Turkey Talk x2

The turkeys are growing great. They only have a week or two left in the pasture houses, then they will be big enough and wise enough to go out into the full free range pasture. For now they are being advanced across the pasture each day. They stay protected by the pasture houses, while still being able to eat fresh grass and bugs. The top picture is the turkey named Atticus that stole my seat in the hay cutter and wouldn’t give it back. Obviously I’m kidding. I did offer to let him cut some hay for the first time and he ended up finishing the field. He did a great job and provided me a small glimpse into a future that is approaching all too rapidly.

Summer Forage

Our summer crop of sudangrass has turned out to be amazing. You'll remember the trouble we had with our ryegrass volume due to the early spring drought. Well, the story is different here in midsummer. We have had ample rain, and the sudangrass shows it. Most of this forage will be stored as baleage and used to feed the dairy herd throughout the winter. If you've ever wondered what a field of milk looks like, this is it. We still have about half of this crop to get harvested, so I won't count my chickens too early. Tomorrow will be all hands on deck for the final push to finish up the baling and wrapping. Once that's done, I'll take inventory of our stored forage and make predictions for our winter needs. There is the opportunity for a second cutting of sudangrass if we continue to get enough rain. This past year, we barely had enough, so I'd like to avoid that stress again. It's worth doing the extra work now to go into winter knowing the cattle will eat well no matter what that season holds.

Turkey Time

Turkeys are now out on pasture. This is the earliest we have ever gotten turkeys out of the brooder, but the conditions and weather were right. At just 2.5 weeks old, these poults have been doing great on pasture. They are still protected by our mobile pasture pens, but they have lots of space, grass, and bugs to enjoy. We move these structures every day so that a new plot of forage and bugs is always available to them. Eventually, they will outgrow these shelters, at which time we will move them to an open pasture that has special fencing to protect them from predators. For now, they are as content as can be, scratching and pecking through their fresh allotment of pasture each day.

Turkey Time

It's hard to believe the turkeys are already here. They arrived in the mail as usual. With a few hundred turkeys chirping in the back of our little country post office, we don't have to worry about them forgetting to call us when they arrive. As soon as the post office calls, we hop in the truck and go pick up the little baby poults. They travel surprisingly well due to one distinct physiological trait. Right before they hatch, the baby birds will absorb the remaining yolk into their abdomens. The yolk is their nutrient source while inside the egg, but any remaining yolk is absorbed and serves as their nutrient source for the first couple of days of their life. They arrive here less than 48 hours old, all cozy and comfortable. We hand-place each one into the brooder, showing them water and feed immediately. They live in the brooder for a couple of weeks, then get introduced to pasture. Y'all know from years past that I love having these turkeys on the farm. They are curious, interesting, and bring tons of personality. Getting to take care of them is a privilege I take seriously, and one of my favorite times of the year.

Ole Glory

There is a guy in town who deals in metal. He has scrap metal that we often need on the farm, but he also usually has lots of surplus metal stuff. You never know what he'll have, but it is always interesting to peruse his lot to see if there is something we "need". Back in 2022, he had some surplus streetlamp poles. They were really nice, heavy, and about 30 feet long, even still wrapped in the factory shipping foam. I felt like we needed a flagpole at our farm on Live Oak, so I bought one. Unfortunately, like many of my projects, I had a good idea that just couldn't make it to the top of the priority list. I tried to give myself a couple of self-imposed deadlines, but that never worked. I was born in the bicentennial year of 1976. Hence, I have a fondness for the big round number birthdays of this great nation. The 250th birthday of the USA seemed like a natural deadline for the flagpole that had been languishing in my shop for a few years. So a few weeks ago, we pulled the streetlamp pole out to the very front of the shop and started its conversion into a flagpole. A little welding here and there, some hardware, and a nice gold ball on top completed its transition. Standing this sucker up with only the assistance of a farm tractor was a challenge, but like America herself, we persevered and overcame. Even though I had a new flag sitting in a box, the pole stood empty for 2 days as I waited for my light to arrive on an Amazon truck. As soon as I got the notification that the light was out for delivery, Atticus and I hoisted Ole Glory to the top of this pole. As far as I'm concerned, she'll fly here as long as my name is on the deed.

Summer Forages

You may remember that our ryegrass production suffered this year due to the very dry spring. We need to supplement more than usual with warm-season annuals to ensure we have enough stored forage to carry our dairy and beef cattle through the winter. Warm-season forage production is underway. We planted this sudangrass earlier this month. Summer forage is different because the soil is so warm. This seed will sprout, emerge, and be a few inches tall in just a few days. Then our first harvest will be approximately 45 days from planting. That's a big difference from our ryegrass, which is planted in October and harvested in April. They both have their place, and it takes both some years. The bottom line is that the cattle need to eat 365 days a year. We want to make sure they have the best quality forage each and every day, whether it grows in winter or summer.

Garlic Harvest 2026

A couple of weeks ago, we started harvesting our Garlic crop. In October, we planted over 2,000 row-feet of garlic. I really enjoy growing garlic, even though it is a long, slow process. This crop has been in the ground for over half the year. A few weeks after harvesting the scapes, the bulbs are ready to be dug. They are literally hand-dug. We take a tool similar to a shovel, but it has teeth like a fork. By inserting a few inches into the ground near the garlic and lifting the dirt, the soil usually cracks around the garlic bulb, making it easy to lift out of the ground. After it's harvested from the ground, it's still not ready for market. We cure the garlic by laying it out in the shade of the barn. If there isn't a breeze, we keep a fan to provide a gentle breeze. It takes about 2 weeks for the green tops to completely dry out and for the garlic wrapper to become "paper-like". At that point, we trim the greens and roots and cure for a few more days, and finally, after 7 months, it's ready to sell. We had 2 varieties this year. The first one has already been harvested and has just finished curing; it is now online for purchase. The second variety is ready to be dug. We will be starting that process early this week. Y'all enjoy some fresh garlic.

A Right of Passage

I needed to get a few acres of hay baled on Saturday. Before I baled, the hay needed to be raked into windrows. Atticus was happy to take on this job and get a little tractor seat time. He is always willing to jump right in, no matter what job we are in the middle of. Like most young boys, though, driving is his favorite job. He has driven tractors around the farm, but mainly under my supervision. Saturday was the first time I was able to turn him loose in a field on his own. Later, I was in the field starting to bale while he was raking. It was a proud moment for me. My heart was full as I looked across the field from my tractor to his. I saw a 13-year-old boy learning responsibility and work ethic, character traits that transcend farming and will prove beneficial wherever life takes him. I also saw the next generation working alongside me, learning to participate in and have an appreciation for this lifestyle we are so blessed to have the opportunity to live. It was a good day.

20 Years On

On March 3, 2006, we sold our first gallon of Raw Milk For Pets. The economics of our commercial dairy business were beyond unsustainable. I don't think it's a stretch to say that if this hadn't worked, we wouldn't be farming on this land today, which has been in our family for over 100 years. Thankfully, it did work. We have spent the last 20 years producing dairy, beef, poultry, pork, lamb, veggies, and now strawberries for so many like-minded people who have become much more than "customers". I'll be happy if I have the opportunity to continue this for the next 20 years. And that wasn't even the best thing that happened to me in 2006. 👇🏽 On May 20, 2006, Julie and I were married right there on the farm. We exchanged vows in front of the house where my grandfather was born. Guests sat on hay bales instead of church pews, and we toasted raw milk at the reception. As Bobby More and the Rhythm Aces played "It's a Wonderful World", we danced. This weekend, we celebrated 20 years of marriage with a quick trip to New Orleans. We had breakfast at the Camellia Grill and a special dinner at Antoine's. We got to see the Tall Boats at the Sail 250 celebration and hear some good live jazz. Generally, we just enjoyed each other's company. After 20 years of farming and 20 years of marriage, I seriously wouldn't want it any other way. The song selection for our dance 20 years ago was perfect. It is a Wonderful World. Here's to 20 more, and 20 more after that.

Freedom to Farm

A few years ago, Atticus and I went to D.C. for his 10-year-old adventure. During that trip, we were able to visit Arlington National Cemetery. In that place, the presence of their sacrifice is overwhelming. It's a feeling that I hope we never forget. We are working on the farm today because we have the freedom to do that and because some tasks are just mandatory. After the mandatory tasks are complete, we will spend some time with family and give reverent thanks to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. We are using our freedom to chase our farming dreams. Whatever you are using your freedom for, pause for a moment and give a nod of appreciation to the legions of folks who decided your freedom was valuable enough to die for.

Milk and Eggs Abound

Suppose a potential new farmer asked me what the most challenging aspect of operating a direct-to-market farm is. Drawing on 20 years of experience, I would have to say the most difficult part is matching supply to demand. If a farm is "micro," everybody understands if they are "out" of product. If a farm is giant, it sells a commodity into an industrial system that just buys whatever quantity it has. We at Carlton Farms are not micro, but we are by no means industrial. What we do is try to be the farmer that our community relies on, especially for certain products. We take that responsibility seriously and never want to disappoint anyone. When we are short on one of our key products, I lose a lot of sleep trying to figure out how to remedy whatever issue is occurring. The opposite side of that coin is the situation we find ourselves in right now. Milk is flowing great, and the laying hens are producing lots of eggs. Right now would be a good time to throw a few gallons of milk in the freezer. They are nice to have in a pinch, or when production decreases in the summer heat. Eggs are on sale now, so stock up on those as well and make them a more prominent part of your diet. The buy-3-get-1-free deal is active now. If you don't need 4 dozen, take this opportunity to share a dozen with someone who may not know about Carlton Farms. Thanks for your help managing these supply fluctuations as they happen. As farmers and consumers with an established relationship, we can work together to get through both shortage and abundance. The most challenging part of what we do may be matching supply to demand, but the absolute best part is knowing the names and faces of the people who consume what we produce. Thank you for understanding when things are in short supply, and it is our great pleasure to share the bounty when it abounds. Enjoy the abundance this week.

Pollen Flow

As I have mentioned before, we have been on a steep learning curve with Strawberries since the Fall. We are still making observations and course correcting in real time. It's both fun and challenging. One thing I hadn't considered before mid-season was whether we had enough natural pollinators. Around mid-season, I noticed some of the berries were only partially pollinated. The telltale sign is misshapen berries, specifically those with pinched tips, called "cat-faced" berries. When I discovered this phenomenon and put the pieces together, I hypothesized that we, in fact, do not have enough natural pollinators. We can't change the past, but we can affect the future. I reached out to a beekeeper friend of mine. He had some young hives he split this spring and was willing to sell. We met that Saturday morning and loaded up 4 hives of bees. It was early and cool, so the bees seemed to travel well. Later that day, they were active around the hive, and by the following day, I snapped these pictures of them hauling in pollen. I plan to put on my bee veil and take a peek inside the hives today to see how they are doing, but from the outside, they look happy. It takes around 20-30 days for a strawberry bloom to become a ripe fruit, so in a couple of weeks, I should be able to test the pollenator hypotheses. Notice: The pollen on the rear legs of the bees as they enter the hive. I have no way to tell whether this is strawberry pollen, but surely some of it is. In fact, you can see the different colors of pollen on each bee, indicating that they are feeding on a diverse mixture of flora.

Ryegrass Wrap-Up

Sunday evening, I cut the last of our 2026 ryegrass crop. We will bale and wrap this in the coming days for use as feed for our cattle throughout the year. Our early crop was light due to a lack of rain, but the quality was very good. The last portion you see in the picture, cut and in the rows, was heavy, but the quality will not be as good. When we did finally get some rain, it delayed the cutting of this section. As the grass gets older, it enters the reproductive stage by shooting up a seed head. This older grass has more lignin, which gives the plant structure and rigidity. This is great for the plant's ability to stand and hold up this seed head. However, it turns out lignin is not very digestible for cattle. Younger, more tender grass makes better quality hay with more digestible protein. So, how do we handle this? To make good management choices for our cattle, we need to keep up with which hay is of what quality. We know that the most nutritionally demanding thing we ask any mammal to do is to lactate. Therefore, we earmark the best forage for the dairy cows. Once there is enough high-quality forage designated for the dairy cows, we allocate the next-best forage to our beef cattle for post-calving. They, too, will be lactating, just not as intensely as the dairy herd. All additional forage will be fed over winter to young stock, dry cows, and pre-partum beef cattle. That is why it's important that I take notes and label the forage as it is stored tomorrow. The old lie that we sometimes tell ourselves, "I'll surely remember that," just doesn't cut it.

A Close Call

Saturday morning I was working the Strawberry U-Pick. Jonathan, our young and eager farm manager, came in to work the morning to help me out. We all thought we would be home by lunch because of the rain we were assured was imminent. (the rain never came) While I prepared the strawberry patch, Jonathan checked on all the livestock. At a farm a few miles away, he found that a large limb had blown out of a tree and some of the cattle were grazing on the newly available leaves. Having a degree in agriculture, Jonathan knew that if this was a wild cherry tree, it could be fatal to the cattle. He snapped a couple of pictures and sent them to me as he ran the cows away from the tree. We agreed that this was, in fact, a wild cherry tree and that he needed to move the cattle to an adjacent pasture. Thankfully, the tree branch had just fallen, and we were able to get the cows out of that area. I am certain that several of those cows are still alive because Jonathan 1) Was willing to come in and work on a day he was scheduled to be off. Work ethic matters. The best ability of all is availability. 2) Had the knowledge to know that specific tree leaves can be toxic to cattle. 3) Took action immediately. Always have a bias toward action. It's hard to be everwhere I need to be on the farm. I am so proud that we have built a team of folks that care about what we are doing as deeply as I do. It is an honor and a privilage to work with our entire team every day. When they do things like this, I am extra proud. Thanks Jonathan. Why is wild cherry tree toxic, and why are our cows ok. Wild Cherry trees store "ingredients" (prunasin and amygdalin) in their leaves that, under certain conditions, can combine to form cyanide. The most dangerous condition is when the leaves are wilted. Wilted leaves have the highest level of concentrated cyanide due to enzymatic action as cell walls break down. In our case, the limb had just blown down in the previous 12 hours during a cool night. Since Jonathan was there early, he was able to take action before wilting occurred. Soon I will be channeling my inner George Washington...I will be chopping down the cherry tree.

The Overlapping of Strawberry Season and Hay Season

I knew when we planted Strawberries that they would be harvested during what is one of our busiest times of the year, hay season. So far, we have managed everything, but I was right. It's a lot. The U-Pick strawberry events that we have hosted have been great. It has been such a joy to welcome folks out to the farm. We have met many new friends who share our passion for farm-fresh food, and we have reconnected with familiar faces from the past. The strawberries have been delicious, and everyone who leaves with a bucketful seems delighted. Many have even returned for multiple visits. Even though we are still learning more every day about this new endeavor, in my estimation, strawberry season is going great. Hay season, on the other hand... Normally, cool-season annuals like ryegrass provide a guaranteed crop. That, and the fact that ryegrass is a fantastic forage for dairy and beef cows, makes it a reliable staple of our system. What makes this grass so reliable is the predictability of rainfall in the winter and spring. We just can't usually bank on summer grasses to get adequate rainfall. This year, however, the spring rain just hasn't arrived. We finished approximately half of the hay crop so far, and as I predicted, we are tracking for about half the volume of our normal crop. Thankfully, the quality is still great; there just isn't as much of it. In the top photo above, you can see how good the grass looks in a lower spot of the field where more moisture is retained. In the other photo, you can see that most of the grass is about half its height. We will be forced to rely heavily on summer forage this year and pray that it gets the necessary rain.

Springtime = Haytime

The hayfields are beautiful and green. We plan to begin cutting this week. The only problem is a lack of water. The hayfield in this picture has only had one rain since it was fertilized this spring. I expect that we will cut about half of the expected volume. As you can see, the quality is great, but we will need to plant more summer annuals to supplement this ryegrass crop. What has otherwise been a beautiful spring now badly needs some rain. Same Problem, different crop. We are having to irrigate the strawberries to a level that I hadn't expected. Fruiting strawberries need around 1 inch of rain per week. I had planned to supplement rainfall with irrigation to achieve that 1 inch per week. However, if there is no rainfall, it takes 16,000 irrigated gallons to apply 1 inch of water to the root zone of these plants. We are having to do that basically every week. I don't intend to complain. I decided a long time ago that this email/blog would be a place where I could be honest and transparent with customers. When things are good and beautiful, I tell you that. When things are challenging and stressful, I share that as well. Thank you so much for supporting what we do and caring enough to be engaged in how your food is produced. Even when it's hard, I'm still proud to be your farmer.

Springtime on the Farm Now Includes Strawberries

The farm loves springtime. Our cows are milking well, the hens are laying lots of gorgeous eggs, the spring grass is green in the pasture and the hay field, and for the first time in our history, we can say that the strawberries are bountiful. We are now a U-Pick farm. This past Thursday and Friday, we opened the strawberry patch to the public. It was so fun to watch family members from multiple generations spend time together outdoors. Children came out with strawberry-themed outfits and smiles from ear to ear, both eventually becoming stained with the juice of a fresh strawberry. We hope our visitors made great memories, because we made fond memories ourselves. Sharing our farm in this way is the culmination of a dream that started a couple of years ago. Good things sometimes happen slowly, and here we are 2 years later, inviting you to come enjoy a fresh strawberry picked straight off the plant. Our dream is bigger than this one acre of strawberries, so keep supporting it, and we will continue to grow it. As for this week, some pre-picked berries are listed online, and the U-Pick will be open Tuesday from 9-1. For additional open dates and times pleae check our social media, as this is a fluid schedule to make sure there are plenty of berries when we decide to open.

Strawberry Season is Upon Us

This has been an exciting endeavor so far. We still have a lot to learn, but I have thrown myself into studying how to grow strawberries this past fall and winter. Our harvest started last week with a ramp that was epic. Monday: 6 lb, Wednesday: 19lb, Friday 70 lb. This week, we will be in full swing of harvest mode and making plans to host our first U-Pick event. The U-Pick will likely be late this week, so if you are interested in that please watch our social media for details. Meanwhile, we will have plenty of fresh-picked berries available online for delivery this week. A housekeeping note. We did not fumigate our beds, and we do not spray synthetic chemicals on these strawberry plants. We do use some organic biological products that are natural fungicides. Any products applied to our strawberries are OMRI-listed, which means they are approved for certified organic growing.

It Won't Be Long Now - part 2

Saturday, I picked and ate a handful. That evening, there were a few more ripe. We are both excited and nervous about this new venture. The checklist of things I need to do before we open for you-pick seems never-ending, but we are working diligently to be ready. I'm guessing we are about 2 weeks out from opening, but this is new to me. The few ripe berries we have picked are the Chandler variety. We only had 2,000 of them, compared to the 13,000 Ruby June variety that we planted. The Chandlers are ripening earlier, so I'll take note of that and use that information when we prepare for next year. The Ruby June should be a great variety for our area, but they seem to set fruit just a tad later. I look forward to eating both, and I look forward to welcoming you to share in this bounty.

It Won't Be Long Now

My whole family spent the weekend in the strawberry patch working hard. We pruned, weeded, and generally prepped to open our farm for strawberry picking in a few weeks. Sunday afternoon, we put the blankets back on in preparation for the incoming cold weather. During the middle of the work, Julie and I were blessed to find what I'm fairly certain was the only ripe strawberry in the entire field. We were able to enjoy this berry together, just us, in the middle of the field. There are literal moments in life that you pray to never forget. It may sound a little silly, but this was one of those moments for me. We both got so excited upon discovering that red berry. Of course, we preserved the moment with a fun selfie, and then shared the literal fruit of our labor. It was so delicious. We have stepped out on faith to make this a part of our farming operation, and we both hope to grow it into something special. This moment encapsulated the joy that we want to share with others this spring. Y'all, there are literally thousands of young berries forming out there, and as you can see, the bees are working hard. We are really gonna need your help picking in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned for updates about opening dates and times.