We brought the tractor to Hergotz to finish planting this week. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Another week at the farm gone by, without any signs of fall weather, or things slowing down. We are still super busy, and it feels like our transplanter hasn't been out of use for a minute these last few months. Hergotz is now all planted in broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower with the rest of the property in cover crop, while at Garfield we've been seeding beets and carrots and transplanting kale, collards, parsley, and more broccoli. With this persistent heat, I can tell that our crews are starting to feel a little burnt out (literally, it's hot out there!), but I know that the end of the planting frenzy is in sight, and with the promise of a cool front this weekend I think we all see respite on its way. I really value everyone's never ending drive and the hard work the team has been putting in this fall. It is really paying off and the fields look better than I have ever seen them!

Things are really growing fast out there (although we would love it if this cool and wet fall we were promised would arrive already) and the farm is looking absolutely beautiful right now. This season is one of the absolutely BEST times to plan a visit to your local farm! While we don't have the hat and scarf weather you see in cooler parts of the country, we do have two events in the next two weeks to share our beautiful fall fields with you.

A recent glimpse of JBG Denton!

This Sunday, October 18th, I'm excited to be going up to the JBG Denton farm to have dinner with our good friends from Outstanding in the Field! You may remember back in 2011 and 2012, we hosted this traveling supper club here at our Hergotz Farm. Our Denton farm manager Ryan now has the opportunity to share his plot and our JBG bounty as Outstanding hosts a dinner with Dallas chef extraordinaire Matt McAllister from FT33! This year's dinner is sold out, and I really hope to meet some of our CSA customers at the event.

Our second event is one you've no doubt heard about - we are only ONE WEEK away from JBG's annual Fall Potluck and 5k Harvest Hustle! If you haven't bought your tickets yet for the event next Saturday, October 24th, now is the time to do so! This week has been a busy one, finalizing our plans for the big celebration, and I wanted to share a few of the projects we've been working on.

Come tour our fields at the Harvest Hustle next weekend! Photo by Scott David Gordon

This year's Harvest Hustle course is absolutely gorgeous. Tour our 200 acre organic farm on the Colorado River, stopping to see your Artichokes, Basil, Beets, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Cabbage, Carrots, Eggplants, Flowers, Garlic, Green Beans, Onions, Okra, Squash, Tomatoes, Turnips and more! (trust me, this isn't even close to the full list) growing along the way! This 5k Fun Run is great for folks of all ages and athletic levels. While we have a very active community and expect to see some speed demons racing the course, we also have plenty of individuals and families who take their time, and maybe even walk the 5k just to get a rounded tour of JBG. Your Harvest Hustle ticket includes access to the race course, admission to our Potluck, and a vintage inspired racing t-shirt to remember the event! Bring your kids on the 5k, or sign them up for our 1-mile Kid's Fun Run for an abbreviated tour of the fields!

I have a really great feeling about this year's Potluck. Attendance at the biannual JBG celebrations has grown tremendously since we started hosting them nearly a decade ago, and we're excited to taste what our community has been cooking with our veggies at this Texas-sized potluck. We even posted some cookbook recommendations last week, if you need inspiration. Does anyone know the record for potluck size in Texas? Let us know, if you find out! By bringing a dish to share (with serving utensils, please!), you receive a discount on your admission to the celebration - only $5 for adults! Kids are admitted free to the event either way.

We're bringing back the sand pile for our Fall Potluck. Photo by Scott David Gordon

In addition to wide open spaces to run, there will be plenty to do for the kids. We're getting another full dump truck load of sand for our famous (infamous?) sand pile! This was definitely a favorite feature in the Spring and we're excited to let the kiddos play on the sand pile again this fall. JBG's own Kate Murray has been working hard on our much-loved kid's activity corner for the event. She'll will be disguised as a pollinator, and lead your little ones through an educational game to learn about the process of pollination. Of course, given the Halloween-spirit, there will be light costuming involved for each role (that the kids make themselves!) followed by a tag-like game of pollinators and plants! Teach your kids about the science behind farming, and enjoy your food and drink while watching your little one run some of that energy out!

Finally, we've had to change our band schedule around just a little bit, but the musical lineup is still completely local and completely awesome. We're featuring our potluck bands in a second blog post this week if you are looking for a preview of the fun.

For more of the farmer’s perspective, follow Brenton on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @farmerbrenton.

 

 

The Show and Tellers at the Spring Potluck. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Here at JBG, we've got a special spot in our hearts for local Texas musicians, and we try to support their talent whenever we can! Whether it be outfitting local favorites like Shakey Graves with JBG hats for the road, sending home the musicians at HOPE Farmer's Market with lots of veggies, or filling our farm events with local talent, our staff considers supporting local music as important as supporting local food! When you buy tickets for next Saturday's Potluck and Harvest Hustle, know that your dollars are going primarily to support Austin's musical community by paying fair prices to these artists. This week we're featuring some of their talent below!

You may remember seeing Silas Lowe and his band perform at the Spring 2014 Potluck, and we are so excited to have him back for another round of Americana goodness! Our friend Carson McHone had to change her plans last minute, and we are so grateful that Silas was able to clear his schedule to play for us! Check out his recent feature on Longhorn Network:



The Bottom Dollar String Band is a local favorite, and if you haven't seen them yet you better get a ticket fast! This Hill Country bluegrass group spent their summer touring in Colorado, and we're happy to have them back to celebrate fall in Austin.



Finally, The Parish Festival is a group originally from Davenport, IA. The JBG team is stoked that this talented group now calls Austin home, though, so that we can have them perform at the farm! From their Twitter page, "If Django was born in Arkansas and had a baby with Rilo Kiley, that baby would be us."



[PS - we spot a JBG hat in that last video!!]

Red, green, and savoy cabbage now at markets. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Volunteers helping sort green beans this week. Photo by Scott David Gordon

It's green bean season! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Our CSA packing line. Photo by Scott David Gordon

CSA Manager Matt checks every box before sending it out. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Interested in volunteering? Email us! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Great photo, Scott! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Transplanting. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Harvesting baby arugula. Photo by Scott David Gordon

A field of broccoli. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Broccoli crown in the field. Photo by Scott David Gordon

We love our Dandelion Greens here at JBG! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Photo by Scott David Gordon

Broccoli harvest. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Broccoli is trimmed in the field. Photo by Scott David Gordon

You may or may not know one of JBG's favorite drivers, Lucas, but we bet you've seen him around town. Lucas has driven CSA boxes, wholesale trucks, and delivery routes all over the state for us! We recently found out that Lucas also has quite the artistic streak, and we are excited to announce that he is going to be drawing a weekly farm cartoon for us to get you through your Wednesdays. Without further ado, our first hump-day farm-toon:

by Lucas Rager

Thanks so much Lucas! We're looking forward to seeing more of these!!

By Megan Winfrey

Ahhh, wedding season. That glorious time when every weekend is booked with some wedding-related-event, you're pretty sure that you've been hungover since September 1st, and your stomach is kinda funky from all the restaurant and catered food. It's times like these that I especially love the pre-made breakfast. Something healthy and tasty that you can bring along and pop in the oven or microwave because let's face it, we'd all rather stay in bed than cook breakfast or volunteer for the taco run. 

With that in mind, I made these super easy egg muffins in preparation for two of my very dear friend's wedding last weekend. I made a few dozen figuring they'd probably all get eaten by our heathen friends, and they sure did...even if some were eaten cold at 4 in the morning. 

Loaded Egg Muffins

*the beauty of this recipe is that it is easy to modify. Substitute any all and all JBG vegetables, add fresh herbs, bacon or sausage if desired. Yields 1 dozen.

Ingredients:

• 9 eggs
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 cup shredded cheese
• 2 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 5 sweet peppers, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, diced
• olive oil or paper cupcake cups
• salt and pepper
• Preheat the oven to 350ºF

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add the sweet potatoes and reduce to a soft bubble. Cook until tender, about 10 minutes. Heat 2 tbs. olive oil in a skillet over medium low. Add the peppers and onion and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another 1-2 minutes. 

Crack the eggs into a bowl, add the milk and beat until just mixed. Over beating the eggs will result in dense muffins instead of nice, fluffy muffins.

Prepare your muffin tin by oiling each cup or lining with a cupcake cup. Start with a layer of sweet potatoes in each cup, creating a nice even base. Then, a layer of cheese. Then, a layer of cooked vegetables. Pour the egg mixture into each cup so that it is 2/3 full. Put another layer of cheese right on top.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden on top. Let cool for 10 minutes before removing the egg muffins from the pan. 

Eat immediately or let cool and refrigerate for later. Good in the fridge for about a week. 

CSA Box Contents Week of Oct 12th

The first of the fall carrots are here! Photo by Scott David Gordon

We know that our CSA members love the bounty of local, organic veggies they receive in their shares every week. But we also know that even the most inspired home chefs can have trouble figuring out how to cook with another weeks worth of eggplant - we get it! Eating locally and seasonally is a joy, but comes with it's own set of challenges as well. This week, we asked our staff, family, and friends (and scoured Brenton's enormous cookbook collection!) to help us round up a list of favorite cookbooks to help tackle your weekly share of JBG veggies.



1. Joy of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker

What cookbook list would be complete without this perennial classic? Hailed by the New York Public Library as one of the 150 most influential books of the 20th century, and described by Julia Child as “a fundamental resource for any American cook,” Joy of Cooking is a resource for everything from knife skills, to basic cooking techniques, to canning and pickling, and recipes for the grill, oven, microwave and more! This was Brenton's first cookbook in college, and the start of his collection.



2. From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce, by FairShare CSA Coalition

Created by CSA members, for CSA members, From Asparagus to Zucchini breaks it down by vegetable. This cookbook offers storage tips, nutritional information, and a huge variety of recipes for even the strangest and most unfamiliar of CSA vegetables.



3. The Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen

Now in it's 41st year of publication, Moosewood is an absolute favorite database for vegetarian recipes, inspired by the changing seasonal menu of the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, NY. Mollie Katzen hand wrote and illustrated every recipe in this book, making it a handmade treasure for your kitchen (the kiddos love it too!). Moosewood has a number of other great, vegetarian cookbooks not to be missed.



4. Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables, by John Peterson

Farmer John, of Angelic Organics, created this cookbook specifically for his CSA program in Illinois. As you might imagine, the recipes are seasonal and vegetable based, perfectly fitting for a weekly CSA share, and Farmer John makes this cookbook special by adding in stories from the farm, letters from CSA members, and more. We like your pitchfork and boa, John.



5. Good and Cheap, by Leanne Brown

Ever heard someone say that eating organically is too expensive? Leanne Brown could certainly prove them wrong with this book. Written to accommodate the budget of someone living on SNAP benefits (about $4 per day),  this cookbook has a ton of ideas for cooking healthy and economic meals, using lots of vegetables and basic pantry staples - plus, offers suggestions for ingredient substitutes, to help take down that glut of zucchini! For every book purchased, a book is donated to a low-income household, but you can also download the cookbook for free in PDF format. This week's CSA member-submitted recipe came from this book!



6. Eating in Season: Recipes from Boggy Creek Farm by Carol Ann Sayle

This one is about as hyper-local and seasonal as it gets, from the folks at Boggy Creek right here in Austin! Brenton added this one to his collection when he started the backyard garden and was visiting Boggy Creek to get garden ideas. Carol Ann does a great job creating fuss-free recipes perfectly conducive to our growing seasons here in central Texas.



7. Jerusalem: A Cookbook, by Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi

This cookbook is the favorite of Ada, our office manager: "Wonderful, simple approaches to Mediterranean inspired food, which coincidentally is largely plant based, and super useful for considering seasonal veggies in a new and fresh way. Great when you need inspiration for what to do with more eggplant that often employs flavors that aren't intuitive to the average American-home cook. Not to mention the beautiful photographs and narrative on every page!"



8. Chez Panisse Vegetables, by Alice Waters

Alice Waters of the famed Chez Panisse and the Edible Schoolyard Project, believes that "cooking should be based on the finest and freshest seasonal ingredients that are produced sustainably and locally." This cookbook, with it's beautiful linotypes of veggies, has load of vegetable specific information, and recommendations from the restaurant with each dish. Perfect for impressing dinner guests with recipes from Michelin Star chefs.

Now it's your turn, CSA members -- we want to know what cookbooks you turn to when your JBG box shows up every week. Leave us your favorite in the comments!