1) In Your Box this Week

2) Farm News:

• From the Farmer’s Perspective …. Organic Farms, Big and Small

3) New South Austin Pickup Location Replacing Brodie/Slaughter

4) In Need of a New CSA Host for Round Rock!

5) Updates, Meetings, and  Events

• Healthy Cooking 101 at Whole Foods
• Bad to the Bone: Stubb’s Presents Chef Smackdown
• JBG and Slow Food Austin March Farm Tour and Plant Sale

6)Quotable Food

7) Recipes

• Kale or Collards Frittata
• More Uses for Mustard Greens

8) Produce Storage Tips

9) Johnson’s Backyard Garden Contact Info

1) In Your Box this Week

Carrots
Hakurei Turnips or Kohlrabi
Collards or Kale
Radish or Beets
Bok Choy or Mustard Greens
Green Onions
Dill or Parsley
Oranges and Grapefruit from G&S Groves
Avocados from G&S Groves

2) Farm News:

• From the Farmer’s Perspective …Organic Farms, Big and Small
  

A lot of people marvel at the size of our farm.  70 acres, 60 vegetable types, over 300 varieties!  But as far as farms go, we are actually pretty petite.  According to the USDA, the average number of farmed acres on small farms in the United States is 160.  And that’s just for small farms.  For large farms, the average size is over 2,000 acres.  Compared to that, our 70 acres seems downright diminutive.

But not all of those are organic farms, right?  Organic farms might have different standards of “big” and “small.”  But let’s think about it another way:  not by what’s out there now… but what’s needed.  How much food can a farm, whatever its size, actually produce?  How many farms would it take to feed a city like, say, Austin?  A good rule of thumb is that 1 acre of land in vegetables can provide enough to feed about 100 people or 30 -35 weekly CSA shares.  That means that once JBG has 30 acres in full production (right now we have about 16), we have the potential to feed around 3000 people a week or produce 1000 CSA shares per week.  If the population of Austin proper is 680,000, that means it would take over 225 farms of JBG’s size to feed everyone!

It makes you think.  Where are all of these farms, and people to farm them, going to come from?  Austin has a great organic food culture that has ballooned over the last decade, and continues to grow.  But when you see the amount of farms it would take for Austin to be able to feed itself completely, it’s clear that there remains a big need for more organic farming, and more organic farms.  “Big” as we tend to see organic farms doesn’t seem so big when you consider those numbers.  We need much, much more acreage in Austin planted in organic crops.   Ideally more than 7000 acres just to feed Austin!

Farming in our country is a lost art.   Organic farmers here in Austin and around the United States are doing their best to rediscover techniques and designate more land to organic farming.  Young farm interns are our greatest hope for the future.  But not everyone is going to be a farmer, so how can we all do out part?  Perhaps the best thing we can do right now is to help those who want to farm find a viable way to do it, and that means supporting local, organic agriculture to the best of our abilities.  Shopping at farmers markets and/or  joining a CSA are great ways to start.  Helping your local farms financially or with volunteer hours is great, too.  Starting a small garden or helping community gardens is also good.  Only when we make organic farming a mainstay of our communities, and our diets, will it become a real part of our future.

3) New South Austin Pickup Location Replacing Brodie/Slaughter

Beginning Friday, March 5th, Brodie/Slaughter will no longer be a CSA pickup site.  The new site in South Austin will be:

8110 Cattle Drive, Austin, Texas 78749

If you are currently picking up Fridays at Brodie/Slaughter, you do not need to do anything at this time.  You will automatically be transferred to 8110 Cattle Drive for your March 5th pickup.  If you are picking up at a different pickup site and would like to change your pickup location to 8110 Cattle Drive, please call us at 386-5273 or email the office at farm@jbgorganic.com.

4) In Need a New CSA Host for Round Rock!

Our current Round Rock CSA host is no longer able to serve as a pick up site.  If you are interested in becoming the next Round Rock CSA site host, please email us at farm@jbgorganic.com.  Site hosts are entitled to 4 free quarterly CSA boxes, and any other produce not picked up in the designated time.  Please contact our office for more details.

5) Updates, Meetings, and Important Events

• Healthy Cooking 101 at Whole Foods

Saturday, February 20th, 10:00 am Free!

Wondering how to cook all those vegetables, whole grains, and other healthy foods that you know you should be eating?  Join Mary, our Healthy Eating Specialist for a special mobile class on how to easily choose and prepare the most nutrient-rich and health-supportive foods.

Meet at the Healthy Eating Desk in Produce.

• Bad to the Bone: Stubb’s Presents Chef Smackdown

On Saturday, Feb. 27th, 6 – 9:30 pm, Stubb’s outdoor stage in downtown Austin will turn into a kitchen arena where three of the state’s highest profile chefs will battle it out, each choosing a preferred ingredient to stump their competitors’ culinary prowess. The chefs will create a dish that includes all three of the chef-picked ingredients which could range from diverse edibles such as grapefruit to cauliflower to oysters.

Audience participants and a panel of noted culinary experts will sample the dishes and use live text voting to determine the winning chef. The DJ, el john Selector, will be spinning bad-to-the-bone soul, funk and world beats to keep the tempo pumping until final votes have been cast.

Once the winner is announced, the evening melds into a rockin’ live concert with Charanga Cakewalk, a seven-piece Latin band featuring master multi-instrumentalist Michael Ramos and known for pan-Latin tunes that dive into deep, urban grooves.

On tap for the chef throwdown are three of Texas’ youngest and most acclaimed chefs – David Bull, named as one of Food & Wine magazine’s Top Ten Best New Chefs in 2003 and who is now Bolla’s executive chef at the Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas; Shawn Cirkiel, executive chef of Austin’s Parkside Restaurant, recently named by Bon Appetit magazine as one of the “Hot 10 New American Taverns”; and Paul Petersen, star of TLC’s BBQ Pitmasters and author of Keeper of the Flame Interactive Cookbook. Petersen was also former executive chef of Café Cenzio at the Gage Hotel.

A live video feed will project all of the kitchen stage action onto Stubb’s stage canopy so the audience can see close-ups of the food preparation as well as the live feed for the text voting results.

A limited number of TICKETS available here: http://tinyurl.com/ybx7zg5

SFC thanks our sponsors, Stubb’s, Whole Foods Market Austin, Texas Culinary Academy and Cuvee Coffee!

When/Where
Saturday, February 27
6pm – 9:30pm
Stubb’s Amphitheatre
801 Red River
Austin, Texas
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/ybx7zg5

• JBG and Slow Food Austin March Farm Tour and Plant Sale

Saturday, March 6, JBG is collaborating with Slow Food Austin for a Slow Food Farm Tour and Heirloom Plant Sale.  Come by our farm to tour our greenhouse, fields, and participate in a discussion about organic farming and CSAs in Austin.  Browse through our heirloom Ark of Taste transplants and take some home to plant in your garden!  JBG’s heirloom transplant sale will continue through the first three Saturdays in March.  Already a JBG CSA member?  You can order these transplants for pickup at your CSA drop-off site.  Just email Carrie at farm@jbgorganic.com

6) Quotable Food

“April is the cruelest month, T.S. Eliot wrote, by which I think he meant (among other things) that springtime makes people crazy. We expect too much, the world burgeons with promises it can’t keep, all passion is really a setup, and we’re doomed to get our hearts broken yet again. I agree, and would further add: Who cares? Every spring I go out there anyway, around the bend, unconditionally. … Come the end of the dark days, I am more than joyful. I’m nuts. ”
— Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)

7) Recipes

I love Kale.  In fact, I love all cooking greens.  Olive oil, garlic, and onion mixed up in a pan with greens is one of my favorite meals.  But sometimes you want to mix it up a little and use those greens in different ways.  Here are some of my other recipes for greens beyond the sautee.

• Kale or Collards Frittata

Ingredients:

6-8 eggs

1/2 cup milk

A good melting cheese of your choice (I love a good Fontina)

1 bunch of Kale or Collards (or any other cooking green)

2-4 cloves garlic

1 bunch green onions

Olive Oil

Method:

Set oven to broil, or bake at 400 degrees.

In a bowl, beat eggs together.  Add milk.  Shred cheese and mix in.

In an oven-safe sautee pan, heat up olive oil.  Add onion and garlic.  Satuee until soft.  Add greens and sautee until soft and bright green.  Add salt and pepper to taste (at this point you can also add in whatever other veggies you’d like in your frittata).  Before greens are completely done cooking, add egg mixture to pan.  Stir until eggs become firm on the bottom.  Don’t stir too vigorously, you want the eggs and veggies to stay together like a sort of pie.  When the eggs are almost done cooking, transfer the pan into the oven and let cook for about 5 minutes.  The mixture should rise and get brown and crispy on the top. Take the pan out, sprinkle a little parsley, salt, and pepper on top and enjoy!

• More Uses for Mustard Greens

I love the spiciness of mustard greens, and it is even more intense when the greens are raw.  Try using them chopped up in your salads, or as a green in a savory sandwich like a  BLT or tuna melt.

8) Produce Storage Tips

Spinach, Kale, Collards and Mustard Greens are best stored in a plastic bag or Tupperware in the vegetable crisper for 3-5 days.

9) 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-Th 8am to 5pm, Friday 8am to 12pm

The farm office is closed 12 pm to 1 pm for lunch.

e-mail: farm@jbgorganic.com

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Newsletters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.