This week we're giving the mic to our friends at Texas Farmers' Markets. Before we do, a friendly reminder that the 2020 Tomato Presale is still under way! Order your 'maters here, and pick them up at your favorite market! Also! If you're interested in seeing a virtual tour of JBG, be sure to tune in on Monday, June 1st at 10am! We're teaming up with the markets and Farmer Brenton and showing you what we're growing! Without further adieu, a word from Texas Farmers' Markets:

Johnson’s Backyard Garden has been a keystone farm at Texas Farmers’ Markets at Lakeline and Mueller for 10 years. If you are a JBG devotee you may have visited our markets over the years to pick up your CSA box, or to shop from JBG’s beautiful display of seasonal organic produce. We hope that when you stopped by their booth, you also spent some time perusing the market — maybe you picked up a basket of startlingly sweet Fredericksburg peaches, enjoyed a piping hot cup of locally roasted coffee, bit into a crunchy baguette still warm from the oven, chatted with a cheesemaker over a sample of chevre, or listened to some tunes by the local musicians that performed on our center stage. We pride ourselves on being a pillar of the local sustainable agriculture community and that is reflected in our nonprofit’s policies as a year-round, producer-only market with strict rules around sustainability and the humane treatment of animals.

Photo of our market staff adapting to COVID-19 by Annie Ray. Checkout her Instagram to see beautiful portrait shots of food industry workers, all around town.

As is true for so many these days, our operations have been turned on their head by COVID-19 and our markets look rather different than the festive gathering spot you know and love. From the very beginning of the pandemic, our city government recognized what an important role farmers’ markets play in feeding Austinies and supporting the local economy and we have remained open. But in order for our farmers’ markets to continue to serve our community, we had to enact many changes to keep our staff, market vendors and shoppers safe.

 

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, during an average week our two markets hosted over 130 unique local farmers, ranchers, and small business owners, and welcomed over 10,000 shoppers. Since the pandemic hit, we are seeing 70-80 vendors continuing to sell at our markets and around 4,000 customers per weekend. Needless to say, we are open but operating at a much reduced capacity. But we are so thankful for our amazing vendors that are continuing to sell at our markets and provide shoppers with a safe, fresh and healthy supply of local food. And we are so lucky to have so many devoted shoppers who recognize how critical sustainable food is for keeping a population healthy. Now more than ever we are witnessing how vital the ties across the local food movement are for ensuring a resilient community.



 

But while our vendor and shopper counts are low, our staffing and supply costs have gone up. Our markets employ 4 full time staff members that work throughout the week to ensure that our markets run smoothly every weekend, that vendors get the information they need to set up safely, and that shoppers know what to expect when they arrive at our markets. Our core team does everything: from checking health department permits, to crafting market layouts, to running farm inspections, to working with the Sustainable Food Center on food access, to answering social media questions, to running crisis management, and so much more. Prior to the pandemic our core team members already worked from home outside of their time at the market, but the day to day tasks of our team have shifted in many different ways in order to keep things running smoothly during this difficult time.

 

In addition to our core team, our markets employ 15 part time crew who do jobs like set up tents, distribute food stamps, sanitize work stations, haul trash and manage a totally new market setup now that COVID-19 has impacted our community. Our markets would not be running if it were not for their flexibility and bravery to still be working customer-facing positions each and every week. Truly, their jobs have changed in almost every way since the start of the pandemic, and they amazingly rolled with the punches. For example, while our markets used to be a place of free-flowing entry, we now must put caution tape around the perimeter and have very specific designated entrances and exits in order to manage the number of people inside the market, sanitize every person’s hands and check for the required face mask of every person. Just monitoring customer entry takes a lot of market staff!



Our team feels incredibly lucky to have been able to retain all of our staff (and have actually increased our at-market team member presence) and keep going, but staying open also means our supply costs for running the markets have increased. We now need items we never had to account for in the past — for example every month we use four gallons of hand sanitizer ($240), four boxes of gloves ($70) and six rolls of caution tape ($50). But while staff and supply costs have gone up, our market’s revenue has gone down. Many people don’t know that the farmers’ market is a nonprofit organization and our operating budget is generated through weekly booth fees, local business sponsorships and government grants. Our vendors pay on a graduated fee scale, where farmers and ranchers pay the least amount, and as we have seen our weekly vendor numbers cut in half, as well as our sponsorships dry up, our financial picture is less than rosey. That is why, for the first time in our organization’s ten year history, we are asking the public for donations.

 

 

We are asking that if you love the farmers’ market, send us a few dollars and help us fill up our lemonade jug. Whether you have $5 or $500, every amount counts. Have you enjoyed live music at the market? Dropped off compost in our community compost station? Learned how to make sourdough bread or kimchi in a workshop at the Austin Fermentation Festival? Tasted a delicious sample of something seasonal our market chef has cooked up in the demo tent? Made a birdseed ball in the kids area for Earth Day? These are all activities our farmers’ market has provided to the public free of charge over the years, and we hope to be able to run all of these activities again soon. But unless we are able to raise $30,000 by July 30, we may never be able to reinstate some of these programs ever again. Simply put, our organization is struggling to keep our markets open to put food on your plates and we are asking for community support.



 

While we can’t offer physical donation thank you gifts, we want to offer something in return for supporting our markets. That is why this month we are running behind the scenes Instagram Live tours on the farmers’ market Instagram page (@TexasFarmersMarket) with some of your favorite market farmers. Join us for 30-minute tours where we talk shop, play with goats, give home gardening tips and even take audience questions. On June 1 at 10am we will be doing a tour with JBG! Other dates include June 4th at 10am with Belle Vie Farm, June 17th at 10am with Shirttail Creek Farm and June 25th at 10am with B5 Farm. If you can’t catch the live videos, not to worry, they will be posted on the market’s Instagram TV channel. If you don’t have the means to donate but want to support the market, why not share info about the tours and invite others to join us?

During this crisis we have been continuously bowled over by the support our community has shown our markets. Y’all have kept us going through an incredibly difficult time. Thank you for being market shoppers and helping Texas Farmers’ Market continue to run safely! 

Photo of Nora by Riley Blanks via Austion Women. Thank you, Nora, for sharing an insiders look into what it takes to keep our markets running!

Photo and recipe by Mackenzie Smith

According to the internet, cabbage is expected to be the main ingredient in slaw, but I couldn’t think of a better way to describe this tangy, crunchy kohlrabi & fennel situation with a hit of red onion, sweetened with a little raw honey, flecked with fresh herbs and chili flakes.

Any combination of crunchy fruit and veggies: apple, rutabaga, Asian pear, jicama, and yes, cabbage, work well with this dressing, which can also be endlessly adapted based on what you have on hand. Substitute lime or grapefruit for lemon-- or vinegar for citrus, jam or maple syrup for honey -- use what you have and tweak it till it tastes just right. Keep it crisp, and LMK if you think of a better name than slaw :)

Dressing: 4 tablespoons olive oil Juice and zest from one lemon ½ tablespoon honey 1 teaspoon vinegar ½ teaspoon fine sea salt 1 tablespoon fresh chopped dill

2 kohlrabi, peeled and julienned or grated 2 small fennel bulbs, thinly sliced ½ a small red onion, thinly sliced Chopped mint & dill (or any fresh soft herb) Red pepper flakes

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients with salt and chopped dill. Add kohlrabi to dressing and stir, then mix in fennel and onions. Top with a handful of fresh chopped herbs. Taste, and add salt if you think you should.

CSA Box Contents Week of May 25th

One post, two weeks at the farm. Below you'll see Scott's photos from the past two weeks at JBG. He visited the fields and the barn, and experienced days of downpour as well as days of extreme heat. In just a mere week, a lot can happen at a farm: new crops are ready, old ones retire, machines break and then are fixed, and all the while the crops rolls in so we can roll them out. Have you been enjoying the vegetables? Scroll to see where and how they're grown!

Week of 5.22.20 Photos

Before there are tomatoes, there are green leafy plants. These nightshades take nutrients from the soil and energy from the sun and leaf out. Only then, will they set fruit. Right now, the farm is full of tomato plants, heavy with fruit. Next up: Ripening! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Some tomatoes we cage, some we stake. These tomatoes are planted between wooden stakes, and will be propped up by a trellis system called the Florida Weave. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

How well do you know your tomatoes? Can you identify these oblong, paste tomatoes? Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Where would basil be without tomatoes, and vice-a-versa? Photo by Scott David Gordon.

And just like that, there were peppers. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Plenty of peppers. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Leeks, the more temporal allium of the season, showing off their pale hues and long curves. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Week of 5.15.20 Photos

New sign at the Garfield Farm so the volunteers don't head to the stage the mechanic doesn't report to the greenhouse. Photo by Scott David Gordon, sign by Adam (we think).

It's straw hat season, y'all! Perhaps it's a surprise to you, but it remains jean and long-sleeve shirt season year round. There is no better way to protect from the sun, bugs, and weeds than coverage! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Scarlet turnips, by the bin. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Alternative collard banding, right around the middle. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

One long row, so many collards. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Vicente gets busy cultivating! As temperatures heat up, so does the weed pressure. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Our very first squash made their debut last week. How beautiful are they!? Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Fun fact? When this logo was designed years ago, the lines in the block letters were inspired by the line of our crop beds. Now that you know, bet you won't forget! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Welcome to the team! New (to us) fork lift for the farm! This is a BIG deal! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

A smattering of orange and green and one of our most popular crops. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Rainy days, endless carrots. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Andrew organizing the city of CSA. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Temo, in the middle of the Hergotz pack shed, addressing a spot in the concrete that was known for spilling multiple carts of beets and towers of turnips. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

The pink and the green are complementary colors, but we swear we didn't plan it. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Bulk beets get harvested into these big bins, and then washed in our nifty-difty barrel washer. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Here the come, out the other side! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Veggies sorted, washed, packed, and ready for their final home. Hopefully it's your dinner plate! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Things were busy this week at the farm (see the photos here)- the Tomato Presale is under way (order here), CSA boxes are flying off the line, and our squash plants are really starting to put on fruit. The first of the tomatoes have even begun to roll in, inducing an all-farm feeling of giddy excitement and exhausted dread... all at once. If this warm weather keeps up, the 15,000 tomato plants that we put into the ground this year will soon be dripping with ripe fruit before we know it. 

There were several mechanical obstacles to overcome this week, including a forklift that finally was tired beyond repair. Our potato harvester also needed some sudden attention, which meant long calls to parts dealers and some serious bartering with local welders and machine shops .

Last October, our friend Bud Force shot parts of a commercial for Cavender's at the farm. We all-but forgot about this fun day, until this week when we caught a glimpse of the final product. Watch the short docu-style commercial here, and see if you can't spot a familiar farmer! Unlike most commercials, the men and women featured here are real ranchers, farmers, and cowboys.. not actors. 

Last, East Side Magazine recently published this story about the farm, and we thought we'd include it here for you to see! Thank you East Side Magazine and Jessi for shining a spotlight on the farm, we appreciate it! 

Thanks for reading, and stay well! 

 

Get Out in the Backyard Johnson’s Backyard Garden offers space to grow in community.

Words by Jessi Devenyns Photos by Scott David Gordon\



Brenton Johnson, East Austin resident behind Johnson’s Backyard Garden (JBG), has always enjoyed plants, but he didn’t always know how to grow them. It was in college that the future farm owner discovered his knack for cultivating houseplants, which set a domino effect into motion that led to him abruptly switch majors from mechanical engineering to agricultural engineering in the hopes of working one day on an organic farm on the West Coast. Instead of leading him immediately to life on the farm though, Brenton got a 9-5.

Working a desk job never stopped Brenton from getting his hands dirty. While working for the government in early 2000, Brenton began transforming his yard into a vegetable garden, which, in addition to growing produce, sprouted a community of neighbors and volunteers. “When I first started, I put an ad on Craigslist, and I ended up getting two volunteers,” Brenton recalls. “And those two volunteers ended up having a really long relationship with JBG.”

The farm today That relationship flourished as Brenton’s farm grew from an overflowing backyard full of chickens and vegetables in the Holly neighborhood to a 20-acre site in East Austin to now a commercial enterprise that is located outside the city limits, but still east.

Nearly 20 years later, JBG is a far cry from the neighborhood Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program that it started as. Today, Brenton’s vegetable patch is a sprawling 186 acres in Garfield, Texas, with 100 employees who range from greenhouse managers and farmhands to operations directors and delivery drivers. One thing that has not changed, however, is Brenton’s dedication to teaching agriculture to Austinites and developing gardeners out of volunteers.

Despite operating at a scale that allows for the provision of fresh produce to local restaurants and markets, volunteers are still a core force of the operations at JBG. Dozens of local residents trek to the organic farm on any given day to exercise their skills in gardening, preparing CSA boxes, or working at the markets.

Connection to nature and neighbor Besides the satisfaction of absorbing fresh air and sunshine alongside the plants, each volunteer has the option to indulge in the fruits of their labor with some veggies. Not only that, but the 20-minute drive to Garfield has the ability to transport Austin-dwellers into another realm: one that provides a purposeful connection to nature and neighbors.

Brenton says that’s exactly what makes time spent on the farm so idyllic. Vegetables require long hours of tending, but that careful attention allows for a thriving business and community to be built from the seeds of crisp rainbow chard and sun-ripened tomatoes.

Support a Farm & Eat Fresh Austinites looking for fresh produce can join the farm’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program where they can select from a variety of box sizes and delivery schedules to suit their culinary needs. Summer produce shares include crowd favorites like homegrown tomatoes, watermelon, and squash. Be sure to check their website for updates and availability.

Balsamic Onion Jam Makes 2 cups Author: The Migoni Kitchen Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

We were so excited to get some beautiful spring onions in our box this week so we opted to make a delicious onion jam with them! It’s a great way to use up a lot of onions all at once and preserve them for later use. Plus, this is such a delicious condiment to pair with a cheeseboard, use on sandwiches, or top off burgers. With Memorial Day this weekend - this would be an excellent topping for backyard burgers!

You can also create many different variations. We’ve added bacon before - especially delicious on burgers! You can also add rosemary and thyme for an herbed onion jam. You can add some pepperoncini peppers (or the gorgeous cherry bomb peppers we sometimes get in our box!) for a spicy version. You get the point!

The jam does require a bit of time to cook, but is super easy! We used a bit of fruit pectin in ours to create a more jammy consistency, but you can sub with lemon juice as an alternative.

Ingredients: 2 Lbs Spring Onions, diced 1 Cup Granulated Sugar 4 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar 4 Tbsp Olive Oil 2 Tsps Fruit Pectin OR 2 Tbsp Lemon Juice ½ Cup Water

Instructions:

Add the diced onions and olive oil to a large pot with a lid (we used a Dutch Oven). Place over medium heat and cover with lid. Cook for about 15 minutes. Remove the lid and stir the onions. There will likely be a lot of liquid in the pot, which is normal. Next, add the balsamic vinegar, sugar, and fruit pectin. Stir to combine and reduce heat to low-medium heat. Allow to simmer without a lid for about 90 minutes, stirring once every 10-15 minutes to ensure the onions are not sticking. Add small amounts of water a time to help prevent sticking. We used about ½ a cup of water total, adding in 2-3 tablespoons at a time. Remove from heat once the jam has reached a dark brown color and the onions have a soft texture. Allow to cool before jarring.

CSA Box Contents Week of May 18th