Johnson’s Backyard Garden » Blog Archive

A Burnt Orange Box

by Brenton - January 11th, 2010.
Filed under: Newsletters.

Last Week's Box

Contents:

1) In Your Box this Week

2) Farm News

Wholesale Updates
Our First Slow Money Meeting!
JBG Now Accepting New CSA Members
New Year – New You: Improving the Way You Eat! By Grit Ramuschkat, JBG Resident
The Internets: Food and Farm Blogs, and Brenton on the news!
Don’t Let Your Spirits Fall After the Rose Bowl, We Have Your Orange Boxes Right Here!
Ringger Family Farm Eggs on Hiatus
Workshare Policy Change

3) Events

Celebration of Austin Farmers’ Market Move into Republic Square, postponed to January 23rd!
Our First Slow Money Meeting!
A Fresh Idea: Screening of the documentary FRESH at St. David’s Episcopal Church

4) Quotable Food

5) Recipes

Sweet Potato Biscuits with Bacon and Thyme
Oven Roasted Broccoli with Lemon, Chili-Garlic Oil and Parmesan

6) Produce Storage Tips

7) Johnson’s Backyard Garden Contact Info

Travis packing boxes

1) In Your Box this Week:

Tangerines! (Orange Blossom Farm)
Oranges (G and S Groves)
Carrots – Big Bunches!
Grapefruit (G and S Groves)
Sweet Potatoes
Radishes
Lettuce
Bok Choy
Kale
Green Garlic
Broccoli
Brussel Sprouts (maybe!)

**No worries, Orange Blossom and G and S Groves are also certified organic farms!**

2) Farm News

Wholesale Updates

Our wholesale website is up and running! You can check it out at www.jbgorganic.com/cart. Unfortunately, the extended cold weather has affected our production, so we will not begin wholesale deliveries until late February or early March. In the meantime, though, if you are interested in becoming a customer in the future, set up an account with us. Remember, all new accounts require approval prior to ordering from our web site. Thanks to all who are following along and are interested in becoming a wholesale customer. We encourage you to give us feedback so that we can give you the best service!

Our First Slow Money Meeting!

As you probably know, JBG will be expanding from 20 acres to 70 in 2010. In 2009, JBG signed a contract to purchase 40 acres of an old dairy on River Road, about a ten minute drive east from our current location on Hergotz Lane. This is some of the last remaining farmland in Austin, and we are ecstatic about preserving such a vibrant and fertile piece of Austin’s history. The crew here at the farm spent October and November carefully preparing the soil at River Road, and we are just beginning the first plantings of the new year.

This expansion is generating a lot of excitement around the farm, along with a lot of changes. We are hiring new employees, constructing new buildings, and growing more organic vegetables than ever before. We have also started attending three Austin farmers markets weekly and wholesaling to local markets and restaurants. We are happy taking on this new work, but we need the right infrastructure and equipment to make it all happen. That’s where you, as slow money investors in JBG, come in.

For more details, come to our first Slow Money Meeting, which will take place next Thursday, January 21st, at 7:00 pm in the farm office (right next to the packing shed). Learn how you can make a significant contribution to the future of Johnson’s Backyard Garden, and the organic food movement in Austin. Please email us at farm@jbgorganic.com if you plan on attending. Also, join our slow money mailing list.

JBG Now Accepting New CSA Members

Johnson’s Backyard Garden is expanding, and we are inviting Austin residents to become new CSA members. If you know anyone who loves local, organic vegetables as much as you do, let them know about your CSA membership, and encourage them to look us up! Our goal at JBG is to have a real impact on Austin’s local food chain by providing as many Austin residents as we can with food straight from our farm. So share the news with your friends, family, co-workers, church members, or anyone else you’d like to share fresh, organic veggies with. Word of mouth is our best advertising!

New Year – New You: Improving the Way You Eat! By Grit Ramuschkat, JBG Resident

As the beginning of the new year gives us an opportunity to start over, many of us are reconsidering food habits.

When Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio traveled around the world to photograph families with one week-worth of groceries for their Book “Hungry Planet: What the World Eats”, food resolutions weren’t the focus, however, became a powerful side-effect for some of the families depicted in the book.

Deb Bainton from Great Britain felt embarrassed when she saw the 16 bags of various sweets that her family of four consumed in one week. She herself was solely responsible for the two six-packs of Mars bars on the table in front of her. When Piera Manzos from Sicily calculated the total food expenditure for one week she was shocked. 60 Dollars, more than 1/5th of their weekly food bill, went to pay for cigarettes. The Revises from North Carolina were surprised by the amount of fast food that ended up on their food picture. The family had already taken steps to a healthier life-style by working out at the gym regularly, however Rosemary Revis realized that spending two hours per day at the gym after work and errands didn’t leave her any time to cook. So the family ate fast food after a good workout. After looking at their picture, the motivation to improve food habits came naturally to these families!

Gathering everything you will eat in one week and taking a picture of it is an honest way of facing your food and ultimately yourself. The old saying “you are what you eat” takes on a deeper meaning, since now you can see who you are by looking at what you eat.

Inspired by Menzel’s and D’Aluisio’s project, Steven and I took a picture of ourselves, depicting our food consumption for one week in late October. I am overall pleased with the amount of vegetables and non-processed food we eat but still like to change a few things about the way we eat. Finding a source for raw milk as well as learning about fish is on my agenda for 2010.

“Hungry Planet: What the World Eats” was a book we discussed for my book club “Food & Politics”. The book club meets every other month here at the farm or another central location in Austin. For more information about the club visit the following website:

http://www.meetup.com/Food-and-Politics-Book-Club

The membership is free and I am always looking for enthusiastic and active book readers to join!

A week of groceries for Grit and Stephen

The Internets: Food and Farm Blogs, and Brenton on the news!

1) From a CSA Member: We got an email from one of our CSA members, Nelly Paulina Ramirez, last week about what it’s like to be a CSA member at Johnson’s Backyard Garden. Nelly also sent us the link to her blog about family and cooking, where she talks about planning meals for the week with a fresh CSA box. Check it out. Thanks for the mention, Nelly!

“Just wanted to let you know that we are super-happy with our share this week and even more stoked that we have CSA back in our life. Thank you for all that you do and for filling our home and bellies with beautiful and delicious edibles.

I keep a small food blog where I talk about our family’s cooking and eating and gave you guys a mention”

http://aneelee.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/csa-score-this-week/

2) Dissertation To Dirt: While you’re surfing, check out our intern Neysa’s blog, www.dissertationtodirt.com, to follow her move from urban living to a career in farming. Last year Neysa left a PhD program in History to work on an organic farm. The journey has taken her and her fiancee Travis from Boston to New York and now to Austin, Texas.

3) Local News: Maybe you’ve noticed that our own farmer Brenton is becoming a local celebrity lately! He’s been on the news four times in one week! In case you missed, it, here is one of the internet spots from Saturday at the Austin Farmers Market.

http://www.kvue.com/news/local/Cold-Weather-cant-keep-shoppers-away-from-the-Austin-Farmers-Market–81067672.html

Brenton – I would rather not be on the news for speculation about how much damage the cold weather will result in! We did have some damage to crops like cauliflower, some broccoli damage and newly planted beets…but since we have had a number of other freezes the crops looked remarkable well today….and the freeze made our terrific carrot crop even sweeter! I would estimate the damage some where at around 15-20%. The good news is that we have a greenhouse full of transplants that we will be racing to get in the field before the rain returns. We will not worry about what we cannot change and we are looking forward to spring crops.

Don’t Let Your Spirits Fall After the Rose Bowl, We Have Your Orange Boxes Right Here!

Tangerines, oranges, grapefruit, sweet potatoes, and carrots, our CSA members are getting a big orange box to cope with the …ahem, unpleasantness of last week. Make an orange dinner with our yummy sweet potatoes and carrots, or an orange dessert with the sweet tangerines from Orange Blossom Farm. Whatever you choose, we hope you eat your orange produce with pride!

Sweet Carrots

Ringger Family Farm Eggs on hiatus

“Some of you have been asking about the different labels on the egg cartons you’ve been getting the last few weeks. Our normal egg provider, Ringger Family Farm, is going through a hardship right now with their largest laying flock. To keep up with the demand of our members, we have gone to other local, free range egg producers. These include Nana’s Golden Eggs, Vital Farm, and Smith and Smith Farm. We are confident in the quality of all of these produces, but we do hope that the Ringgers’ flock gets back on track soon! If you’d like to keep supporting the Ringger’s in this interim, they have stewing hens available for purchase.

Below is an article written by Dale Ringger about his family’s current situation:

“Ringger Family Farm’s largest laying flock have quit laying eggs before scheduled, so the egg supply will be very low until their new chicks begin laying in April. This is not good news, but as we all realize, sustainable farming has ups and downs due to nature and/or weather cycles, and the Ringgers appreciate your patience and plan to build their egg supply back up to normal levels as soon as possible.

The best all natural way to treat the common cold is homemade chickensoup! Get your chickens now from Ringger Family Farm. These chickens are hens raised on pasture, with no hormones or antibiotics, and are chemical-free. Processed with care by the Ringger Family. These stewing hens are no long available in stores, but are what your grandmother used to make chicken soup. They come bagged individually(3-4 lbs.) and frozen. Simply store in your freezer until you need one and pull it out, put it in a crockpot overnight with herbs of your choice, salt, and water. Make your soup the next day! Also, the chicken and broth make wonderful chicken enchiladas. We’ll include our favorite recipes upon request. 5 birds for $50 — Tell your friends too!

ringgerfarm@gmail.com or 512-923-2053

Available for pickup at Johnson’s Backyard Garden this Saturday 2:30to 3:30 or arrange other pickup options. Please call or email Rinnger Family Farm at ringgerfarm@gmail.com or 512-923-2053 and order by 3 pm Friday afternoon, Jan. 16 for this weekend deliveries.

Workshare Policy Change

We really appreciate all the workshares that have come out over the years to help with our harvests, boxing, and other projects. JBG achieved its first successes through the hard work and dedication of volunteers. Now, the success of our business has allowed us to shift to a full time workforce. This means we a higher consistency in our work and better customer service for our members. We are so thankful for our successes so far.

Exception:

Next week we are planning on cutting potatoes up to plant so we need as many volunteers as possible on Tuesday 19th, Wednesday 20th and Friday 22nd!

Our new found efficiency means that we have decreased our dependence on volunteers. In addition,this extended cold weather has slowed down some of our production. Lately, there just isn’t a lot of work that’s not covered by the team here at JBG. Therefore, we won’t be taking new workshares until our production picks up again in the spring. Workshares who have been coming out since the beginning and know the routine, you are welcome to keep coming out, just send us an email. Otherwise, we will post another call for workshares once the spring season starts and the farm really gets going! Thank you all for all your hard work!

3) Events

Celebration of Austin Farmers’ Market Move into Republic Square, postponed to January 23rd!

The Austin Farmers’ Market will begin its 8th year in 2010, and with it, a re-launch of all that this premiere market represents in Republic Square Park. Come for the celebration that unfolds January 23rd with double live music, a cast-iron dutch oven cooking demo, fish grilling, Simply Fresh cooking demo, sack races, free cocoa for the kids, tastings galore, trivia hunt with prizes, live music and kid’s patch. The activities will last all day!

When/Where

Austin Farmers’ Market
Republic Square Park
4th and Guadalupe
9am – 4pm
Free parking available

Our First Slow Money Meeting!

Our first Slow Money Meeting will be held Thursday, January 21st, at 7:00 pm in the farm office on Hergotz Lane. Please email us at farm@jbgorganic.com if you plan on attending. A description of our slow money project is above under “Farm News”. If you are interested in remaining updated about investing in Johnson’s Backyard Garden, please join our mailing list.

A Fresh Idea: Screening of the documentary FRESH at St. David’s Episcopal Church

Fresh Screening at St. Davids Downtown

Come out to a screening of FRESH, a documentary about the state of America’s food system, and what all of us can do to support local, organic farming. There will be a discussion after the movie, and Brenton will be giving a short talk. Bring a dish to share, and enjoy eating and talking about organic food with others of like mind.

4) Quotable Food

“A farm includes the passion of the farmer’s heart, the interest of the farm’s customers, the biological activity in the soil, the pleasantness of the air about the farm — it’s everything touching, emanating from, and supplying that piece of landscape. A farm is virtually a living organism.” –Joel Salatin

5) Recipes , taken from Pinch My Salt

Sweet Potato Biscuits with Bacon and Thyme

Ingredients:

2 C. Bisquick baking mix
4 slices bacon, cooked and chopped
1 heaping teaspoon fresh chopped thyme leaves
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup mashed sweet potato
1 T. brown sugar
all purpose flour for dusting counter

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Dust a counter top lightly with flour.
2. In a medium bowl, combine baking mix, bacon, and chopped thyme. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sweet potato, milk, and brown sugar.
3. Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and stir until just combined.
4. Dump mixture out onto a floured counter and knead a few times just to finish mixing the dough.
5. Pat out into a circle about 1/2 inch thick. Cut biscuits and arrange them on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
6. Bake at 450 degrees for 8 – 10 minutes until just lightly browned on top.
7. Enjoy warm with a little butter.

Yield: 8-10 small biscuits

Recipe notes: To make 1/2 cup of mashed sweet potatoes, I just peeled one smallish sweet potato, cut it into chunks, and boiled it for about 15 minutes until it was fork tender. I put the potato through a food mill, but you can mash it however you like. Just make sure that it’s tender enough not to leave little chunks in your biscuits! You could also mash a leftover baked sweet potato.

Oven Roasted Broccoli with Lemon, Chili-Garlic Oil and Parmesan

Ingredients:

1 bunch of broccoli
1/4 C. extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1/4 t. crushed red pepper (optional)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
Fresh grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Heat the oil and garlic in a small saucepan over low heat. Make sure the heat is low and that the garlic is not cooking too fast. Set timer for five minutes.
3. While garlic oil is heating, wash and cut your broccoli into pieces. I cut the flowerets into halves and/or quarters and leave a couple inches of stem attached to each piece.
4. After the oil and garlic has heated for five minutes (the garlic should be turning golden brown, not burning!), add the crushed chili if using, heat for an additional minute then turn off stove.
5. Strain chili-garlic oil into a large, heat-proof mixing bowl then add the broccoli.
6. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the bowl then add a pinch of coarse salt (keep in mind that the cheese will add more saltiness) and several grinds of black pepper (if you don’t have a pepper grinder, why not??).
7. Toss everything together well with a big wooden spoon so that each piece of broccoli has a thin coating of oil.
8. Using tongs, so that the excess oil drains off, remove the broccoli to a rimmed baking sheet and spread it out in a single layer.
9. Place broccoli in a preheated 425 degree oven for about 10 minutes. If your oven tends to be hot, check the broccoli earlier. If you like it to be extra tender, leave it in longer. At 10 minutes, the broccoli will have started to caramelize on the bottom and may even look a little burnt but don‚Äôt worry, it will taste good!
10. While the broccoli is roasting, grate some fresh Parmesan cheese (I prefer parmigiano reggiano).
11. When the broccoli is done to your liking, immediately toss it with as much cheese as you desire and enjoy!

6) Produce Storage Tips

Storing Citrus: Keep citrus fruit at room temperature for up to a week. Keep them in a cool dark place, out of direct sunlight, and be sure to check them regularly for spoilage. Extend the life of your citrus fruit by storing them in the refrigerator. Store them in a mesh, cheesecloth or perforated plastic bag. Avoid airtight containers, as these will collect condensation that can promote mold and spoilage. You may also store citrus fruit in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator. Refrigerated citrus may keep for up to several weeks.