Archive | Community Supported Agriculture RSS feed for this section

2013 Marks 20 years at Tecolote Farm!

By on December 22, 2012 in

We are thrilled to celebrate 20 full years farming the rich blackland prairie soils of our beloved home farm this year.  So much has happened to us, to Austin, to eastern Travis County in two decades, not the least of which is the community of people that has in one way or another sprung up via an affiliation with our farm.  Buoyed by this network, we are ready to start the next twenty years strong, with many new projects in the wings, and a strong, committed team. Speaking of our Farm Crew of Destiny, we just received this lovely, hand-crafted Christmas present from 2012 crew member and rising manager, Earl, who put this enduring Tecolote Farm philosophy into a physical reminder for the wash area:

Nice work, Earl! Additionally, this pastry chef-turned-farmer co-wrote our grant application to the Austin Food and Wine Alliance , and we were selected! AFWA received 30 applications, from which they had to choose only 3 grant award winners. We were proud to accept the grant, which will help us get our longstanding plans off the ground to 1. raise heritage breeds of pastured pork and 2. offer subsidized CSA shares for low income families in the area. Thank you to the grant selection committee and to the Board of Austin Food and Wine Alliance- we know we were in good company and you had hard choices to make.

These are just a couple of the big things happening in 2013, our 20th anniversary year! We are accepting new CSA members for the 2013 season. Prices are not going up and we’ll be delivering the same Awesome, not Perfect vegetables that have kept Austin happy for 20 years! Check out our CSA page for more information.   Merry Christmas~ Happy New Year!

Continue Reading · Comments { 0 }

Field and Feast visits Tecolote

By on April 28, 2012 in

Image courtesy fieldandfeast.com

Cecilia Nasti came out to the farm on the same evening that our crew was shooting skeet after work. She wasn’t ruffled, however, to hear gunshots at an organic farm. Her “real job” at Texas Parks and Wildlife has her covering hunting issues as well as natural places of beauty for their radio pieces about Texas Parks.  She recently did a story on nothing other than… skeet shooting. It was a true pleasure to hang out on the back deck with this Austin original and our one-time neighbor. Her love of food, gardening, and cooking is evident: her Field and Feast show, which airs on KUT every weekend and took the place of Growing Concerns, is her own baby. She does it to spread the good word about farm-to-table connections. Her podcast about Tecolote is airing on KUT this Saturday, April 28, at 11:55 a.m., or Sunday, April 30, at 11:01 a.m. You can also hear the podcast anytime from her website.

Cecilia Nasti, fieldandfeast.com

Continue Reading · Comments { 0 }

Spring Greens Pesto

By on April 25, 2012 in

CSA basketeer Christina found this cool recipe from a gluten-free slow cooking blog, and adds, “Everything  is vegan, but you can substitute parmesan for the nutritional yeast for amore traditional style pesto. It looks so good in that turnip soup too. ”

recipes and images courtesy of:

 Spring Greens Pesto

gluten-free, soy-free

  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 cup orange juice
  • 4 cups greens (collards, kale, arugula, spinach, etc.), stems removed and chopped
  • ¼ to ½ cup nutritional yeast
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil or extra orange juice
  • 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (or plain lemon juice)
  • ½ teaspoon smoked salt (or plain salt to taste and a few drop liquid smoke)

After you prep the greens add the water and orange juice to a sauté pan on medium heat. Add greens and cook until greens are tender, but still bright green (about 10 minutes). You can add extra water in cooking if it gets too dry.

Put all ingredients into a food processor and process until grainy or finely minced but not pureed. Add extra olive oil, water, or orange juice if the mixture is too thick.

Makes 1 to 2 cups pesto   Is recommended as well  in this soup:

Slow Cooker Potato Turnip Soup

  •   2 cups turnips, peeled and chopped
  • 4 cups potatoes, peeled and chopped
  • 4 cups water
  • 1 tablespoon vegan chick’n bouillon
  • 1 sprigs rosemary, 2 to 3 inch or 1/2 teaspoon ground
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 to 2 cups unsweetened non-dairy milk, optional

Add everything except salt, pepper, and almond milk to your slow cooker. Cook on low 6 to 8 hours.

Remove rosemary sprig and discard. Puree using an immersion blender. If you want a thinner soup add the non-dairy milk and blend it in also. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a swirl of Spring Greens Pesto on top.

Continue Reading · Comments { 0 }

Sorrel Soufflé

By on April 18, 2012 in

From Monday basketeer Stephanie Johnson.

Hi Katie, Here’s the recipe for the souffle.  It was really good; cheesy and tangy!  I love sorrel.  I had never even seen sorrel before I got my first Tecolote bunch however many years back it’s been.   It was actually quite easy to make, I hope lots of people will try it!   Love, Stephanie

Sorrel Soufflé   (Adapted from Mark Bittman’s Cheese Soufflé in How to Cook Everything)

4 Tbsp. (1/2 stick butter), plus 1 teaspoon

¼ cup flour

1½ cups milk, warmed until hot to the touch

6 eggs, separated

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Dash cayenne or 1/8 tsp. dry mustard

1 cup grated Parmesan or other hard cheese, like aged asiago, Pecorino Romano

I small shallot, minced

1 cup sorrel puree (1 bunch, stemmed and sautéed in 1 Tbsp. olive oil until it becomes a puree

 

Preheat the oven to 400°. Use the teaspoon of butter to grease a 2-quart soufflé dish or other deep baking dish, such as a Corningware-type dish. If you want to make individual soufflés, use a little more butter and grease four 1 ½ – to 2-cup ramekins.

Place a medium saucepan over medium heat and add the remaining butter. When it foams,add the flour and turn the heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring, until the mixture darkens a bit, about 3 minutes. Whisk in the milk a little at a time to avoid lumps, and then cook until the mixture is thick, just a minute or two longer.

Turn off heat and stir in the egg yolks, salt, pepper, cayenne or mustard, cheese, shallots

and sorrel puree. Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt, just until they hold soft peaks. Stir a couple of spoonfuls of the beaten whites into the batter, and then very gently—and not overly thoroughly—fold in the remaining whites using a rubber spatula. Be as gentle as possible.

Turn the batter into the prepared dish(es) and bake until the soufflé has risen and is browned on top, about 15 to 40 minutes (the lower timing is for smaller, individual soufflés; a single soufflé will take 30 minutes or more.) Use a thin skewer to check the interior; if it is still quite wet, bake another 5 minutes. If it is just a bit moist, the soufflé is done. Serve immediately.

Continue Reading · Comments { 0 }

Great Story from the Statesman’s Addie Broyles

By on April 16, 2012 in

Photo credit Austin American Statesman

Read Addie Broyles’ Food section cover story from April 11, 2012: After long battle over water, Tecolote Farm finally moving on! It has been a long four years since our wells dried up here at the original farm.  Statesman writer Addie Broyles tells the tale of how we keep on keepin’ on.

Continue Reading · Comments { 0 }

Farmer David on Community-Supported Agriculture

By on February 6, 2012 in


Outside of the Agro-industrial Pipeline

by David Pitre

Happy New Year! Here’s to Health and Peace for all of us. As always, we are excited about the coming year on the farm. One of the common traits successful farmers share is a poor memory, which allows us to specifically forget the trials, tribulations, and sore muscles of the past year while getting all giddy about the fresh young plants in the greenhouse ready to go in the ground. It’s wonderful to be able to start fresh each year.

As many of you know, we have struggled with water issues on our farm. This year we are starting to develop for farming new land about 12 miles east of us. We have planted onions there and hope to grow some of our potatoes, melons, and winter squash.  The soil there is wonderfully rich and water appears to be plentiful. We are very thankful that the opportunity for the new land arose and that we are making it work as a new farm.

You, our CSA members and regular farmers market shoppers, may not know it, but you are doing something radical.  You are supporting and investing in a relationship that flies in the face of the anonymous global marketplace.  You are creating a direct connection between the growing of the food that sustains you and your family. It is a personal relationship built on trust and respect. As we make decisions on the farm, and grow and harvest produce, we have many of your faces in our minds. It is similar to the visions of family or friends you hold as you cook in your kitchen. You have their health and happiness in mind as you cook, and it guides how you do it. This gives great meaning to what we do, and is in contrast to conventional or mono-crop large scale organic farms  that anonymously feed into the world’s agro-industrial pipeline. For those types of farmers there is little incentive to produce the best they are able because it all gets mixed in with every other farm’s product. The effect is that they only try and meet the lowest common denominator, and the bar continually lowers. Anyone that is older can attest to the fact that food quality, flavor, and nutrition is not what it was. By participating in our CSA, or weekly market,  relationship, you are receiving great, delicious, nutritious food that was grown with concern for the earth and the workers, but you are also demonstrating that our food system can be one that is honest and healthy, one that values integrity and compassion.

Continue Reading · Comments { 0 }

Lorig’s New Year Epiphany

By on January 12, 2012 in

Why I’m returning

by Lorig Hawkins, Tecolote Farm Manager-in-Training

On the last day of 2011, I proudly put my first full farm journal on my bookshelves. I was so giddy and proud at the fact that I have been farming, or rather, learning how to farm, for a year!   You see, from the moment I knew this work was for me I have documented every moment I have spent farming. For all you super geeks out there you will be happy to note I have gone one step further and after re-reading my notes I have indexed everything into topics that I can then reference in a larger notebook. Whether it was at Urban Roots, Tecolote Farm, or any other farm I’ve visited, I’ve made a point to write down everything I could remember from that day, as small as it seemed.  Because believe me, if you listen closely, are aware, and work really hard to see the bigger picture and make connections, you learn something extremely valuable every time you step foot in the fields. And I couldn’t be more fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from David and Katie at Tecolote.  He may say it flippantly or in passing but David will make comments that will guide you forever as a farmer; you just have to be listening.  And guys, I’m listening and writing it all down!

And as I shelve that first year notebook I eagerly pick up the next one, labeled 2012.  This year I will continue at Tecolote for their regular spring/summer CSA season.  I am returning for more, hungry to learn, hungry to work and sweat and ache, and hungry to continue meeting people who care about their food, and their farmers, and care about making it all accessible.  I am so excited about days of tying square knots on every single tomato plant down multiple rows in the dead of afternoon. I can’t wait to pick up ungodly heavy black crates full of sweet melons, only to have to carry them in sand, where with each step you will yourself to hold on for just a bit longer.  I look forward to grubbing for potatoes and the way it burns your knees because the sand is so hot and you have to kneel.  I look forward to cracked and cut hands and bruised elbows and knees because it’s all part of the job.  I am eager to take on more responsibility and learn as a manager how to lead and keep people excited about farming, how to encourage our team to work hard because it’s us versus the big guns and we need all the committed help we can get. I look forward to my team helping me grow as a person and challenge me to be better every moment of every day that I step out to lead and work. I am so thankful to get another chance to grow food for wonderful people and feel proud of our work.  And I can’t wait to learn more, and continue to learn everyday for the rest of my life, for I will be farming for the rest of my days. So here’s to another year of farming, and another notebook for my shelf.

Continue Reading · Comments { 2 }

2012 CSA Sign-ups & RAIN!!!

By on December 5, 2011 in

Now taking 2012 CSA sign-ups!

2012 CSA Subscription Agreements coming soon (within the next two days)-              email me at tecolotefarm@gmail.com beforehand to reserve your spot for our award-winning, long-standing vegetable delivery service!

Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson at the Paramount Stateside Theater last night was a lovely way to end a weekend full of a slow, soaking, stuck-in-the-mud kinda rain. I’d like to pay tribute to both of them and the poem which Edible Austin’s Marla Camp asked Wendell to read last night:

Water                                         from Farming: A Handbook by Wendell Berry

I was born in a drouth year. That summer my mother waited in the house, enclosed in the sun and the dry ceaseless wind, for the men to come back in the evenings, bringing water from a distant spring. veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank. And all my life I have dreaded the return of that year, sure that it still is somewhere, like a dead enemy’s soul. Fear of dust in my mouth is always with me, and I am the faithful husband of the rain, I love the water of wells and springs and the taste of roofs in the water of cisterns. I am a dry man whose thirst is praise of clouds, and whose mind is something of a cup. My sweetness is to wake in the night after days of dry heat, hearing the rain.

Continue Reading · Comments { 0 }

New well for the River Farm

By on September 28, 2011 in

After some weary years of wrestling with water lines and digging trenches for buried pipe and electric cable to a new small production well at our original Webberville farm, we are going to Hawaii going to do it again! At the new River Farm in Utley, Bastrop County, down on the Colorado River, about 12 miles east of our current farm. The well-diggers were there all day yesterday, and are at it again today, trying to find a good, dependable source of well water for us for many more decades of organic vegetable production. Fingers crossed, hopes high, looking for water when it’s oh-so-dry. We welcome all well-wishers (haha), prayers, hopeful thoughts, thunderstorms, etc.

Continue Reading · Comments { 1 }

Keeping the faith

By on September 16, 2011 in


We hope you have all survived the hottest, driest central Texas summer in recorded history! While our plans to take the kids on a road trip to the mountain ranges of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana preceded knowledge of the horrendous summer that lay ahead, in retrospect we feel very fortunate that we weren’t picking okra in 107° all July!! I know many of you missed the okra, melons, tomatoes, sweet peppers and cucumber-melons that late summer baskets bring, but have no fear: we’ll be doing summer season as usual starting again in 2012.
The real question on everyone’s mind, though, is: “Will there even be a fall season in this dratted weather, and, if so, when will it start?” We planned and were excited about a fall CSA (our first ever), so we plunged right in- despite the daunting late August/early September weather- and got seeds started in plug trays (in the cooler!) and transplants in the hot ground. We wanted to start the first week of October, or last week of September. It has been an act of hope planting into hard, dry ground full of clods, and keeping the soil moist enough to entice germination and continued life. We sent Zachary, our eldest, up to Jarrell one day with the truck and trailer to purchase 3 round bales of corn stalks for use as mulch. The newly-transplanted peppers and eggplants wouldn’t have survived without protection, and there was not a stalk of untreated hay or straw to be had within all surrounding counties. Corn farmers who lost their crop still baled the stalks to sell for feed to hay-starved livestock, beneficial at least for caloric value.
So, the short answer is: “Yes, we still plan to do a Fall CSA, and hope to start in mid October.” The long answer is, “We are doing everything we can to ensure a varied and bountiful crop for fall baskets, but are losing a lot to the heat and low soil moisture. Baskets will be $33, as before, and a rough estimate now is a 4-6 week season.
Luckily, our new Bastrop County land was not touched by the fires. We have friends who have lost their homes, and a neighbor who lost her brother, to the wildfires. It is at times like these that we count our blessings and remember those who are suffering most directly. Thanks for keeping the wildfire victims and Texas farmers in your thoughts and prayers.

Continue Reading · Comments { 0 }