Sunray summer squash.
Sunray summer squash.
1) In Your Box this Week
2) Farm News:
- Do you have Saturday Open?
- Field Report
- Support Austin Community Gardens: Act Today!
- No Trees/ No Votes — Stop the Barton Springs Tree Massacre
- Outstanding in the Field at JBG
- Log into your JBG CSA Membership Online
- Building Local Food Systems
- Environment, Health and Food Safety
- Going Native in the Garden
- Spring Speaker Series
- Austin Organic Gardeners
- Travis County Master Gardeners Association
4) Quotable Food
5) Recipes
- My mother’s Spicy Greens with Bulgur (Tchicha bel Khoubiz)
- Raspberry Salsa Layered Dip
- Kohlrabi Mint Slaw
- Pissaladière
- Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
6) Vegetable Storage Tips
7) Johnson’s Backyard Garden Contact Information
Please send newsletter feedback, suggestions and contributions to farm@jbgorganic.com
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Savoy cabbage.
1) In Your Box this Week:
Radish
Lettuce
Arugula
Chard
Parsley
Kale
Kohlrabi
Green Garlic
Broccoli
Peas
Collards
Carrots
Beets
Summer Squash or Cabbage
This list is subject to change depending on availability and quality of crops on harvest day. You’ll find the most accurate packing list on the homepage of our website.
2) Farm News:
- Do you have Saturday Open?
- Field Report
This year we are producing several varieties of melon. Sugar Baby watermelon, is an extremely sweet, small 4 to 5 pound melon. It’s size will fit into the CSA boxes perfectly. Cantaloupes include the other types of melons such as musk, honeydew and galia. This season you will receive Orange Sherbert, Hale’s Best Jumbo, Super 45, and Ambrosia muskmelons, Rocio honeydew, and Visa galias.
Galia melons were developed in Isreal and are a recent introduction to the States. Galias, if you are not yet familiar with them, basically look like cantaloupes but the rind is much more golden and the flesh is an appealing pale yellow to green, having a texture more like that of a honeydew. How do you tell a ripe galia? Well, not with softness at the stem end like many melons, but instead you should use the colour and fragrance. Ripe galias will be more yellow than green, and will give off a good melon fragrance from the stem end.
We spent a day figuring out the best practices for harvesting garlic and the rest of the week pulling up the garlic beds. We have just about 2/3 an acre planted in garlic this year. We settled on a process of trimming the roots off while in the field, but not the green shoots and leaves. Greens left in tact during the drying process help to concentrate the sugars in the garlic bulbs. If you have your own garlic growing at home, do not wash the dirt off the plants at this stage. You don’t want to add moisture at the start of the drying process. Green shoots and leaves will be trimmed when the garlic has cured for about three weeks in the barn. At this time any remaining dirt can easily be brushed off by hand.
All our available harvest bins are currently filled to the brim with drying garlic. This means we had to scramble around on Saturday to locate enough bins for harvesting other veggies but the pay off is well worth it. Walking anywhere near the barn this week fills your head with the scent of garlic, it’s not overpowering but it does smell like we’ve been doing a lot of Italian cooking. Aioli, all I can think about is Aioli.
We are also preparing for a large potato harvest. Potatoes have an odd harvest routine. While the vines will eventually die back naturally, they are sometimes drastically cut back 2 to 3 weeks before harvest to increase skin set, control late blight, facilitate mechanical harvest and stop tuber growth. Will cut the vines down last week, so we will be digging spuds with in the next few weeks.
- Support Austin Community Gardens: Act Today!
To read the Austin Parks and Recreation Department Long Range Plan for Land, Facilities, and Programs, visit: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/parks/longrangeplan.htm.
Muskmelon seeded to trays.
- No Trees/ No Votes — Stop the Barton Springs Tree Massacre
This email was forwarded to us from Evelise Sandidge, who hosts the South Central drop off site:
The language the City is using to justify this most recent attack on the springs is that they have to protect public safety. They have set up a fear equation — trees or people. A false dichotomy. There are ways to protect people from the possibility of falling limbs — cables, tree maintenance, fence off high risk trees.
A third of the trees slated for massacre are in the footprint for Master Plan construction projects. 28 trees all at once? That’s a catastrophe. Unthinkable.
The City Council will hear a briefing tonite — the city will show the slide show we saw Monday night — showing the trees that will be killed — one after another, I’ve seldom seen anything so mind numbingly horrible. Based on this bizarre rating system. No public comment. How typical is this?
The final decision will come after (what a coincidence) Council elections.
So — use this link to tell council — no trees/no votes. Starting today — tell Council Members every way you can that you will not vote for anyone who will not pledge to save the trees.
This is the address for all the council members:- Outstanding in the Field
Keep your fall calendar open for this event! Outstanding in the Field will be hosting an elegant meal at JBG’’s on September 29 at 3pm in the pecan orchard. There are less than 50 seats left and will likely sell out. Local chef Jesse Griffiths will be preparing a farm-style five course meal. Get registered for this event before it’s too late!
- Log into your JBG CSA Membership Online
Zucchini is on the way.
3) Events:
- Building Local Food Systems
April 30, 7pm, MonkeyWrench Books (110 E. North Loop)
Meet individuals and organizations in Austin that are contributing to food access, efficacy and awareness that helps make a local, sustainable food system possible.
* Andrew Smiley, Sustainable Food Center
* Youth participants, Urban Roots
* Erin Flynn and Skip Connett, Green Gate Farms
* Moderator: Marla Camp, Edible Austin
- Environment, Health and Food Safety
May 7, 7pm, Center for Community Engagement (1009 E. 11th Street)
Explore the impacts of the conventional food system on the environment, health, and food safety.
* Curt Ellis, filmmaker, “King Corn”
* Charlotte Herzele, University of Texas at Austin
* More speakers TBA
Sponsors: American Friends Service Committee, Fair Food Austin, MonkeyWrench Books, Oxfam-UT, PODER, Sustainable Food Center, Texas Fair Trade Coalition, Center for Community Engagement (UT-Austin), Urban Roots, Workers Defense Project
For more information, visit
http://fairfoodaustin.blogspot.com
http://monkeywrenchbooks.org
- Going Native in the Garden
April 30, 7-9pm. Free seminar by Travis County Master Gardeners. More info at www.tcmastergardeners.org/what/edseminars.html
- Spring Speaker Series
Varying times on select days through May 30. Check Web site for schedule. 10 a.m. today: Mixing It Up With Dave: Container Patio Gardening at its Best!’With Dave Mix, Pacific Home and Garden. Free. The Great Outdoors Garden Center Nursery, 2730 S. Congress Avenue. www.gonursery.com
- Austin Organic Gardeners
The Austin Organic Gardeners meet the second Monday of every month at Zilker Botanical Garden. www.austinorganicgardeners.org
Meetings start at 7 p.m.
- Travis County Master Gardeners Association
The Travis County Master Gardeners Association holds it’s monthly meetings on the first Wednesday of each month. www.tcmastergardeners.org Meetings starts at 7 p.m.
Sweet potatoes have sprouted. We will divide the starts to produce 'slips' and then replant them to produce the final crop.
4) Quotable Food:
Organic farming has been shown to provide major benefits for wildlife and the wider environment. The best that can be said about genetically engineered crops is that they will now be monitored to see how much damage they cause. ~Prince Charles
5) Recipes:
Several of you sent in recipes from our recent potluck…….Thanks to you all.
Cynthia Riddle sent this recipe. My husband, son and I had a fantastic time at the picnic on Sunday! The music was great, the weather was beautiful and the people were so much fun. Thanks for inviting us to come check out where our yummy vegetables are from.
- My mother’s Spicy Greens with Bulgur (Tchicha bel Khoubiz) Recipe: Serves 4
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tsp cumin, freshly ground
1 tsp red chili pepper flakes
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 tbsp fine bulgur
1 spinach bunch
1 arugula bunch
1 tbsp cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
1 tbsp parsley leaves, roughly chopped
Salt, Black Pepper
Wash the spinach and arugula.Drain off the excess water and put them in the basket section of a steamer. Cover and steam over simmering water until the greens just start to wilt, but still have their vibrant green color, about 5 – 7 minutes.When cold to handle, squeeze the water out of the greens and chop roughly. Set aside.
In a pan, heat the olive oil.Add the onions and cook on a medium heat until translucent but not brown, about 5 minutes.Meanwhile, pound the garlic with turmeric, cumin, and pepper flakes to a paste using a mortar and pestle.Add the garlic paste to the onions and stir to incorporate. Add The tomato paste and the stock and bring to a boil. Add the bulgur and stir again. Lower the heat to a gentle simmer and cook covered until the bulgur is tender, about 15 minutes, depending on the variety of your bulgur. Uncover the pan and add the steamed greens and the herbs to the sauce. Stir and cook for another 2 minutes and then remove from the heat. Season with salt and pepper and serve.
The dish keeps well in the fridge for up to 2 days, although I never recall keeping it longer than one day.
Norma Kelvin sent this message and recipe: Oh I’m so happy you guys will be offering/collecting the recipes! I loved a lot of the dishes and was saying that sharing would be a great idea! Here’s the one I brought.
- Raspberry Salsa Layered Dip
1 16oz can black beans, drained
8oz cream cheese thinly sliced
1 medium purple onion chopped
1 16oz jar raspberry salsa (or Newman’s Peach salsa, or your favorite salsa)
8oz. jalapeno monterrey jack cheese, grated
Layer in order – beans, cream cheese, onion, salsa, grated cheese
Bake at 350 for 30 mins.
This also came in from the potluck:
- Kohlrabi Mint Slaw
Shred &/or sliver the following in a large bowl
1/2 head green or red cabbage
1 lg kohlrabi
4 or 5 radishes
1 apple – I used a Gala
Leave the slivers of apple on top and sprinkle with fresh lime juice – 1 TBL or more – then toss and mix with the rest of the vegetable.
Mince a bundle of mint – a great big handful (about a cup or more!) and toss with the rest.
Eureka cucumbers ready to be moved to the field.
Marian Schwartz sent this in response to my request for that ‘caramelized onion bread’:
Well, that would be me. It was actually a vegetarian pissaladiere from Martha Rose Shulman’s fabulous book, Mediterranean Harvest, a compendium I’ve shared with this group before. I’ve attached the two recipes of hers I used–a whole wheat pizza dough and the pissaladiere recipe itself–but my execution was slightly different:
–double the dough recipe to make the dish go further, but the thickness and fast, high-heat baking also made it nice and soft
–a rectangular baking sheet, again to make lots of small squares
–double the pissaladiere ingredients, so 4 pounds of onions for that one pan
I’ve been making pissaladiere for years, but this is the first recipe I’ve seen that calls for pureeing the capers, which I think is a great improvement. I’ve also never made it without the traditional anchovies before, but I didn’t think they were missed particularly. I had fresh thyme growing in a pot outside, so that may also have contributed to the great flavor.
Reid and I had a great time on Sunday. Pretty darned idyllic.
- Pissaladière
3 T olive oil
2 lb sweet yellow onions, finely chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper
3 garlic cloves, minced
½ bay leaf
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves (or 1 tsp dried)
1 T capers, drained, rinsed, and puréed
One 12- to 14-inch pizza crust, ready for the oven
20-24 whole Niçoise olives
Set a baking stone on the center rack and heat the oven to 475°F.Heat 2 T olive oil in large, heavy, nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Add onions and cook, stirring, until they begin to sizzle and soften about 3 minutes. Add a generous pinch of salt, some pepper, and the garlic, bay leaf, and thyme. Stir everything together, reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook slowly for 45 minutes, stirring often. The onions should melt down to a purée. If they begin to stick, add a few tablespoons of water. Stir in capers, taste, and adjust seasonings. If there is liquid in the pan, cook over medium heat, uncovered, until it evaporates. Discard the bay leaf. Brush 1 T oil over the pizza dough. Spread the onions over the dough in an even layer. Dot with the olives.
Place the pizza pan on the stone. Bake 15-20 minutes, until edges of the crust are brown and the onions are beginning to brown. Pull out the lower rack of the oven and carefully slide the pizza from the pan onto the lower rack. Return to the oven for 1 minute to get a nice crisp brown bottom on the crust. Slide the pizza back onto the pan, or onto a paddle, and serve hot or at room temperature.
- Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
2 tsp dry active yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 c warm water
1 T extra virgin olive oil, plus additional for brushing the pizza crusts
¾ c whole wheat flour
2-2¼ c unbleached all-purpose flour
1¼ tsp salt
Mix together yeast, sugar, water, and olive oil in small bowl. Let sit 2-3 minutes, until water is cloudy. Place whole wheat flour and 2 c unbleached white flour in a food processor. Pulse once or twice, then with machine running, pour in yeast mixture. Process until dough forms a ball. Remove and knead on lightly floured surface for a couple of minutes, adding flour as necessary for a smooth dough.
Transfer dough to a clean, lightly oiled bowl, rounded side down, then turn so the rounded side is up. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let rise in warm spot for 1 hour. When ready, the dough will stretch as it is gently pulled.
Lightly oil two pizza pans and dust with semolina. Roll or press out the dough one ball at a time, to a circle 12-14 inches in diameter; alternatively, use a rolling pin. Place dough on pizza pin and form a slightly thicker raised rim around the edge. Brush everything but the rim with a little olive oil.
Tomatoes growing in the greenhouse.
6) Produce Storage Tips:
We aim to grow and package our vegetables to maintain the highest taste and nutritional quality possible. However, once they’ve left the farm it’s up to you to keep them fresh and nutritious. There’s no refrigeration at the CSA drop points so it’s best to pick up your box as early as possible. Here are some additional tips on how to store this week’s share:
Spinach, Kale, Chard, Lettuce, Salad Greens, Pak Choi, Braising Mix and Cooking Greens will stay fresh in the crisper for 4-7 days and should be kept in plastic bags. Any bunch greens can be freshened by cutting an inch of the bottom stalks and soaking the entire bunch in cold water for 10 minutes. Place in a plastic bag in the fridge for a few hours to revive. Also, when you receive lettuces and other delicate greens like arugula, you will notice that we bag them wet. This helps keep them fresh until members can pickup and refrigerate them. The lettuce heads, lettuce mixes, and arugula should not be refrigerated wet, though. Once you bring these vegetables home, you should wash and dry them before bagging and refrigerating. If you follow these steps, you lettuce should stay fresh.
Carrots, Radishes, Turnips, Beets, and Parsnips should be stored in plastic bags. They’ll last two weeks in the fridge. Take tops off carrots before storing, leave greens on radishes, turnips and beets, with both roots and tops in the bag.
Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Scallions, and Summer Squash will last 4-7 days in plastic bags in the crisper.
It is best to store the Onions at 40 to 45 degrees F. Don’t whole store onions in the refrigerator because the moisture is bad for them. Don’t store potatoes near onions. The onions will absorb moisture from the potatoes.
To store Kohlrabi for several weeks, remove the leaf stems and place, unwashed, in sealed plastic bags in the refrigerator.
Checkout our storage tips on our website for a more complete guide, and of course, feel free to contact us with any questions. The National Center for Home Food Preservation is your guide for how to can, freeze, dry, pickle or ferment just about anything.
Patty pan squash and blossom.
7) Johnson’s Backyard Garden Contact Info:
Johnson’s Backyard Garden
9515 Hergotz Lane, Box E
Austin, TX 78742
Office Phone: 512.386.5273
Office Hours: M-F 8am to 12:30pm
Irene – This traditional egg-shaped, purple black eggplant sets heavily, producing medium-sized firm fruit. Irene is one of the very few eggplant varieties with intermediate resistance to Verticillium races Va & Vd.
Louisiana Long Green – Attractive 7? banana-shaped fruits average 6 oz. each. At edible harvest the fruits are light green with creamy-green stripes at the blossom end. Spineless plants average 3-1/2? tall, withstand light frost. 100 days.
Bianca – Prized by chefs and gardeners alike for its creamy, mild flesh and lovely appearance, this Italian heirloom eggplant has become very popular. Well-filled, round to tear-drop-shaped fruit is white with soft lavender streaks outside, and inside flesh white and sweet with no trace of bitterness. Delicious for slicing, stuffing, or any eggplant use. 75 days.
Snowy – Non-bitter fruit enjoyed in a long, uniform 8-10? sharp-white fruit. Earlier to bear fruit than others and will enhance any collection of eggplant when displayed with others of varying colors. 65-80 days.
Anaheim – Also know as the ‘New Mexican Chile,’ this moderately pungent fruit is deep green, but turns red at full maturity. Very smooth peppers are 7-1/2 inches long and 2 inches wide and borne on tall, productive plants that offer good foliage cover for the fruit. Tobacco mosaic virus resistant. Excellent for canning, freezing or drying. 75 days
Corno di Torro – Italian ‘bull’s horn’ colorful sweet peppers are 8 to 10 inches long and curved like a bull’s horn. Ripen to deep red or bright yellow and are delicious fresh in salads, but more often are sauted or grilled. Prolific tall plants. 68 days.
Cubanelle – This is a large sweet pepper. It is yellow-green in and matures to red. This variety of sweet pepper is very popular among home gardeners. Cubanelle Sweet Pepper is great for frying, stuffing, dipping and on salads. 12 inches. They’re high in vitamin C .
Numex-Big Jim – The largest of New Mexican varieties, this pepper has pods up to 12 inches long that weigh as much as 4 ounces. Their size makes them a favorite for chiles rellenos. Medium hot pungency. As an advantage, plants are able to set fruit under hot, dry conditions. 80 days.
Orion – This is a huge blocky pepper, up to 5 inches long and wide, with thick, heavy walls and 4-lobed shape. Widely adapted, it does well even in warm locations, where its heavy foliage cover shields fruit from the sun. This very high quality Dutch pepper has excellent disease protection with resistance to 3 races of bacterial leaf spot and tobacco mosaic virus. 75 days.
Queen – Brightly colored bell pepper with a delicious sweet and mild thick flesh. Queen consistently produces big, green, blocky 4 lobed bells that mature to orange. The sturdy plants have resistance to tobacco mosaic virus. 70-74 days.
Ringo – Produces large plants laden with elongated, pointed fruit measuring about 5cm in diameter at the top and reaching almost 30cm in length. With a shape that is somewhat reminiscent of a bull’s horn, they turn from green to a stunning bright yellow as they ripen.This is a later maturing variety better eaten after it turns yellow. At that point it is mildly sweet and perfect grilled and peeled, fried, or used fresh in salads.
Serrano del Sol – Very impressive new version of open-pollinated Serrano pepper, this one boasts fruit that is twice the size and two to three weeks earlier than the original. Peppers are fleshy and meaty with the unique Serrano flavor so popular in Mexican cuisine. Measuring about 5,000 Scoville units, they are about the same pungency as a jalapeno, and are quite versatile for sauces, salsas, or flavoring. 64 to 67 days.
Tabasco – Fiery hot, this is the one that has made Tabasco sauce famous. Green leaf strain that grows best in the South and East. Light yellow-green peppers turn to red and grow on tall plants. 80 days.
Telica – Plant produces heavy yields of extra large 4 ¾” long by 1 ¾” wide Jalapeno peppers. Peppers are hot, have thick flesh, and turn from shiny green to red when mature. 75 days.
