Its Earth Day and we wanted to think about ways to be kind to our grand blue marble, Earth.

Here are 6 simple things you can do to drastically reduce your plastic waste.

With all the plastic being dumped into landfill and floating in our oceans, the time has come for all of us to behave more responsibly.

And that’s actually pretty easy.

You don’t have to be perfect, or completely change your way of living. Just follow these simple steps and you will cut down a lot of unnecessary waste.

Change your mindset

It all starts with changing the mindset.

Once you start to actively reduce your waste, you will realize just how much waste there is everywhere. And then, you’ll be able to make conscious decisions about what you buy.

You will be better prepared and will be likely to buy less “stuff” – as you’ll only buy what you need. That, in turn, can help you save money!

2. Say no to plastic bags

The average American family takes home almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year. So if you choose to stop using just one type of plastic – the plastic bag is a great place to start.

Stock up with a few reusable bags and you’ll never have to contribute to this waste again.

For example, reuseable produce bags are great to use to pack your fruit and veggies at markets. Pop your produce straight in the bags, and when you get home – wash them inside the bag, and pop them straight in the fridge.

They are also handy to use while shopping in a grocery store, or for general organization too.

3. Swap your plastic toothbrush for bamboo

It’s recommended that we change our toothbrush every 3-4 months. If these toothbrushes are plastic toothbrushes, that’s a huge amount of plastic waste that is being discarded every single year.

In fact, over 1 billion plastic toothbrushes are thrown away every year in America alone.

Imagine if 50% of the American population swapped their plastic brush for a biodegradable bamboo brush. That would prevent 500 million pieces of plastic entering our environment every year, and 5 billion every decade!

Check out these bamboo toothbrushes – they work super well, have been recommended by multiple hygienists, come in cute colors, and work out to cost under $1.49 per brush (often cheaper than plastic ones.)

Swapping your plastic for bamboo toothbrush is another small change you can make, and save money while helping the environment, too.

4. Rethink the straw

Plastic straws are a one and done event. They are too small to be recycled, so their only destiny is either landfill or floating in our ocean.

Ask yourself: Do you really need the straw? Maybe it’s an added luxury…and you could get used to drinking without one?

Alternatively, you can keep a small pack of reusable straws in your bag at all times…and whip out in times of need. They are easy to clean and kind to our wildlife. Whether you prefer stainless steel drinking straws or bamboo straws, you’ll never have to drink with a plastic straw again.

5. Buy locally

At Cherry Grove Farm, we’re all about sustainable farming and treading lightly on the land.

When you buy from local markets, you can cut down your consumption of plastic packaging and will end up throwing less away.  We have a small “Sustainable Re-useables” section in the farm store that makes cutting back on waste a bit easier. Try our re-useable tea bags and coffee filters, or reusable beeswax wraps to keep food fresh without using plastic wrap.

6. Make more at home

There’s nothing wrong with getting take-out; the problem is the packaging that the take out often comes in.

Plastic lids, cutlery, wrap, styrofoam, polystyrene… None of it biodegrades which means that even though your meal only lasted once, the packaging will last forever.

We know it can be difficult to find the time for home cooking, but cooking meals in bulk can cut down a huge amount of time. And make enough to last two or three meals and it can be just as convenient as a take out – but with all the added benefits of being home-made, chemical-free, and plastic-free.

But if you must have those pot stickers or tacos al pastor, why not have a handy reuseable bamboo cutlery pack in the car and just say no to the plastic utensils? Reduce waste in your life.

***

Earth Day is a good day to think about what we can do to reduce waste and single use disposables. Hopefully these 6 simple steps have given you a little inspiration to reduce your waste today. And remember – it doesn’t all have to be implemented at once. Just one small change can make a big difference.

We are considering expanding our “Sustainables” section in the store to include bamboo reuseables. Tell us if this would help you reduce waste in your life!

This winter we got a call form the Education Group at Stone Barns about participating in a video that would be used for their Food Ed Curriculum. If you know Stone Barns, you know they are a leader in the promotion of
sustainable agriculture, local food, and community-supported agriculture. It was a real pleasure to be a part of the story.

Paul Lawler, our head cheesemaker, and Anna Reinalda, our new dairy manager do a great job of explaining what we do and why it is important.

Please share this video…

Raw Milk Cheese Appreciation Day kicks off our grazing season every April, and it looks like mother nature is cooperating… the grass is greening!

We will be celebrating on both Saturday, April 13th and Saturday, April 20th between 11am and 3pm with:

Meet the Makers tents featuring great local chutneys, butters, jams and marmalades that complement our raw milk cheese. Visit with Naomi from Le Bon Magot, and Gino from Eat This Yum the weekend of the 13th, and Barbara from Muirhead Foods, and Naomi from Le Bon Magot, the 20th.

Free Public Farm Tours – about an hour long pasture walk into the back forty at 11:30 and 3pm. Free Hayrides – Hayrides take you back to the pond, if the ground permits. Too wet and we cannot pass. Rides will run about 20 minutes long, from noon until 4pm.

If you are on farm at 4pm you might as well hang out and watch milking and calf feeding!

On Saturday, April 13th at 2pm we will offer a free class “Building Your Best Cheeseboard”. The session will be between 30-40 minutes long and get into some pairings tips as well. This will be first come first serve with a max of 20 people. A sign up sheet will be in the farm store that morning.

Why celebrate raw milk cheese?
Well, number one, its delicious. And a healthy form of protein. But also, to raise awareness about this superior artisan product is being made right here in New Jersey.

Raw milk cheeses have a richer, more complex flavor than their pasteurized brethren because of the increased microbial diversity. Once you heat treat milk, you lose the good microbes along with the bad. Our cheesemakers will tell you that raw milk cheeses ripen faster, develop more intense flavors, and have more “nose” than pasteurized milk cheeses.

And we also like the idea of tradition. Before pasteurization, all milk—and thus, traditional cheese—was raw, so raw milk cheeses keep with the old ways.

A glorious cold weather treat, steak and kidney pie is pretty simple and easy to make ahead.

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon beef drippings or cooking oil
• 1 ¹⁄₂ lbs chuck steaks, cut into 1 inch dice
• ¹⁄₂ lb ox kidney (or lamb, trimmed and diced)
• 12 ounces puff pastry
• 2 onions, chopped
• 3 carrots, peeled and cut into rough dice (5/8 inch)
• butter
• 4 large flat baby bella or cremini mushrooms, cut into thick slices
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon tomato puree
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 pint veal or beef stock (or equivalent of water and stock cube)
• Worcestershire sauce
• salt and pepper
• 1 egg, beaten, for glazing

Directions: 

1. Heat a large frying pan with a little of the dripping or oil. Season the diced beef with salt and pepper. Fry in the pan until well colored and completely seared. Lift the meat out and transfer to a large saucepan. Add a touch more oil, if necessary, to the frying pan. Season the kidneys, frying quickly to sear and color in the hot pan. Also transfer to the saucepan.
2. Melt a knob of butter in the pan and cook the onions and carrots in the melted butter for 2 – 3 minutes. They will lift any flavors left from the meats. Put the vedge into the saucepan with the meat. Saute the mushroom slices in a little more butter which will become part of your roux), just turning in the pan for a minute or two; keep to one side.
3. Place the saucepan on medium heat, stirring in the flour, and allow it to cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the tomato puree, bay leaf and mushrooms. Pour in the stock and bring to a simmer. The meat should just be covered with the stock; if not, top with a little more stock or water. Simmer gently, partially covered, for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. During the cooking time it may need to be skimmed several times.
4. After 1 1/2 hours, check the meat for tenderness. If not quite soft enough, cook for the additional 30 minutes. If the meat is cooking gently, it will not need to be topped up with any additional stock or water. The sauce will have reduced, thickening its consistency and increasing its flavor.
5. Taste for seasoning, adding a dash or two of Worcestershire Sauce to the mixture. Transfer to a 2 pint pie dish and cool to lukewarm.
6. Preheat the oven to 425°F.
7. Roll the pastry 1/4-inch thick. Cut a strip of pastry to sit around the rim of the dish. This will help the top to stay on. Brush the rim of the pie dish with some beaten egg and apply the strip. Brush again with egg. Making sure the pastry top is bigger than the dish, sit it on top. Push down around the sides, trim and crimp for a neat finish. Brush completely with egg wash and place in the preheated oven. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until golden brown.

“This is Gary Rhodes recipe for a great steak and kidney pie, which also allows you the bonus of making the filling the day before you need.

Late March and into April is calving season on the farm; time when we have lots of babies in the nursery barn. We always get a lot of questions at this time of year, so it is worth revisiting why we farm the way we do.

You may have seen, or at least heard of, inhumane veal-raising techniques. The image people usually recall when they swear off veal, are rows and rows of small white pens housing increasingly large calves. So when you, our friends, visit our nursery barn, don’t mistake our calf pens for veal pens, because you are actually looking at young dairy heifers!

The young ladies in our nursery are milk cows in the making, and will stay in their pens for about three months while they are still drinking milk every day. Once they are big enough, they will join their older peers in the larger calf paddock.

Visitors have asked why we do not allow the calves to stay with their mothers during their early months, and there are several answers to that question.

First, with the youngest calves close by in individual pens, it is much easier to monitor their health, wellness, and growth. When calves are scampering through the fields in a large herd, they are much more prone to illness, injury, and even getting lost (the adventurous babies like to wander)! By keeping a close eye on them, we can thoroughly assess each calf every day.

Second, it is better for the emotional welfare of both cow and calf to separate them immediately after delivery. Whether right off the bat, or after weeks of direct nursing, there will ultimately come a day when the babies must leave their mothers. The separation process is much less stressful if taken care of right away, because the longer cow and calf are together, the more they will bond, and a strong emotional bond makes for a very stressful separation. We prefer for our animals to be both healthy and happy, so we limit this stress by doing a post-partum separation. The proof is in the peace and quiet of our barns at calving time… no bellowing or lowing across pastures, no stress.

Third, bottle-feeding allows us to monitor the calves’ daily milk intake. Calves can be greedy and will drink so much milk that their mothers make themselves sick trying to keep up with the baby’s demands. And in the field, other calves will try and nurse from cows other than their mothers, which can cause the problem of not enough milk going to a more reticent baby. Like all babies, calves need a certain amount of milk to thrive and grow. In the field, we cannot make sure everyone is getting enough food. In the nursery, we are able to ensure that each calf is getting enough milk to grow up healthy and strong, without putting too much stress on their mothers.

And lastly, calves can and will go feral if not in regular contact with people. By handling and socializing with the young stock on a daily basis, we are conditioning them to be comfortable and friendly around people. This will make things much easier, and safer, when we introduce them to the milking parlor in a couple of years.

So when calving starts next month, come visit our nursery and get to know our youngest family members! Find out which will give you kisses all day long, or who loves scratches under her chin. Our farmers know their calves. When you spend as much time with them as we do, you have to.