FreshMichigan

Patricia spent a day at Herbruck’s Farm in Saranac, Michigan, where an Organic Seminar was held. She met some nice people and learned about weed and insect control among other things…

Herbruck's hosted the seminar

This Friday  February 5th come join us at Northville Square located at 133 West Main Street in Downtown Northville from   6 - 9 p.m. Turk Farms will have some of their free range Chickens, Pork, Lamb, Rabbit, and Goat products available for your purchase. We will also have Farm Fresh Eggs along with onions and winter squash.

To make sure we have what you might be looking for check us out at  www.turkfarms.com and e-mail us your order for pick-up. See you Friday!

We have all the ingredients for your great tasting country breakfast. In our meat selections, we have bulk sausage for that biscuits and gravy recipe or sausage patties, links, italian, brats, and kielbasa. Another couple of favorites are our ham slices or bacon to go along with farm fresh eggs. To check out Turk Farms other meat selections check us out at www.turkfarms.com

Our mini-market still has some various types of squashes, potatoes, onions, and apples. If you’re interested in making some of your own fresh apple juice we have some apples that fit your needs. Turk Farms accepts credit and debit cards along with cash and checks.

Turk Farms is open January to April
Wednesdays & Fridays: 10 A.M. to 7 P.M.
Saturdays: 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday: by appointment
Call Dave at 810-676-7216

On Saturday, January 9, 2010 from 10 AM - 1:00 PM we will hold our January Mini Market in the unheated garage at the south end of our house.

Our squash and onions are storing well and will be available for you to purchase. We also have a few new squash booklets with recipes and storing tips.

Eric and Patty have lots of onions available for you!

We have sold all the turkeys but one. It is 36 pounds! Anyone interested?

You will also find we have delicious farm raised rabbit and pork available.

We hope to have more of the delicious potatoes our neighbors grew using organic practices.

Our local beekeepers plan to be here with their products. If you have any of their four pound empty jars, they will recycle them.

The egg production is down, but we would be glad to recycle those egg cartons for you.

We are located at 2656 Clark Rd. Hartland MI 48353

It’s time for the Mini Market at Hartland Farms on Sat. from 10am to 1pm. We will have our Honey, Candles, Soaps, and Hand Cream. These items will also be available at the Howell winter market on Sunday between 10am & 2pm.

We make parts of our candles from the wax that we get from extracting the honey. This wax is called “cappings.” The wax melter separates the honey that is left in the cappings as it melts the wax. This time of year when the bees are resting, we take the wax and melt it again, filter it some more, and make the soaps, hand cream, and candles that we will need for the year.

How about starting the New Year out with lamb? To clear up a few misconceptions, let’s start with what is a “lamb”?  The term “lamb” is considered less than a year old. Once sheep reach the age of one year, it is then called “Mutton.” When sheep reach Mutton status the taste is often a turnoff, described by some as chewing on a wool blanket. At Turk Farms our lambs reach 8 months of age and are fed free range — they get plenty of fresh water and are free to roam our pastures for grass. We supplement with hay in the drier season.

Now how to prepare Lamb?  Well, the options are many. You may choose Roasting, Broiling, Grilling,Pan-broiling, Pan Fry, or simply Braising. What type of cuts are available? If you’re trying lamb for the first time, you might want to try Ground Lamb or our Lamb Cubes. Ground Lamb is great for burgers, meatballs, or casseroles. Lamb Cubes are fantastic in stews and kabobs. If you’re looking for cuts to feed the masses, look at Leg Of Lamb, Shoulder Roast, or Ribs. Both the Leg Of Lamb and Shoulder Roast are available as Bone-in or Boneless. The Leg is usually roasted while the Shoulder is either Roasted or Braised. If you are cooking for a special occasion dish, then we suggest Loin Chops. They are a petite cut which may be prepared by Broiling, Grilling, Pan-Broiling, or Pan-Fry.

To view our Lamb Cuts and pricing please visit us at www.turkfarms.com

My name is Pat. I have been keeping bees for over 25 years and worked with my father and his bees before that. I was also a Michigan State Department of Agriculture bee inspector for three years.

As of this year, I am running 50 colonies and hope to increase each year. My colonies are in Livingston, Oakland and Lapeer counties. My husband, Don and I, process the honey in a raw form, and make soaps, hand creams, and candles.  We are available to collect some swarms.

We sell our products out of our home. In the summer you will also find us at the Hartland Farmers Market and the Antique Tractor Shows in Oakley and Clio, Michigan.  For the winter we are at the indoor Howell Winter Market on the second and forth Sundays of the month from 10 Am to 2 PM.  This market is held in the Opera House.  The second Saturday of each winter month we are at the mini-market at Hartland Farms from 10 AM to 1 PM.

Farmer Eric and I took a well deserved break from our farm for a few days. We attended the Great Lakes Grower’s Expo at the DeVoss Convention Center in Grand Rapids, MI We saw a lot of great “stuff” at the trade show. We learned a lot of neat ideas we plan to bring to our farm and the Hartland Farmer’s Market.

Welcoming us to the trade show.

We will be open this Saturday, Dec. 12th, 9 A.M. to 4 P.M. The following week, Dec. 16th -18th, the hours are 9 A.M - 6 P.M. and Saturday, the 19th: 9 A.M. - 4 P.M. Turk Farms accepts cash, checks, Mastercard, Visa both Credit and Debit.

We are also an approved Project Snap vendor. Our farm raised meats are free range with no steroids. Available are Lamb, Pork, Goat cuts along with whole Chickens and Rabbits. Brown Eggs are available in three sizes while supply last. Squashes and Apples are still available. Potatoes, both red & white, and Onions (red & yellow) are in stock.

Just got back last night from the Great Lakes Fruit & Vegetable Expo held in Grand Rapids. The trade show was bigger than ever with the addition of all the vendors that go with the greenhouse industry. There were tractors, seeders, sprayers and all kinds of harvesting equipment. Seed suppliers, root stock available in the form of Blueberry plants or various fruit trees. Fertilizers, Organic or conventional along with rodent control supplies. If you needed to build a greenhouse or post frame building, it was there. If packaging was needed, there were market display boxes to field baskets to labels and signage for any product you could imagine.

Seminars were for three days covering how to grow better Carrots, Sweet Corn, Apples, Melons, and Blueberries. If you needed help with advertising, whether Print Ads or E-Mail, the help was there. Food Safety was a prominent topic on how to bring the farmer’s product to the consumer in the safest way possible. I found it very enlightening and will be starting today with some of the ideas I gleaned from this year’s expo.

Our free range turkey ready for dinner!

We hope your Thanksgiving was as blessed as ours was. We spent a couple of days with family, friends and good food. We try a different recipe every year for our turkey. We really liked the outcome this year and consider it the best we have ever done. Thanks to Alton Brown from Good Eats on the Food Network Channel.

Watch the 2007 video about the Hartland Farms’ turkeys at LivingstonDaily.com. It tells you more about Hartland’s free-range turkey farm on Clark Road across from the township hall.

We have a few unclaimed turkeys still available for this year. Keep in mind you can also freeze them for Christmas or later use. Our turkeys taste great fresh or frozen. The flavor comes from how we raise them. If you would like to reserve one please call us at 810-632-5737 They are all between 16 and 17 pounds and cost $2.79 a pound. We also have our delicious homegrown cuts of pork available too.

Eric Seals, Staff photographer and video journalist for the Detroit Free Press and its partner WWj-TV, Channel 62, came to our farm and interviewed us. We just found out the feature will be broadcast four times between 5-7 a.m. November 24th on WWJ-TV, Channel 62, but you can also see it here at any time:

"Turkey farm in Metro Detroit"

Eric Seals did a fine job, and we are thrilled to have the publicity. You can see more of his videos on his personal site: EricSeals.com as well as his Vimeo Site where videos from his Detroit Free Press position are highlighted.