Silver Leaf Farm

07/17/2023

Garlic- Cured 🙌😍🧄 this is what it looks like once fully dry, 4-5 weeks after harvest. Now will cut the tips and roots then store for winter.

Sharing the bounty in our harvest boxes as an add-on to pork shares! We got over 500 bulbs this year! PM us for details

06/15/2023

Softneck harvest! Look at these beasts 😍🧄 Pleased with the clove sizes on these! Just need to let cure and they'll be ready for use and storage.

Our hardneck varieties are done curing. We'll have garlic for sale to add to our pork share harvest boxes!! Great addition to make your pork chops even more delicious 😋

PM us today to get on monthly deliveries of farm fresh pork, eggs, and produce!

06/06/2023

Re-purposing feed bags ♻️

These triple layer paper feed bags make a great landscaping barrier for the new flower garden bed next to the garage. Easy to tear into lengths to go around the new plantings, then cover with woodchips. Irises standing strong, and St John's Wart sending up new growth, too! 🌱

06/06/2023

Potatoes flowering! These are the spuds we planted in trenches in April, now the plants are over 3 feet tall 👀😲 Pleased with this method so far, hopeful to see the reward in tonnage of tasty potatoes come harvest!

06/01/2023

Tuscan Kale, Second Season. These are the Tuscan kale plants we left in the bed last fall, then flowered the pretty yellow flowers that we posted a video of this spring with all the pollinators of honey bees and swallowtail butterflies.

Those pollinators gifted is with seeds! We removed the flower branches, now covered with green seed pods, from the plant stem. Harvesting now so the pods don't mature and open, don't seeds on the bed. Now several bunches are hung up to cure/dry so we can collect the seeds.

Each long pod can have upto a dozen seeds 😃😍
Free seeds=free plants=free food 😋 And more than enough to share, I'll be packaging up packets for sale.

05/31/2023

Planting our Butternut Squash and Cucumbers we started from seeds. Setup a fence panel into an arch, held down by tent stakes. Dug a trench, placed seedlings in the trench, covered with aged compost manure mixture, then covered with soil from the trench.

One side of the arch is butternut, the other side is cucumbers, both are climbing cucurbits that benefits from lots of air circulation. The arch helps both grow better fruits. We will plant Bush beans underneath the arch.

05/29/2023

Chamomile! A dense and lush covering at the end of our first raised bed. Besides being joyful to look at, chamomile has been used medicinally for centuries. The Egyptian and Romans wrote about its amazing health benefits. The flowers and leaves are edible!!! 🌼

Chamomile flower is an array of natural compounds like flavonoids, sesquiterpenes, and antioxidants. It also contains an aromatic chemical compound known as Chamazulene, that possesses potent anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antispasmodic properties.

Brewed as a tea, but can also be used in making smoothies, popsicles, health tonics, cakes and even infused in milk. A cup of hot water steeped with dried or fresh chamomile flower petals have wondrous health and skin benefits.

05/26/2023

Craigslist Charlottesville, we've got pork shares available, going to processing in two weeks!! PM us for details

Gourmet Artisanal Pork, Free-Range Heritage Breed, Organic Fed NON-GMO soy-free locally sourced grain, rotationally grazed (means animals are moved to fresh forage weekly) No hormones, no...

05/25/2023

Making Sweet Potato Slips 😃 got a bag of an organic purple variety from the grocery store and planted in a repurposed lettuce container. Watered and set next to my window, after two weeks, BOOM, "slips" have sprouted!!

Once they are over 2" tall, I gently break the base of the sprout from the tuber, then put them in water to root. In 4-5 days the roots are long and established, ready to plant! Have to wait another week for soil temps to sustain over 60°

05/25/2023

Garlic harvest 2023, over 400 Hardneck variety bulbs, still have roughly the same amount in softneck that was planted later. Should be harvesting those in two weeks.

What now? This garlic can be used now, but it's considered "fresh", and the flavor is subtle. For the real garlic flavor, these plants need to be laid out to cure for a few weeks, the entire green will dry out and form a paper around the bulb. Then it'll store in a cool dry place for a year 😃🧄😋

05/20/2023

First ripened black raspberry of the year! The enjoyment of the first berry of the season went to our youngest, Dillon. He inspected it credulously, then popped out into his mouth. Followed by, Mmmmm!

05/08/2023

Herb-crusted Pork Loin Roast 😋

Rubbed in the green herbs (parsley, thyme, oregano, rosemary, marjoram) coriander, and salt & pepper. Pan seared (in bacon grease, but can use oil) all sides. Put into the InstaPot, with 1/2cup white wine and juice 1 whole lemon. Cooked on high 30mins, turn off, let rest 30 mins. Remove, cut and juice with au jus. Enjoy!