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Red Russian Kale – a Biennial

(Note: while we grow red Russian kale, we do not always have it available to sell.)

Some red Russian kale seed spilled on the driveway several years ago. The plant has come back and produced nice foliage. Note how the leaves are water repellent – the water beads on the leaves.

This year the kale flowered and now has a large supply of these lovely seed pods. Probably we will let them dry and save them for seed for the coming year.

Some interesting things to note:

We think of kale as a small leaf with thin stems, something that we could try to eat raw and that would certainly cook up quickly either sauteed or boiled.

But look at the stout woody stem that is at the base of the seed podded plant. Quite stout and woody!

The seeds are also quite small.

But one of those generated this plant that has lots of seed pods each with probably 5-12 seeds in it. Quite the plant!

Biennial, annual, and perennial differences:

  • A biennial is a plant that flowers and makes seeds in the 2nd year, not the first year. The brassicas, like broccoli or cabbage, or the beets, like Swiss chard or early wonder tall top beets, are biennials.
  • An annual flowers and makes seeds in the first year. Spinach or squashes are annuals.
  • Self-sowing annuals also distribute the seeds which then come up the next year even though they weren’t planted on purpose. Cilantro and dillweed are like this.
  • A perennial comes up every year. It may also make seeds, but the mother plant comes up whether it goes to seed or not. Rhubarb and asparagus are perennials.

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Tell Me About Your…Pork

Pork is the name of meat that comes from pigs.

All of our pigs are raised outdoors year round, having a shelter to minimize the weather. They are fed organic grains grown by Gianforte Farm of Cazenovia. They are supplemented with day old produce from a local organic grocery store and occasional overflow from a local food pantry.

And as the seasons permit they are moved to different paddocks eating the brush, grass and local vegetation.

In the past year we have begun raising our own pigs from farrowing to finishing, from birth to processing. The Bros have a boar and two sows. Each sow gives two litters a year and from these litters we raise 3 piglets twice a year. Most of the pork we are currently selling and all we are currently raising started on our farm.

We aim to raise our pigs to 250-300 lb. They get this size by 7 months and then we have them processed by Kelly Meats in Taberg, a USDA-inspected facility. They cut and vacuum pack the meat into the normal chops, steaks and roasts. They use some of the ground meat to make sweet Italian, hot Italian and breakfast sausage. And they smoke some of the hams, chops and bacon. You end up with well-raised, tasty pork. Local food grown for you!

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2021 Hay

With the rain this spring and the heat of June, hay fields have grown and hay has been collected.

The Bros got around 200 bales from our property with the baling help of a neighbor. And then we bought the rest of our hay from the same neighbor off the wagon. (From his fields he mows, rakes, bales it into a wagon, then brings it to our farm where we stack it. Off of the wagon means it doesn’t stop at his barn first.)

It is good to have a nice green hay ready for the cows and goats when grass is no longer available.

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Baby Piglets

Maple, the sow, has given birth. Last February she carried and delivered 3 piglets. This time she carried 15 piglets and 12 survived. This pic is an early one of them coming around to nurse.

Her delivery was long, taking about 8 or 9 hours. However, she was able to do it on her own without assistance from us, which is a plus.

Maple has a large pen. On the one side we have a creep, a gate that the piglets can get under and be together and sleep. They all have the run of the pen, but the piglets also have a safe spot.

  • Pen with creep to the right
  • Piglets sleeping in the creep

We look at piggies’ tails to see how they are doing. The closer to upright and curled the better. Most of these tails are up and some are even curled.

You can also see some size differences. Most are starting to fill out; one is even stout compared to the rest.

Of course being able to get on and nurse contentedly contributes to good growth!

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Smoked Ham Steak

Smoked ham steaks, 1.25-2.0 lb., are easy to cook on these summer days. Here is the uncooked steak. I pan fried it for 4 minutes on a side, covering it with a lid, flipping back and forth several times.

After 20-25 minutes it had cooked and shrunk with the bone starting to separate from the meat. We saved the cooked off fat for other meals and enjoyed the ham steak with veggies, rice and a salad.

  • In the winter I like to cook this over scalloped potatoes in the oven. The fat drains down and flavors the potatoes nicely.
  • This also works well in the crockpot over veggies and potatoes or sweet potatoes. 8 hours on low should cook everything making tasty blended flavors.
  • I don’t grill (or broil much), but this would cook well that way, too.
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Tell Me About Your…Beef

Contented Cows…That is how I think of our cows. All year long at some point in the day the cows are laying down, contentedly chewing their cud. It is a sign that they have had enough to eat and drink and now is the time to lounge.

Our herd started with Fawn, a cow that we used for milk. She was half Angus, half Jersey/Holstein. She gave 3 gallons of creamy milk a day, which we used in the house and fed the extra to pigs. She also gave several calves, including 2 heifers: Malegra, born in May during turkey season, and Switzel, born in August during haying season. Fawn and Switzel have passed on, but Malegra is still on the farm, expecting a calf in September.

Up to this point we have used the AI company, Genex, to breed our cows. It lets us not have to house a bull. When we see the cows in heat, we call Genex, and they get the cows bred. And as long as the cows don’t come back into heat, we assume that in 9 months we will see a calf.

Our cows live outdoors year round. May-November they graze our 40 acres of pasture. They are rotated to new areas as needed, usually weekly. This lets them spread their manure on their own. From December-April we feed them untreated hay that we buy off the field from a neighbor or that the Bros harvest from some of our fields. They are fed from hay feeders in a field that is close to the barn. We use about 800 bales of hay a year. This makes our cows grass and hay fed.

On really cold windy days (wind chill below 0F) we do let the cows get under the eaves of the barn, which works like a 3-sided shelter. Because they are outdoors, they grow the hair that they will need to live in the outdoors. And as spring comes, they shed that hair. All in all, they enjoy being out side, eating, drinking, and lounging being the contented cows they are!

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Chive Flowers

Chive flowers

Chives are an allium perennial that start early in the spring. By late spring they send up flowers to seed more chives. (The flower throws the seed to expand the area.) The seed heads are pretty for the table and are edible as well.

Here is a supper salad with potatoes, beef, and Swiss chard topped with the parts of the chive flower. I took the flower, pulled it apart, and sprinkled the parts on my salad. It added a chive/onion flavor to the meal.

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Rib Steaks

We raise and finish our Angus-cross cows on grass and hay. One of the cuts that we get from our cows is rib steaks.

Rib steaks with white fat

With a bone and nice marbling, these steaks are excellent for grilling, frying, or broiling. OR you can cut the meat off the bone and saute it with veggies in a stir-fry. These beef rib steaks come two in a package and are 1.5-2.0 lbs.

Rib steaks with yellow fat

Some of these steaks have a yellow fat and some have the more traditional white fat. Our cows are at least half Angus. The other half may have some Jersey which tends to have yellow fat. The coloring doesn’t affect how the meat works or acts. It is tasty either way!

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Tell Me About Your…Chicken

We raise our animals outdoors as much as possible. For chicken, this means we only raise meat birds (chicken) during the spring and summer when we have grass to put them on. This year the plan is to process meat birds in June, July, August, and September.

Our chicks come from Freedom Ranger Hatchery. They hatch on Tuesday, are shipped in the mail, and arrive by Thursday. They have the internal nutrition that they need to do well on the trip here and have each other to stay warm with. When they arrive, we dip their beaks in water and grain so that they can find the water and food again. They have 3 heat lamps to warm up under and again have each other to huddle with if needed.

The chicks live in the brooder for 3 weeks. The brooder gives them time to grow and feather out. By 3 weeks they have the feathers that they need to keep themselves warm and then they can be safely moved outdoors.

We use moveable pens in the pasture, moving them daily at first and twice a day as they get older. This gives them fresh grass and bugs, spreads their manure as they deposit it, and protects them from the various predators that may be around.

The grain we provide comes from Gianforte Farm over near Cazenovia. Gianforte grows and supplies organic grains, grinding and mixing them with Fertrell Poultry Nutribalancer, to add extra minerals, and Fertrell Fish Meal, to boost the protein.

Another key piece to protecting all of our chickens is a livestock guardian, in our case, Yorek, a one year old Great Pyrenees. He is learning what is normal and what is not and barks as needed. This warns off predators and makes our meatbirds a less desirable option.

When the meat birds are 8-10 weeks old, we will process them here. With a good scalding and plucking, the birds look similar to chicken from the grocery store and taste much better. We are hoping for 2-5 lb. birds and will have them available for sale as whole, frozen chicken.