Creekside Natural Farm, Minooka, IL – Blog

I’ve been busy ordering this morning – 300 strawberry plants, 150 asparagus plants & 17 lbs of seed potatoes!

We will have eggs throughout the winter.  If you are interested in chickens or lamb,  we are almost sold out of both.

We’ve finished most of our fall chores just in time. The garlic is planted, the dead plants have been pulled, the tomato cages have been put away for the winter, compost has been added to next years asparagus and 100 daffodil bulbs have been planted on the berm to replace the tulips that were eaten by the tunneling rodents. 

We had a very productive day yesterday.  We left @ 4 am to head down to Arthur, IL for chicken processing and came home @ 5 pm with 103 packaged chickens in the freezer, 3 gallons of real (raw) milk and a re-finished antique pie safe that was made by my great-grandfather in AR.

About half of the chickens were pre-sold, so we will have them for sale from the farm until they’re gone. You can either call (815)467-5259 or e-mail pam@creeksidenaturalfarm.com with any questions or to arrange a pick-up time.

They are available 3 ways – whole heritage breed, whole double breasted & cut-up dbl breasted and are all $4.00 per lb. The heritage breed chickens are better used for soup and make a very rich stock.  The double breasted are a more meaty chicken with lots of breast meat.  These chickens were all raised outdoors and fed organic feed (no GMO grains).  Because we only raise 100 at a time, we are able to do some extra things with our chickens.  We move their portable structure at least once per day so they are on fresh grass, we fermented their feed for better digestion and also gave them organic apple cider vinegar and chamomile tea in their water.

I’m not selling the milk, but thought the picture was interesting for those who have never seen real milk. I skimmed the cream from the jar on the left and will make creme fresh with it.  The jar on the right has not had the cream skimmed, but if you look closely you can see the line dividing the cream from the milk at about the same level as the milk in the jar on the left. I will make mozzarella cheese and yogurt with the milk.

The pie safe still needs the handles and glass for the doors, so I’ll post a picture of that when it’s finished.

We have bok choy (Chinese cabbage) in the cooler.  It has a  very mild flavor because of the cool weather. It’s great in stir fry or can be sauteed in olive oil with some garlic like other greens.

$4.00 per bag

We have a limited amount of lamb available.  They came here the 1^st of May from an organic farm in Shefield,IL that raises Katahdin sheep.  Katahdin sheep have been developed to have a mild tasting meat.  They don’t have wool or lanolin that gives lamb a stronger flavor. 

They were raised outside on our pasture on their natural diet of grass & hay. They were never given any type of grain and did not receive any antibiotics or growth hormones.

We have chops & ½ legs available for sale.

Chops are 4 oz each/2 per package – $10.00 per package

½ Leg is average 3 lbs – $12.00 per lb

If you would like to purchase lamb, you can either call 815-467-5259 or e-mail pam@creeksidenaturalfarm.com to make arrangements to pick it up.

U of I will be hosting a Field Day at Creekside Natural Farm on Oct. 19th from 9 till noon. The fee is $5.00 per person to cover refreshments.  If you would like to get a closer look at what we do here, contact James (info above).

I made what will be our last batch of Heirloom Tomato Salsa for the season.  Same ingredients as previous batch except this time I roasted the garlic instead of the peppers.

Fortunately we did not get a frost last night! Our tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, okra & cucumbers will continue to produce until we do – hopefully not for a few more weeks.

Here is a list of what we have in the stand today:

Lots of heirloom tomatoes including Cherokee Purple & Mortgage Lifter

Cherry tomatoes – Sungold, Black Cherry & Sweet 100

Purple tomatillos

Garlic

Peppers – large and small bell peppers, Jimmy Nardello, Conch D’ Toro & Ancho

Cucumbers – pickle & slicing

Butternut squash

Decorative gourds

Heirloom beets

Heirloom tomato salsa

Eggs – there were 3 dz @ 11:00

FYI for all the salsa lovers – just put a fresh batch in the stand this morning!

The lettuce I planted last week enjoyed the rain and cooler weather and has started to sprout! Depending on the weather – we should have it in the cooler in about 3 weeks.

Our fresh tomato salsa is back in the stand.  Our taste tester (Matt) said the last batch needed more onions so that is the only change I made – still mild.

We are picking pickle cucumbers and lots of heirloom zucchini. We have them in the stand and will also have them at the Minooka Farmers Market tomorrow.

 Cucumbers are 2 for $1.00

Large zucchini are $2.00 each and small are $1.00 each

Or if you want to make your own fresh salsa- we have beautiful Heirloom Tomatoes for sale that you can use with your own family salsa recipe!

We are picking lots of heirloom tomatoes & the dry/hot weather has made them  even sweeter than last year!  The heirlooms (Cherokee Purple, g Lifter, Arkansas Traveler, Black Prince, Valencia, Box Car Willie, Royal Hillbilly) are $3.00 per pint or $5.00 per quart.  The cherries (Sungold, Black Cherry, Sweet 100 & Anna Asa) are $3.00 per pint.  We also have “salad ” tomatoes that are $4.00 per quart. 

Because our tomatoes are growing so well this year, we will have “processing quantities” available for those who would like to make juice, sauce, canned tomatoes, dehydrate or freeze.  A bushel of tomatoes is 53 lbs and will be $50.00  or $30.00 per half bushel.  These are organic tomatoes that are grown on our farm and picked ripe rather than green (the sugar develops in the tomato as it ripens on the plant). If you would like to purchase a bushel or half-bushel, please call or e-mail in advance so I can have them ready for you to pick up.

We have tomatoes in the stand!  The cherry tomatoes are a mix of Sungold, Black Cherry, Anna Asa & Sweet 100.  The regular tomatoes are various heirlooms including Cherokee Purple, Royal Hillbilly, San Remo, Box car Willie, Phil’s Fantastic, Borgese, Genovese and some others whose names I can’t remember right now.

We started picking sweet corn this weekend and happily have more than we expected! It is very sweet, but the super hot weather hurt the pollination on some ears. Because of this, we are charging $5.00 per bag of either 13 or 14 ears (depending on the size).  This is non-GMO and organic calico corn.

We have green and yellow beans in the cooler.  lb in a bag for $4.00

It’s over 100 degrees and the alpacas are sunbathing! Chikillia did lay down in the pool after his “sun bath” but I wasn’t quick enough with the camera, I took some pictures for my our site click here for watch them.

Stringless sugar-snap peas and snow peas – washed, ready to eat and in the stand.  $3.00 per bag