties/burgers, sausages, etc. in your pork/beef/bulk animals processing. This may be worth it for a time aspect for you, but it's a personal choice to balance out!

This is also an opportunity to learn how to make your own specialty items! We have made brats and sausage before (links and patties). It's fun, and messy (and a little gross, in a good way?? lol) and it takes time, but it's very rewarding. Major benefit, you control the ingredients!

Back to that cost, if you zoom in you can see the whole hog had processing costs of $163 and the half hog cost $181. This will be on top of the price of the animal paid directly to us, the farmers, which is $3.25/lb hanging weight; for these two animals that would have broken down to $497 and $299, respectively.

Yield is 65%+/- of the hanging weight, plus bones, organs, lard.

Stocking the Freezer

Here's a rare look at our freezers post harvest. I ALWAYS make sure to clean the freezer and rotate our meat, to ensure nothing gets lost or goes to waste. Our meat generally gets used within 1-1.5 years, sometimes 2 years and it's just fine and dandy.

Our small chest freezer.

We have one large chest freezer - mainly for veggies, oats, etc. which serves for back up meat overflow/chickens; one small chest freezer - primarily for meat/beef; and one upright deep freezer - meat, wild game, pork, beef, organs. Then of course the kitchen fridge-freezer.

Upright deep freezer.

Upright deep freeze door.

Hope this helps give you a good idea of what to expect when buying in bulk! We harvest small herds twice per year, offering opportunities up first to returning customers and those who've expressed interest. Email us directly if you'd like to be on that shortlist. Join below if you'd like to follow all updates from the farm!

Join our email newsletter list.

 

It's Apple Season!

 Friends, it looks as thought I have been absolutely terrible about updating our website!! (Last post in May, oh boy.)

For the most timely updates join our mailing list (2-3 emails per month), following along on facebook or instagram, or stop by the farm store regularly to see what's in stock!

It looks as thought I missed raspberry season, plum season and the beginning of apple season on the blog here. We have been busy this whole time! You may have been following along.

Here are the most important updates:

Apples!

Apples are in stock at the farm store and available at the Saturday Mankato Farmers Market! Apples will be limited due to our crop loss, more limited varieties may only be available at the farm store. Shop early at the market for best selection.

Apple Cider

We are still pressing fresh cider! Watch for availability, as we don't stock this 100% of the time. (Hope to do a pressing this weekend!)

NEW Items

Plum Jam and Jelly are two NeW items!! These will be limited, seasonal items.

Organic pea shoots are available!! This is the earliest I have ever started growing them, as we needed to for a MN State Fair event. Well shazam, a success! Available at the market and farm store. Micros soon!

Farm Hop Open House

OPEN HOUSE coming up Sunday, September 19th 1-4 pm with our friends next door at Under the Sun Herbs.  *Event Link*