TLR Newsletter

And welcome to Winter on the ranch! Witness the incredible, dynamic views... Plant mulberry cuttings... Work by lantern and headlamp... Grow out our winter coats... Plant long-lived perennials... Harvest worm castings for spring plantings...

Modern-Day Meat Production When we think of meat production, many people picture the cattle they've seen happily grazing out in the pasture, eating just what they were born to eat.  But realistically, the majority of the meat raised in the US is not raised in the blissful pastoral setting we all imagine, and most meat is raised in a confinement operation, fed a diet that optimizes weight gain, operational efficiency, and cost.  The environmental, economic, and ethical differences between pasture-raised vs. feedlot-raised meat are profound, and will be discussed in an ongoing way in these newsletters. Flavor Profiles As a backdrop to the ethical questions mentioned above, is the flavor of the product, as flavor is a fundamental driver of how people choose to spend their food dollars.  So what, exactly, is the difference in flavor between grain-fed meat, versus the pasture-raised, grass fed meat we raise at Turning Leaf Ranch?  The video below gives a great primer on h...

The majority of fruits we commonly picture in the grocery store (apples, peaches, walnuts, plums, etc.) originated in south-western Asia, in countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, etc.  This region is a veritable "Garden of Eden", with a huge array of useful fruit and nut trees growing naturally throughout the region.  The topography is extremely diverse, including steep mountainous terrain, variable soil, and variable climate types, which produce a wide variety of genetic selection pressures, and hence tremendous natural variation within species. Kyrgyzstan: The birthplace of our common supermarket fruits Less commonly known, is that North America has its own list of valuable native food crops, including sunflowers, pumpkins, and strawberries.  But the US also hosts a native, almost forgotten fruit known as  paw paw  ( Asimina triloba ) that is currently seeing a resurgence of interest. Paw paw: America's largest native fruit Paw paws are known a...