Summer produces seems to announce itself so suddenly. Squash! Okra! Cucumbers! Tomatoes and eggplant are still lagging in the fields, but after some sunny weeks, they’ll come a knockin. Of course, we don’t want you to miss out on the final moments of broccoli, lettuce, and cabbage… you’ll miss them dearly…. But we’re rolling out the carpet for the veggies on the scene. This week, we’re sharing some of the most classic summer recipes to get you ready for the bounty to come. Need to secure your tomato fix? Don't forget to pre-order through our bulk sale. 

Photo by The Migoni Kitchen

Ratatouille

A summer pattern of zucchini, squash, tomatoes, and eggplant. A humble dish, simple in its ingredients list, but stunning in its presentation.

Photo by Sheena's Pickles.

Pickled Cucumbers

This week’s featured recipe by Sheena’s Pickles couldn’t be more timely. Cucumbers are just starting to roll in, and this simple sour pickle is a great place to start. But don’t let your pickle adventure stop with cucumbers…okra, squash, and zucchini deserve their time in brine, too.

Photo by The Migoni Kitchen

Homemade Roasted Salsa

Tomatoes, peppers, onions, and cilantro. Salsa recipe run the spectrum, but this simple recipe is a reminder that making salsa at home is incredibly easy. And the end product will be better than something from a jar.

Photo by Rick Cortez.

Tomato and Peach Salad

Hill country peaches are just starting to become available, and tomatoes are trailing right behind, making this tomato and peach salad, served over a swirl of labne with a tomato vinaigrette, an ideal summer plate.

Photo by Runnan Li.

Smashed Eggplants with Chili

The eggplant wave is coming, and this spicy Chinese dip will help you wade through the bounty.

This week's recipe was provided by pickle expert, Sheena's Pickles. Sheena often uses JBG produce for her pickled delights, and we were thrilled when she agreed to share her classic sour recipe with us.. with you! It's pickling season, y'all!

Photo by Shenna of Shenna's Pickles!

This recipe is my sister Alisha’s (Lee’s) favorite pickle flavor. It is a classic, clean, and simple sour pickle.

Prep time: 20 minutes Water bath time: 10 minutes Ready to eat in about four weeks Shelf life: 1 year (or more)

Ingredients: Yields 5 pint-size jars

• 8 cups white vinegar (5% acidity)
• ½ cup of pickling salt
•  ¼ cup granulated sugar
•  ¼ cup dry mustard
•  3 lbs of pickling cucumbers

 

Homework:

If this is your first time canning pickles, please read about the water canning method. This method allows you to have a safe, repeatable, shelf-stable product.

What to buy:

• Pickling cucumbers: Do not use the waxy, shiny salad cucumbers. These cucumbers will make your pickles mushy. Find pickling cucumbers at your local Farmer's Market.
• Pickling salt: Can be purchased at your local grocery store. You can find it on the same aisle with the ice cream salt. Do not use table salt for this recipe.
• Extra canning lids: Canning lids are designed for one-time use. Rings can be used multiple times. Wash and rinse them before use.

Prep:

• Wash pickling cucumbers, remove the ends, and slice. *Note: The ends of cucumbers contain enzymes that can cause the cucumber to go soft. Remove at least 1/16th of an inch from the ends before you cut cucumbers into rounds or spears.
• Wash and rinse your jars well.
• Prepare a boiling water bath with enough water to cover your pint-size jars.
• Sterilize jars---your jars need to be submerged in boiling water for 10 minutes.
• Remove the sterilized jars from the boiling water.

Packing jars:

• In a saucepot, heat the vinegar, sugar, pickling salt, and dry mustard until the mixture comes to a simmer and the salt and sugar dissolve. This brine will be cloudy and yellow due to the dry mustard.
• Pack a sterilized pint-size jar with pickling cucumbers. Leave 1/2 inch of space at the top of the jar for liquid.
• Cool the brine down to warm, and fill the jars so that everything is covered with brine.
• Remove air bubbles by placing a nonmetallic spatula or plastic knife inside the jar between the food and the side of the jar. Gently press the spatula against the food to create a path for trapped air to escape. If this step is not done, air bubbles can cause pressure to build during water bath canning and it can break your jar.
• Recheck the headspace and add more brine if necessary.
• Wipe the jar rims and apply lids and rings. Screw the rings on firmly, but do not overtighten.

Canning

• Process in a boiling hot water bath for 10 minutes.
• When the timer goes off, remove jars using a jar lifter and place them on a kitchen towel.
• Let jars cool before handling.

Note: You don't want to have any resistance from the lids, meaning that when you press the lid center, it should not make a cling-clang sound. If it does, this means that your product did not seal properly. Remove the lid and toss away. Any unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used promptly.

Photo by Shenna of Shenna's Pickles!

CSA Box Contents Week of May 24th

Individual: Potato, Beet, Green Beans, Fennel, Collard Greens, Cabbage

Small: Potato, Green Beans, Radish, Spinach, Carrot, Squash

Medium: Potato, Cabbage, Green Beans, Squash, Cucumber, Radish, Harvest Highlight, Bok Choy

Large: Potato, Cabbage, Beet, Green Beans, Squash, Cucumber, Spinach, Radish, Harvest Highlight, Onion, Bok Choy, Fennel

It's been a wet few weeks at the farm, and we find all the dry moments to get things done. This week, we made a big push to get our beets out of the ground and into storage. Left in the ground, they would be in danger of rot and pest destruction. Stored safely in our cooler, and we've got beets for weeks.

Bulk red beets. Thousands of pounds.

Basil! For days! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

The first of the okra showing itself! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Planting basil in between rows of tomatoes is a nice way to invite in a bit of airflow, which can not only help keep the plants healthy but our staff happy. It gets hot in those tomato rows come mid-June! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

San Marzanos looking rather sexy. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Bulk beets with Vicente at the lead! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Temo may or may not have dressed to match the bulk beet harvest. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Loaded onto the tailer, headed for the coolers. Growing beets organically isn't an easy feat, and we're so proud of this large harvest! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Why, hello there. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Do you love leeks at much as we do? Unlike onions, we don't cure them, and so their seasonal moment is rather brief. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Our planting team is rather extraordinary. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Spring cabbages are always a bit smaller than their fall counterparts. We love them just the same. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

The shade provided by this harvest trailer is a big deal. Once we harvest a sensitive crop like cabbage, it gets put into the shade immediely where it begins to cool down before being placed in the coolers. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Little acron squash, showing their shape. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

And cucumbers, too! It really must be summer! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Operation onion-cure. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Whelp, we don't have a lot to say this week except one very anticipated announcement: Tomatoes are here. If you've been a farm patron for many years, you know how wild we go about tomatoes. If you're new to the JBG community, here's the gist: Every year we grow thousands of tomato plants of our very favorite, tried, and true tomato varieties. Tomatoes are a very labor-intensive crop to grow and harvest, but they are truly one of our favorite vegetables to offer. We get so much joy (and usually a few grey hairs) from our tomato season each summer. If you've ever had a homegrown tomato, you know just how superior they taste. We want you to enjoy this, too! Every year we run a Tomato Bulk Sale... this is our 13th annual! Through this online sale, you can reserve your portion of our tomato harvest... in bulk. Many of you have made sweet family traditions centered around our bulk sale - canning tomato sauce or making ginormous batches of salsa to get you throughout the year. Can 'em, freeze 'em, sauce 'em... whatever your tomato dreams may be, we're here to make them a reality. The Bulk Sale webpage is up as of Today!

Reserve your tomatoes through this link. As always, shoot us an email if you have any questions - farm@jbgorganic.com.

Happy tomato season, y'all! It's begun! Scroll to see a few of the tomato varieties offered in this year's sale.

Cherokee Purple tomatoes are our favorite heirloom to grow. These rank at the tippy top of the tomato-flavor scale. Their skin can range in hues from deep purple to blueish green, and when sliced open, the centers are dark red. Cherokee purple tomatoes are super sweet, and a very good choice for your inaugural BLT.

Green tomatoes! Before tomatoes are red, they're green! Chefs and home cooks love green tomatoes. Of course, they're perfect for breading and frying, but you can do so much more with green tomato. Roast them and incorporate them into a green salsa. Chop them and throw them in a curry. Green tomatoes are firmer than red ones, and so can stand up to cooking in a way that red ones can't.

The beloved San Marzano is a sauce or plum tomato. This Italian heirloom variety is known for its thick meaty flesh and relative lack of seeds ant water content. San marzanos are the queens of sauce tomatoes. If you want to try your hand at making marinara, or sauce to preserve, this is your tomato. For a quicker route, you can also peel and preserve these whole!

If you don't snack them all first, cherry tomatoes make a wonderful tomato to preserve, as well. One of our favorite ways to use these is to dehydrate or to slowly roast in an oven. A handful of dehydrated cherry tomatoes is a flavor bomb you can add to any pasta, salad, for frittata for seasons to come.

Stay tuned for infomration on our 2021 U-Pick. We've yet to set a date, but if you're signed up for our newsletter, you'll be the first to know.

Just an insider's peak into our tomato packing! Look at these beautiful orders of slicing tomatoes, ready to go for market! If you're unsure of what tomato to order in bulk, you really can't go wrong with a slicer. It's the workhorse of the tomato: Perfect for a BLT, or perfect to be blitzed into a sauce.

Tomatoes are ripening slowly right now at the farm, but here is a glimpse into what a harvest at the peak of the season looks like. Pray for us!

• 3 large or 6 small purple or green kohlrabi, thick sliced
• 2 cups fresh spinach, roughly chopped
• 1/2 can coconut milk
• 1 tsp. mustard seeds
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 1 tomato, rough chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, diced
• 2 tbs. coconut oil

• 1 tbs. curry powder
• 1/2 tsp. turmeric
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt

• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 tbs. coconut oil
• 1 tbs. smoked paprika
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1/2 tsp. cayenne

• 1 cup jasmine rice
• The other 1/2 can of coconut milk + water to equal 2 cups
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. sugar

CSA Box Contents Week of May 17th

Individual: Squash, Chard, Cabbage, Potato, Carrot, Red Leaf Lettuce

Small: Beet, Squash, Chard, Cauliflower, Fennel, Onion, Red Leaf Lettuce

Medium: Squash, Cabbage, Potato, Carrot, Leeks, Harvest Highlight, Collard, Onion

Large: Squash, Chard, Cauliflower, Potato, Carrot, Leek, Herb, Harvest Highlight, Kale, Cucumbers, Onion, Red Leaf Lettuce