The mighty pig. Well-known for snorting, eating, and bestowing bacon on the masses.  These animals have not only earned these reputations, they manage to do even more! Now I’m running the risk of sounding like a late-night infomercial…”And if you buy now in three easy installments of $19.99, we’ll provide you with the pocket fisherman as a free gift…”

Honestly, we like to keep pigs because they are compost-making workhorses. On a vegetable farm there are always good-veggies-gone-bad and heaps of veggie biomass such as carrot tops we cut off. For any of you who pick up at farm, you may have spied these piles we leave behind as we race off to the dropsites on Monday. Hogs are able to convert these heaps of waste into useful manure that we turn into compost and spread on the fields for added fertility. The process of transforming an overgrown zucchini into fertilizer happens quicker when that zucchini goes first through the gut of an animal. Kind of gross, but true.

In addition, pigs love to root. In the back of our barn, we have these old piles of bedding and pigs like nothing more than to turn it over and over and over. Other farmers buy these machines which turn over biomass to make compost. We just have the pigs do it.

So, you can see why having a few hogs is a mutually beneficial relationship on the farm. They get to eat all they want and root around like pigs should. We employ their efforts to make compost and to recycle the farm’s byproducts. And, oh, we also get some meat to boot at the end of the year. Thank you, pigs.

In the box:

• Yellow or Orange Watermelon
• Leeks 
• Red Onion 
• Tomatoes 
• Garlic 
• Poblano Peppers: These are hot peppers, but typically less hot than a jalapeno.
• Italia Pepper
• One Colored Pepper: We have a mix of peppers turning color out there. Some are orange, some red, some yellow…all good.
• Sweet Corn
• Lettuce or Salad Mix: Just a sampling as my lettuce bed for this round was just not cooperating.
• A Few Carrots
• Fresh Thyme
• Daikon Radish: Mar and I like this refrigerator pickle recipe, so no processing involved. Just follow the recipe and keep in the fridge until ready to use. You probably don’t have enough for the whole recipe, but you get the idea and adjust accordingly: https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/vietnamese_daikon_and_carrot_pickles/