Hi everyone,

As we look out over our pastures here in Lowrys, South Carolina, we find ourselves playing the familiar game of waiting and watching the skies for some much-needed summer rain. But while the clouds may be holding out, our 100% grass-fed and grass-finished cattle are doing just fine, steadily working their way through a large, high-quality stockpile of summer grass.

This safety cushion is only possible because we intentionally manage our land with a conservative stocking rate. Deciding exactly how many animals our pastures can comfortably sustain is always a bit of a guessing game each season. However, keeping our herd size conservative gives us invaluable options and peace of mind when the rains don’t come as often as we’d like. It’s a core part of how we look after the soil, the animals, and ultimately, the food we provide for your family.

Speaking of providing for your family, one of the biggest questions we get from folks looking to switch to pasture-raised meats is: “How do I actually utilize a bulk assortment without letting anything go to waste?”

To show you just how easy (and delicious) it is, we wanted to pull back the curtain on a recent 20 lb Pasture Picks Box we packed up and give you the ultimate month-long dinner blueprint.

⚠️ A Quick Note on Variety: Because we follow the seasons and practice nose-to-tail animal utilization, the exact cuts included in our subscription boxes will vary from month to month based on our current inventory. The list below is a real-world example of a recent random box selection to show you just how far a 20-lb assortment can stretch!

🗺️ The Pasture Picks “Meal Map” Blueprint

A standard 20 lb box packs a diverse, nutrient-dense punch. When you break down the raw weights, this single box yields roughly 40 to 50 individual protein servings, which easily translates into 10 to 12 complete, wholesome family dinners for a household of four.

Example Box Lineup:

• 4 lbs Ground Beef (1 lb packs)
• 1 London Broil (~2 lbs)
• 1 Whole Broiler Chicken (~3.9 lbs)
• 2 packs of Chicken Leg Quarters (~3.2 lbs total)
• 2 packs of Chicken Wings (~3.2 lbs total)
• 1 Pork Shoulder Roast (~2.43 lbs)
• 1 lb Ground Pork
• 1 lb Hot Sausage
• 1 pack of Pork Chops (2 per pack, ~1.09 lbs)

Your Month of Dinners:

• Dinners 1 & 2: The Ground Beef Classics (4 lbs Ground Beef)
  • The Meals: Split this up into two distinct family nights—a backyard smash-burger night and a massive skillet of grass-fed beef tacos. You get clean, high-energy protein that cooks in minutes.
• Dinner 3: The Perfect Sunday Roast (1 Whole Broiler)
  • The Meal: Feeds a family of four with ease.
  • Recipe Idea: Rub the skin generously with butter, garlic powder, and fresh summer herbs, then roast at 425°F until golden brown and crisp. Save the carcass in your freezer to make a rich, immunity-boosting bone broth later!
• Dinners 4 & 5: Mid-Week Poultry Feasts (Leg Quarters & Wings)
  • The Meals: Two separate nights of pasture-raised chicken. Toss the wings in your favorite local BBQ sauce for a crispy grilled wing night. For the leg quarters, slow-bake them with root vegetables for a juicy, tender comfort meal.
• Dinner 6: Marinated Steak Night (1 London Broil)
  • The Meal: A premium, lean beef dinner.
  • Recipe Idea: Because our beef is 100% grass-finished, it loves a good marinade. Soak it overnight in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and rosemary, flash-sear it on a piping hot grill to medium-rare, and slice it thin against the grain.
• Dinners 7 & 8: The Slow-Cooker Shredded Pork (1 Pork Shoulder Roast)
  • The Meals: Raised naturally in our silvopasture environments, our pork has incredible flavor and marbling. Toss the shoulder roast into the slow cooker or smoker all day. This yields a massive mountain of juicy pulled pork that easily covers two separate family dinners (think pulled pork sandwiches on night one, and loaded baked potatoes on night two).
• Dinners 9, 10 & 11: Quick Skillets & Savory Sausages (Pork Chops, Ground Pork, Hot Sausage)
  • The Meals: Pan-sear the thick-cut pork chops in a cast-iron skillet with a little butter and sage for a quick 15-minute weeknight meal. Use the hot sausage to elevate a Sunday night pasta sauce, and save the ground pork for a healthy “egg roll in a bowl” stir-fry.

🎁 Launching the Pasture Picks Box Promotion!

Hey Friends,

Welcome back to another Sunday morning update from the pastures here in Lowrys, South Carolina.

Summer has definitely arrived, and around here, that means our daily rhythm revolves entirely around heat management and intensive pasture rotations. When the mercury climbs, keeping the cow herd comfortable, hydrated, and moving onto fresh ground isn’t just a chore—it’s an art form.

This past week, we turned the herd into some incredible summer pastures that have been completely rested for over three months. Walking out ahead of the cattle, the biodiversity was stunning. We counted dozens of unique plant species growing side-by-side, including a massive patch of native milkweed that was absolutely buzzing with thousands of native pollinators.

One of the highlights of this specific paddock shift was seeing a beautiful stand of volunteer johnsongrass. If you talk to a conventional cattleman, they might look at you funny for being excited about johnsongrass, but in a regenerative, long-rest system, it’s absolute gold.

When cattle are allowed to continuously graze a pasture without boundaries, johnsongrass doesn’t stand a chance. The cows love it so much that they will seek it out and eat it down to the roots until it’s completely grazed out and dies. But when you give the land a 90-plus day vacation, these high-sugar, deep-rooted volunteer grasses get the chance to capitalize on that rest, exploding into premium, energy-dense summer forage.

Hey Friends,

As we head into the middle of June, we have some bittersweet news to share with our Watson Farms family. Our wonderful team member, Melody, will be leaving her role at the end of the month. We are incredibly grateful for all her hard work, dedication, and the welcoming presence she has provided to everyone who interacts with our farm. She is going to be greatly missed, and we wish her the absolute best in her next chapter!

With her departure, we are looking to fill a position that is absolutely critical to our day-to-day operations and pivotal to keeping our Farm Store running smoothly: Farm Store and Marketing Coordinator.

Because our community means so much to us, we would love to find the right person from within our own pool of contacts—someone who already knows, understands, and loves what we do here at Watson Farms—before we list the position publicly on standard job boards. If you or someone you know has a passion for regenerative agriculture, excellent customer service, and digital marketing, please check out the full job description and apply today:

Watson Farms Job Openings

Check Out Our New Homepage Features!

In addition to team transitions, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to make your online experience with us even better. If you haven’t visited our website lately, head over to watsonfarmsbeef.com to see some of our brand-new homepage additions:

• New Reviews Section: Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see what your fellow community members are saying about their experiences with our grass-fed meats.
• Cold Shipping Section: Curious about how we safely get frozen products to your doorstep? We’ve added a clear breakdown of our reliable UPS cold shipping process.
• Comparison Section: We’ve made it easier than ever to see exactly how our 100% grass-fed beef, pastured pork, and pastured poultry stack up against standard, store-bought alternatives.
• Build a Bundle Launch Graphic: A brand-new visual guide highlighting our latest and most customizable way to fill your freezer.

Product Spotlight: Father’s Day & Custom Bundles

Rain for the Grass, a Big Birthday, and Keeping it Cool

We hope you’ve had a wonderful week!

We just caught a beautiful, much-needed soaking rain here near Lowrys! We measured about 2.5 inches of rain between Friday and Saturday. Around here, we don’t just see rain as weather—we see it as the fuel that drives our entire regenerative system. This moisture is exactly what our summer grasses need to kick into high gear, ensuring our 100% grass-fed beef cattle have the highest quality forage to graze as we make our daily paddock shifts.

Speaking of those daily cattle moves, today marks a massive milestone for our family. Our son, Noah, is turning 10 years old! If you’ve ever been out on a wagon tour or seen our updates, you know Noah is a huge part of the crew around here. He’s a tremendous help on the farm, especially when it comes to shifting the herd to fresh grass every day. Happy double-digits to our hardworking 10-year-old!

Cool to the Touch: Our Summer Shipping Standard

As the southern summer heat starts to rev up, we often get asked: “How do you safely ship frozen, pasture-raised meats to my doorstep when it’s 90 degrees outside?”

It’s a great question, and the answer lies in our Cool to the Touch shipping standard. We partner with UPS to deliver across the eastern United States, and we have engineered our packaging to withstand the summer heat through three specific layers of protection:

• 1.5-Inch Thick Eco-Insulation: We don’t use standard styrofoam. Instead, our boxes are lined with 1.5-inch thick, high-performance insulation panels made entirely from upcycled shrimp casings from the North Carolina shrimp industry. They provide world-class thermal protection and are completely biodegradable.
• Reflective Foil Barriers: During these hotter months, we add an extra layer of defense by placing your orders inside a specialized foil bag. This reflects radiant heat away from your meat, creating a vault-like environment inside the box.
• Calibrated Dry Ice: We carefully calculate the exact amount of dry ice needed based on your specific geographic zone and the predicted days your package will spend in transit.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful moms who are often the ones doing the daily work of sourcing healthy food for your families. We are truly honored to be the farm you trust to help nourish your loved ones. We hope you have a beautiful day filled with much-deserved rest and celebration.

10 Differences Between Grocery Store Pork and Watson Farms Pastured Pork! 🐖

Welcome to this week’s edition of Pasture Posts!

Tomorrow will be the weekly “moving day” for the two groups of pigs we have in the paddocks right behind the Farm Store. It’s a busy morning for our team. We head out with two tractors: one equipped with a loader to move the heavy self-feeder and the drinker, and another pulling the Grain-o-vator. If you’ve never seen one, it’s basically a tractor-powered feed truck that we use to refill the feeders with our non-GMO feed once they’re settled in the new paddock.

Here I am filling a feeder back in July 2019. 

The pigs are always excited when they see the crew; they know fresh pasture is coming! Once we do a final check on the perimeter fence to make sure everything is just right, we open the gates. They run through into the new grass. 

That paddock has had about 4 weeks rest since the last time pigs were on it, which is the “secret sauce” to our operation. That rest time allows the grass to recover and the soil life to thrive—it’s the core of how we regenerate this ground that was once starved for fertility.

The Great Pork Comparison

We believe all pigs should be raised like that. Unfortunately, that is not how 98-99% of U.S. pigs live today. While we work with a small network of trusted partner producers for the farrowing (birthing) side of things, they adhere to the exact same regenerative standards we do.

Here is the stark contrast between how we do things and the industrial “norm”: