All the rain gear came out at our Garfield Farm this week. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Rain, rain and more rain! This was a muddy week on the farm, but it sure did make the greens in the field look extra vibrant. The mud is stopping the farm crew from getting ahead on transplanting more of our summer crops, but we've been busy with a great harvest for markets this weekend! Lots of greens, herbs, artichokes and our spring cabbage crop are all coming in strong right now. Thanks to Scott David Gordon for capturing the greens, grays, and mud-tones that dominated week 16.

Kale in front, dandelions behind. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Cilantro raised beds with rainwater-filled pathways. Yikes! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Collard greens. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Photo by Scott David Gordon

Hope these artichokes don't mind the extra water!

This week we got our tomatoes all caged and staked, and started trellising them too. Photo by Scott David Gordon

We can't wait until these tomatoes are blooming! Photo by Scott David Gordon

It was nice and dry in our squash high tunnel

Gray and green - the colors of week 16. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Sweet potatoes being washed at our Hergotz farm. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Beautiful red radishes. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Harvest driver Kenny loads up his truck. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Beets fresh on the washing tables. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Washing parsnips - come get some at market this weekend! Photo by Scott David Gordon

We're harvesting a beautiful crop of onions! White and red pictured here. Photo by Scott David Gordon

JBG volunteers packing up some veggies to take home this week. Photo by Scott David Gordon

We've got lots of opportunities to get involved at the farm right now. We're hiring for two great positions AND looking for volunteers to help us paint one of the famous JBG trucks this coming MONDAY. Check it out!

Tomato Crew: Interested in trying your hand out working at the farm? Tomato crew might just be for you! This is a temporary, full-time position at our Hergotz location (right near the airport!). We're looking for hard workers who can commit May-July, love organic food, and work well in a team environment. We're also looking for leadership for the tomato crew!

CSA Packing Crew: This is a full-time, year round position working with our CSA team. We're looking for great folks to help us wash, sort, process and pack vegetables for our growing CSA program! Candidates should be dedicated, timely and ready to jump right in to a bustling local farm.

Volunteer! In addition to our Monday-Friday volunteer program, we've got a special opportunity coming up this Monday. If you've got experience painting and want to lend a hand (and get some free veggies!), we need your help painting the newest truck in our fleet! Email ada@jbgorganic.com for more details.

by Megan Winfrey

Well, my sweet baby angel girl is a year old. Last week was a whirlwind to say the least - with birthday parties, travel, and too many bad food indulgences. It was also fantastic and I loved every minute of it. There was one indulgence that I couldn't feel guilty about, but it was none-the-less rich, chocolate-y, and sweet. I've been wanting to try this recipe for awhile now, and I hope ya'll enjoy it as much as I did.



Chocolate Beet Cupcakes

4 small or 2 large beets 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 2/3 cup buttermilk 1 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/4 tsp. salt 1 large egg 1/4 cup canola oil 1 3/4 cup powdered sugar, divided 2 tsp. vanilla extract 4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350ºF and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

First, cook the beets by submerging them whole in a pot of water and boiling them until you can pierce a knife straight through - about 30 minutes. The bigger the beet, the longer it will take to soften. When done, let the beets cool, then peel off the skins by hand. They should fall right off, and if they don't, scrape the skins away gently with a spoon. Dice the beets, then add them to a blender with the butter cream. Blend until a smooth puree forms, reserve 2 tbs. in a small bowl, then transfer the rest to a large bowl.



In a different bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the egg, oil, vanilla, and 1 cup of powdered sugar to the beet puree and whisk all together. Lightly stir in the dry ingredients, then spoon the batter into the lined cups. Bake 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool completely before icing.

For the frosting, combine the rest of the powdered sugar, the cream cheese, and the reserved beet puree in a bowl, then blend with a hand mixer until smooth. Top each cupcake with a generous dollop and smooth out to the edges.

CSA Box Contents Week of April 18th

Photo by Scott David Gordon

Do you have painting experience? Want to see your handiwork delivering organic veggies all over town? JBG just added a new cargo van to our delivery fleet, and are looking for a few volunteers this upcoming Monday, April 18th to help paint her up!

We're sending all of our volunteers home with a box of veggies to thank them for their time - if you're interested in helping out, please email Ada at ada@jbgorganic.com mentioning your painting experience and availability this Monday, 4/18.

Scott catches a beautiful sunrise on the farm. Photo by Scott David Gordon

We've been so busy picnic-ing, selling transplants, and featuring our incredible staff that it feels like we haven't checked you in with the JBG fields recently. We've been as busy as ever keeping the farm running, and Week 15 marked a notable shift in the tasks at hand on the farm. Here's what we've been up to this week...

One of the most noticeable shifts these days is that our spring transplanting frenzy is at it's end. It seems like the transplant crew has been going nonstop since the JBG greenhouses were bursting at the seams back in January. Now, those same greenhouses are all but empty and we've hit a little calm before the "storm" of summer crops is here. Before you know it, we're all going to be swimming in tomatoes, melons, peppers and more, but for now we're enjoy the spring season.

Look out for new potatoes, another crop we just started harvesting this week! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Some new crops will be making their appearance on our market tables and in your CSA boxes soon. We are starting to harvest our spring crop of cabbage this week - we'll have green, red, and savoy cabbage starting this weekend at markets. Our spring crop of broccoli is heading up as well! This is a CSA favorite, and members can look forward to full spring broccoli heads in their shares for the coming few weeks. The summer squash from our high tunnel continues to produce well, and we even saw the first few okra pods on our early spring crop coming out this week! Also check out the photos of our grape crop - we've been working hard to install irrigation, bamboo staking and trellising this week and the plants are really looking great.

Katie has been working hard on our grapes. Thanks, Katie! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Our new harvest trailers have really been exceeding my expectations - especially as some heavy crops start to come in. Even more than me, the JBG harvest crew has REALLY been loving these trailers!  Harvesting broccoli, squash, cucumbers, potatoes (and many more) heavy crops used to be a very laborious. The harvest crew would fill up bins of veggies moving down the rows - once these bins were full, they were carried to the end of the bed to put into the harvest trucks. This meant carrying bins that weigh anywhere from 20-60lb (or more!) up to 200 ft! Now you know why I'm always so impressed by the hard work and dedication of our farm staff. Now, once a bin is full, it's placed right onto the arm of the harvest trailer and brought in with the tractor. The engineer in me loves a tool that makes harvest more efficient, and the farmer in me loves that we are able to better care for JBG employees by significantly cutting out a lot of heavy lifting.

The arm of these harvest trailers cover 5 beds. We can now harvest right onto the trailer instead of carrying bins to the end of a row! Photo by Scott David Gordon

If you're interested to hear more about what's going on in the JBG fields, and how we developed ideas and systems for the farm, I hope you'll take some time to listen to a chat I had with Chris Blanchard of the Farmer to Farmer Podcast. I was honored that Chris asked me to come onto the show - we got to talk about everything from the nitty gritty of our farm's management, to challenges of growing year-round here in Central Texas, and even the story behind the JBG branding and logo. Thanks so much for having me, Chris, I really enjoyed it!

A full bed of parsley. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Scott caught a gorgeous sunrise at the JBG Garfield Farm this week - we had a nice deep rain on Wednesday night, and while the farm is a bit muddy, the mornings sure have been beautiful. Our summer veggies are really coming along nicely in the field, and the springs plantings of greens, herbs and even some cabbage and root crops are in full harvest. Enjoy this week's photos!

Thanks for catching this great sunrise, Scott! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Photo by Scott David Gordon

Spring fields after our heavy rains this week. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Katie staking and trellising the grapes. Photo by Scott David Gordon

The farm is looking forward to our first, small grape crop this year. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Collard greens happy in the field. Photo by Scott David Gordon

We've got lots of greens at markets this weekend, including these dandelions. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Have you had this year's artichokes yet? Photo by Scott David Gordon

Charlotte holds up some of the first new potatoes of the year! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Beets ready for harvest. Photo by Scott David Gordon