Workshares helped the harvest crew harvest garlic last week and place it in the greenhouse to dry

1) In Your Box this Week

2) Farm News:

• From the Farmer’s Perspective … Garlic and Potatoes
• “What is Sustainable Agriculture?” By Grit Ramuschkat, JBG Resident

3)  Updates, Meetings, and  Events

• Important News!  New Thursday Drop Off Site to begin soon  at the Flagship Whole Foods, 5th and Lamar.
• Help JBG Grow: Refer a Friend, Get a Free Box!
• JBG T-Shirts are In Stock!  Sign Up Today and Get a Free Johnson’s Backyard Garden T-Shirt!
• Workshares!  Come Help Us Weed Our Storage Onions!
• Nominations for a New Drop-off Site.

4) Quotable Food

5) Recipes, by Melissa Vance

• Kohlrabi Greens Gratin
• White Bean and Arugula Ragout
• Super Simple Glazed Carrots with Thyme
• Carrot Bread by Robyn Sutton

6) Produce Storage Tips

7) Johnson’s Backyard Garden Contact Info

bright lights Swiss chard growing over at River Road

1) In Your Box this Week

Carrots
Kale
Beets
Kohlrabi or Cabbage
Green Onions
Lettuce
Dill
Fennel
Broccoli

Coming Soon!

Potatoes
Tomatoes
Basil
Peppers
Garlic
Leeks

2) Farm News:

• From the Farmer’s Perspective … Slow Money, Whole Foods, GAP… a Busy Season Ahead
  

Last Wednesday was a busy day for us at JBG.  We started with a Fox news crew here at 7am, filming our fields and talking to us about our slow money efforts over the last several months (check out the news story here.  There are two videos; scroll to the right to find the second one).  Around 10am, a film crew on behalf of A&M and the Texas Department of Agriculture came to film our work for a video documenting local agriculture and local businesses. Meanwhile, for most of the afternoon Brenton was at the Slow Money Conference downtown, discussing how JBG has raised over $550,000 in funds, land and equipment through slow money.

After the conference there was a mixer happy hour for the attendees.  Brenton quit drinking a year ago (he’s proud to say it was exactly 1 year yesterday, April 26th!), but he went to the mixer so he could talk with all the slow money folk at the conference, and he made some great connections!  He ended up meeting a few Whole Foods reps who knew Brenton from the Slow Food Tour we did back in March.  They talked about a possible partnership with Whole Foods, in which they could become a CSA pickup site for us, and we could sell them some of the extra stuff we are really good at growing, like tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers.  “You should really talk to our team leader,” they told Brenton.  So he did, and before he knew it, he  talking with half a dozen Whole Foods reps about JBG and Austin’s local food chain.  They came out with a win-win situation.  Whole Foods can help JBG by giving us an outlet to sell extra produce, and also help train us in harvesting, packaging, and post-harvest handling.   We hope to get all of our harvesting staff GAP (Good Agriculture Practices) certified (sometimes Whole Foods even shares the cost of certification with producers for on-site training).  This will make all our food handling safer, more efficient, and higher quality for our CSA members, so we can’t wait to get started.

As for the fields, we are ready to begin tying our tomatoes at River Road farm.  Some of the early season varieties are already pretty bushy, and many are producing small, green tomatoes.  We should have a good crop in just a few weeks.  Also, the new potatoes are ready to be harvested.  We’re planning on digging some this week for next week’s boxes!  New potatoes are a little different from many of the potatoes you get in the store.  Often when you see “new potatoes” at the grocer’s, it is generally next to a bin of small, round potatoes.  But the real difference is that new potatoes are harvested and sold within a few days, instead of put in storage for weeks or months.  There’s nothing wrong with storage crops, of course, we store some crops, too.  But fresh crops are always a special treat, and even our storage crops aren’t stored for very long before they go out to our customers.  This summer season is going to be a busy one at JBG, but that’s just the way we like it.

• “What is Sustainable Agriculture?” By Grit Ramuschkat, JBG Resident

Like the word organic, (Google generates 142,000,000 hits) the word sustainable has become über fashionable (64,000,000 hits). A lot of things can be sustainable: agriculture, architecture, business, a community…even a roadshow. Besides their hip-status, big brother Organic and little sister Sustainable share another similarity. Both words have been overused to the extent that their users and readers have become thoroughly desensitized to their meaning. Even more than the word organic, sustainable is a very vague term, giving its users lots of opportunity for interpretation. In agriculture, this can be a blessing or a curse.

For James E. Horne, author of “The Next Green Revolution”, it’s a blessing. Instead of seeing the phrase sustainable agriculture as something that means very little, he sees it as a philosophy, a new way of thinking about farming.

Sustainable is defined as “enduring”, explains Horne. The concept of what is sustainable came into being during the energy crisis of the 1970s when it was noticed that our rapid use of oil might not be. It was then defined as “maintaining the present without compromising the future”. The emphasis here is on stewardship – maintaining the present so that it stays the future.

One definition of “sustainable agriculture” that Horne provides is, “an agriculture that can evolve indefinitely toward greater human utility, greater efficiency of resource use and a balance with the environment that is favorable both to humans and to most other species.” While this definition may not be favorable to the mosquito, it includes the idea that sustainable agriculture is not one method of agriculture etched in stone, but one that is flexible, constantly evolving, adapting and re-adapting to place and circumstance. This is an important point and very different from the approach industrial agriculture utilizes. There, the same methods are practiced anywhere and everywhere. The environment is modified to suit the methods—at huge resource and environmental costs—not the other way around.

The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Iowa defines sustainable agriculture as “farming systems that are environmentally sound, profitable, productive and maintain the social fabric of the rural community.” This definition includes a few new points. One is social integration. For an agricultural system to be sustainable, the living and working conditions of farm laborers, consumer health and safety and the needs of rural communities have to be addressed. Emphasis also rests on the profitability of the farming enterprise. For it to be sustainable it is also has to be profitable. The challenge is to build a bridge between being both ecologically sound and economically profitable.

To learn more about the concept of sustainability and eight steps farmers and consumers can take towards a healthy, sustainable agriculture, I recommend, “The Next Green Revolution” by James E. Horne & Maura McDermott.

Enrique and Temo seeding arugula and amending the soil. Check out the yellow bean picker in the background!

3)  Updates, Meetings, and  Events

• Important News!  New Thursday Drop Off Site to begin at the Flagship Whole Foods, 5th and Lamar.

We’re excited to announce that the Flagship Whole Foods at 6th and Lamar will be a new THURSDAY CSA pickup site!  Members would be able to pick up their boxes at the Guest Services desk in the produce/floral department from 1:30 to 7 p.m.   At this site only, you’d be able to take the whole box with you–not just the contents–then return the cardboard box when you pick up the next week.  We are still finalizing the details, but we’re hoping to begin drop offs next Thursday, May 6.

If you currently pick up at a different site and would like to change your pickup location, you can do so in the members section of our web site by signing into your account.  Or, you can call us at 386-5273 or email farm@jbgorganic.com

Whole Foods is located at 525 N. Lamar.

• Help JBG Grow: Refer a Friend, Get a Free Box!

As you know, JBG just expanded from 20 acres to nearly 70!  This summer, we will have enough organic veggies to supply 1,000 Austinites, and we want to make sure we hit that target!  We’re looking to our trusted CSA members to help us with our expansion.  Tell your friends about us!  If they sign up for a 10-week membership and mention that they were referred by you, then we will add a complimentary box to your subscription!  If your friend signs up for a 4-week membership, we’ll give you a free Johnson’s Backyard Garden American Apparel T-Shirt.  Help us get more people eating organic, local veggies and make a more organic Austin!

These T-shirts are American Apparel’s sustainable edition, 100% organic cotton.  Available in carrot or beet design.  Limited quantity in stock.

• Workshares!  Come Help Us Weed Our Storage Onions!

You helped us with garlic, now it’s time to weed our storage onions!   One allium down, and one more to go.  So if you’re ready for some rigorous, good old-fashioned weeding, get on your work boots, we’ll give you a hoe, and you can come out this week to help us weed all of our lovely red, white, and yellow onions.  You can cry all morning and we’ll all think it’s just the onions!

• Nominations for a New Drop-off Site

We have gotten a few nominations for new drop off sites around Austin.  Here they are, in no particular order:

• Circle C/South Austin
• Georgetown
• Another Round Rock drop off
• Belterra
• North Austin

Let us know what you think!  Have something to add to the list?  Just shoot us an email.  Also, we are open to workplace drop off sites, if there is enough interest.  If you think you can drum up support at your work place and would like us to consider making it a new drop off site, please contact our office at 386-5273 or farm@jbgorganic.com.

4) Quotable Food

“Life on a farm is a school of patience; you can’t hurry the crops or make an ox in two days” –Henri Alain

5) Recipes, by Melissa Vance

• Kohlrabi Greens Gratin

2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 medium onion, small dice
8-10 cremini or baby bella mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Kohlrabi greens from 4-5 bulbs, stems removed, sliced thinly
2 egg yolks, beaten
1/2 cup ricotta
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/4 cup cream
1/2 cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
2 tablespoons butter, melted
Kosher salt and black pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Add the oil to a sauté pan over medium heat.  When oil is hot, add the onions and cook until almost translucent.  Add the mushrooms and sweat until cooked through. Add the garlic and sauté, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute.  Add the kohlrabi greens and mix well. Allow to cook until wilted. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks, ricotta, parmesan cheese, cream, and a dash of salt and pepper. Combine the greens with this mixture and transfer to a baking dish.

In a small bowl, drizzle the panko crumbs with the melted butter and mix thoroughly. Top the greens with the panko evenly.  Bake for 30 minutes or until the crumbs turn golden brown.

Cook’s Note: I saved several weeks worth of kohlrabi greens (green and purple) for this recipe although any kind of greens would work well.  It’s a fantastic way to use leftover greens!

• White Bean and Arugula Ragout

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 large onion, medium dice
6 baby bella mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can white beans, cannellini or great northern, drained and rinsed
2 sprigs thyme, stems removed, chopped
1/4 cup chicken or vegetable stock
2 big handfuls arugula, stems trimmed
Kosher salt and black pepper

Melt the butter and oil in a saucepan over medium heat.  Add the onions and sweat until translucent.  Add the mushrooms and sauté until lightly browned.  Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for about 1 minute.  Add the beans, thyme, and stock.  Cook until the beans are heated through.  Stir in the arugula, and cook until wilted.  Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Cook’s Note: If you have the time to cook dry beans, use a little of the starchy soaking liquid along with the stock to moisten the ragout.  When in season, I also like to add a diced tomato.  This dish pairs wonderfully with lamb.  Enjoy!

• Super Simple Glazed Carrots with Thyme

3 large carrots, sliced
2 tablespoons butter
1-2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock
2 sprigs thyme, stems removed, chopped
Kosher salt and black pepper

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.  Add the carrots, honey, and stock.  Bring to a simmer and cook until the carrots are tender.  Add the thyme and continue to cook until the sauce reduces to a glaze that clings to the carrots.  Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.

Cook’s Note: Be prepared – this recipe NEVER has leftovers!  Use some lemon juice to balance the flavor if the glaze becomes too sweet for your liking.  If the sauce starts to reduce to a glaze before the carrots are tender, add a little water.  Enjoy!

• Carrot Bread by Robyn Sutton

Robyn Sutton emailed us this recipe “that her family has become addicted to.”  Sounds delish!

3/4 cup apple sauce (we used peach!)

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 diced, drained pineapple

2 cups all-purpose flour (we used fresh milled wheat flour and it turned out fine)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 eggs

1 pinch salt

2 cup grated carrots

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

6) Produce Storage Tips

Drowning in beets?  They’ve been in the boxes a lot lately because they’re heat hearty enough to get through these warm temperatures!  But not to fear.  Did you know beets can last several weeks in your fridge if they’re stored properly?  When you get them home, simply remove the greens and stems from the beets, and store the beets in a plastic bag or tupperware.  Greens suck out energy from the root, so with most root vegetables, it’s a good idea to remove the greens.  The best part about beet greens is that they are delicious in stir frys or soups, so be sure to use those a little quicker than the roots themselves.

Chioggia Beets have phytonutrients that give them their brilliant color. Be sure to enjoy the beet greens, too. Cook them like swiss chard.

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-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 Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 6:54 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.