This week was less chaotic than last week. Coming off a pretty big week of animal duties, we took some time to get collect our thoughts.
Ramps were certainly the focus of the week. Harvesting for Market on Military and testing some new recipes. Instead of doing our regular fermented recipes we started adding ramps to baked goods. Focaccia and biscuits to be exact. The biscuits were the star of the show, but the focaccia was equally delicious, especially when paired with ramp butter. We still have fresh ramps available for sale and we will be baking focaccia and biscuits to order until the end of the season. We are hoping to have all of this available at the next market as well, but only time will tell if they will still be good to harvest then. If not, our focus will be turned to pickled ramp bulbs and the dried ramps.
Along with this, we also got our first order of broiler chickens. They are still currently in their brooder, but if the overnight lows next week get a little higher, they may be out on pasture as soon as next week! That means fresh pasture raised chicken is right around the corner! Fresh chicken is something that has been missed since late last fall. June 23rd is our first processing date for chicken. We do not have a lot for the first group, so reserve yours soon! As soon as our chickens are big enough and have their feathers we move them out to pasture. We keep them in chicken tractors. The tractors allow us to move the birds daily, giving them access to fresh ground each day. It also keeps them safe from predators. Last year we were very happy with how this system worked so we have expanded for this year. The difference it has made on our pasture is quite shocking as well. The dark green, lush grass coming up this spring certainly loves the nitrogen boost from last falls chickens.
Our layer chickens have also been getting moved around as well. Right now they are on clean up duty. We are using them to clean up paddocks from last falls pig rotations. We have one group of chickens on a paddock that will be seeded with grain amaranth at the end of the month. The chickens smooth out the the little hills and bumps left by the pigs. They also eat the first flush of weeds that come with the spring warm up. The chickens are certainly happy to be out of the hoop houses and back in the fields.
Stay tuned for next week and our daily social media updates. We may have big news coming at the end of the week!