By Jessye Hipp

Shaved Carrot Salad

Time: 15 mins Serves: 2

-6 small, or 4 medium, carrots (I used a blend of orange, white, and red carrots)

-4 radishes, thinly sliced

-1/3 cup roasted sunflower seeds

-grated or shaved parmesan (whatever you have on hand is great)

-2 tbls fresh parsley, roughly chopped

-salt & pepper

-4tbls herb olive oil

-1/2 lemon, juiced

Using either a mandolin or a vegetable peeler, thinly slice the carrots into long shavings.   Repeat this process with the radishes.

In a medium bowl, combine the herb olive oil, lemon juice, and a generous sprinkling of salt & pepper. Mix well.

Toss the carrots in the vinaigrette.

To assemble the salads, mound the carrot shavings in the center of a plate, sprinkle with radishes, sunflower seeds, Parmesan, parsley, and another sprinkling of salt & pepper. Drizzle the top of the salad with the remainder of the vinaigrette.

Take a step back to admire your beautiful salad… and ENJOY! J

Feel free to add other shaved veggies to your salad as well! Good options for this would be asparagus, zucchini, cucumber, bell pepper, or red onion. The possibilities are endless!

CSA Box Contents Week of April 20th

In a field of artichokes. Photo by Scott David Gordon

I have exciting news - we are going to be putting up two new houses at the farm.  These won't be your typical abodes, though, as they're made for bats!  Designed by bat conservationists, each structure provides enough space for 400 bats, so if all goes well, we'll have soon 800 bats residing at JBG.  While I would love to take credit for this idea, it wasn't mine.  It came from Temo, JBG's long-time Irrigation Manager and key employee.  In addition to handling irrigation for the farm, Temo also does a lot with pest management, and he thought that attracting bats would be a great way to control bugs.  I agreed, and so we will be mounting these bat houses on poles close to the river - here's to hoping that these elevated homes are irresistible to our bat friends!

We are going to be trying out another way to control pests, and this one involves a vacuum.  Yes, we will be sucking up bugs!  This way, we can target the bugs that are a nuisance to our plants and keep the ones that are beneficial.   Another way we boost our beneficial insect population is through planting flowers.  This week, we laid out the beds for half an acre of permanent flower beds at the entrance of the farm.  It is going to look beautiful, and we hope to be able to bring about 300 bunches of organically-grown flowers to the farmers markets each week.  I can't wait to see these beds in full-bloom.  In addition to the flowers, we will be establishing bee hives at JBG, so soon the place will be abuzz with even more honey bee activity!

Montana & Angel, two members of our amazing crew. Photo by Scott David Gordon

I myself feel like I've been abuzz with lots of new ideas for the farm.  As you may know, I take my tape recorder with me when I go running so I can keep track of all these ideas.  This weekend, I think I had over 200 ideas while running - that's a lot to go through, especially when the speaker is out of breath!  Sometimes, I think all my new ideas make the JBG staff nervous...  I say this because often when we make a change, there's extra work involved in learning how to do things differently.  Take the decision we made not to use plastic mulch anymore.  While everyone on staff supports this decision, it has led to a lot more work.  As Temo says, the hardest part of this has been the weeds - without the plastic to control the weeds, they have gone wild!  Right now, we don't have enough tractors to implement the most efficient way of weed control, and it has left Temo and his crew struggling to keep up.  We are learning as we go here, and that can be difficult given we already have a full plate of work to accomplish each day.  The process of change can be hard, and I have to thank our crew for sticking with me through the rough parts.   I am lucky to have such an amazing staff.  They may be a little wary of all of my ideas, but they always put in the effort to make the farm a better and better place.

We hope you are enjoying the artichokes in your CSA shares! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Visitors on the Wholesale Tour stop to harvest carrots. Photo by Scott David Gordon

We've had a lot of visitors are JBG this week!  First, Brenton lead a tour for our wholesale customers which including folks from Vox, Honest Lick Ice Cream, Bento Picnic, Lauren's Garden Mix, Good Earth Farm School, and Salt and Time,.  Then, he gave a tour to the Texas Farm Bureau that over 30 farmers attended.  We thank all who visited for taking the time to walk through our fields.  For those of you who didn't make it out, we hope you enjoy these photos taken by our fantastic photographer, Scott David Gordon.

Wholesale walking tour. Photo by Scott David Gordon

And one of the many bees who visits the farm! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Growing for Spring! Photo by Scott David Gordon

And look at those tomatoes - they will be ripe before you know it! Photo by Scott David Gordon

A strawberry trial crop is looking great! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Harvesting carrots. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Carrots! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Thanks to all the volunteers who lent us a hand this week including very regular helper, Jacob Crowson! Photo by Scott David Gordon

Thank you, volunteers! Photo by Scott David Gordon

JBG's Matt Pelkey pushes a full load of CSA shares. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Our driver, Lucas, gets the CSA boxes loaded up for delivery. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Blue Skies over our fields. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Roasted carrot & ginger soup

By Jessye Hipp

Hello springtime!!  Farmers markets are bursting with beautiful carrots this time of year. This is a bright, healthy, springtime soup to use up some of those orange beauties!

Roasted Carrot & Ginger Soup

Time: 1 hr Serves: 4

-12 small or 6 large carrots, peeled and diced into large pieces

-1 onion, diced into large chunks (I used spring onions, and halved three of them)

-4 garlic cloves, smashed

-1 tbls olive oil

-salt & pepper

-1 tbls fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated

-2 tbls unsalted butter

-1 cup low sodium chicken broth

-1-2 cups of water

-sour cream for garnish

-pepitas for garnish

-chives for garnish

-sriracha for garnish

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium baking dish, toss the carrots, garlic, and onions together with the olive oil and a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. Cover the dish loosely with foil and roast for 40-45 minutes until the carrots are very tender.

Transfer the roasted veggies to a food processor and add the butter and grated ginger. Blend until the mixture is a smooth puree. Add the chicken stock as needed to smooth it out.

Add ½ cup of water at a time and blend until your desired consistency.   Taste for additional salt and pepper. Add if needed.

To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and dollop with a small spoon of sour cream. Sprinkle with the pepitas and chives. Dot or drizzle with sriracha to finish it off. Enjoy!  YUM.

Romaine lettuce transplants. Photo by Scott David Gordon

Need transplants for your garden?  There's still time to order our certified organic transplants, but time is running out!  Our online transplant sale will end on April 30th.  So, don't delay - order what you need for your garden now by clicking here.

CSA Box Contents Week of April 13th