If you have been a fan of the broccoli and cauliflower found in our Grab-n-Go veggie cooler, you won’t want to miss the last wave we are planting this week! These two crops have been our best sellers over the winter season, and we will only have a limited amount available until this last round matures. The warmer weather we have experienced this winter has caused some of our broccoli to produce flowers - the plant's natural response when it feels stressed. Thankfully, this weekend will bring cooler temperatures which will make these cool-weather crops feel right at home!

We’re excited that baby carrots are back on the menu! This sweet staple is a family favorite and can be enjoyed as a healthy snack, in a warm soup, or a savory stir fry. We planted carrots in our high tunnel and two beds in the field, so you can be assured of a steady supply throughout the winter and spring months. If you ever want to make use of the whole carrot while reducing food waste, we recommend including them in a carrot-top pesto recipe like this or adding them to a homemade veggie stock.

One of the highlights of our week as farmers has been admiring the sweet honey bees that love to visit our plants in bloom on Sunset Farm. We encourage you to take a walk by the farm sometime and soak up the colorful landscape. Hopefully these bees will stick around to help pollinate our Spring crops like tomatoes and squash that will be planted in just a few months!

​​In Season: Baby Carrots, Broccoli (limited), Cauliflower (limited), Spinach, Celery, Fennel, Green Onions, Green Cabbage, Parsley, Cilantro, Collard Greens, Curly Kale, Red Russian Kale, Tuscan Kale, Romaine Lettuce Heads, Swiss Chard, Arugula, and Radishes

The Jordan Ranch Lifestyle team is hosting a holiday movie night this Friday, December 19th, from 5:30-7:30pm on the farm! The field will be transformed into a cozy outdoor cinema for a viewing of the beloved Christmas classic, Elf. You’re encouraged to bring your own blankets and lawn chairs so you can settle in and enjoy the show. One of our farmers will be on site before the movie starts to answer any farm-related questions. For more details about this free event, head here. 

We harvested the first Tokyo Bekana in the high tunnel this week! Tokyo Bekana is a Chinese cabbage variety that does not produce a head. The leaves are buttery soft and have a mildly sweet cabbage flavor. Due to its soft texture, Tokyo Bekana leaves can be used as a salad green. Try combining it with some of our lettuce! If you’d like to enjoy it cooked, it can be substituted into any recipes calling for Napa cabbage or Bok Choy. We recommend trying it in this stir-fry or this slaw. 

Our broccolini has been incredibly popular at the Farm Stand! We planted another round of it in the field this week so we can have more for you later in the winter season. Our cauliflower has also been very popular over the past couple of weeks! We used some to make this cauliflower curry recently and it was really delicious, especially with some of our cilantro for garnish. Make sure to snag some from the Grab-and-Go coolers for your weekend meals!

In Season: Tokyo Bekana, Broccoli, Parsley, Cilantro, Dill, Collard Greens, Cauliflower, Curly Kale, Red Russian Kale, Tuscan Kale, Bok Choy, Lettuce Heads, Swiss Chard, Arugula, Hakurei Turnips, Amara Mustard Greens, Wasabina Mustard Greens, Radishes, Green Onions, Lunchbox Peppers, and Bell Peppers

We are excited to share that we harvested the first broccoli of the season for you this week! It is a variety of “bunching broccoli” which means the plants grow a smaller central head along with many small side shoots. We love this tender broccoli for its flavor and ease of prep in the kitchen. Since there are several smaller shoots bunched together, there’s minimal cutting involved! You can find bunching broccoli along with all of our other fall crops in the Grab-and-Go coolers. 

What have you been loving recently from the Farm Stand? Farmer Sarah has really been enjoying the Tuscan kale! She loves to blend it into a smoothie along with bananas, frozen blueberries, peanut butter, almond milk, and protein powder. Farmer Mary loves the spring onions because they’re super versatile. She enjoys using them as a garnish for most of her meals, especially egg tacos. Curious what else is in season this week? Check out the list at the end of the post! 

Planting continued this week with a round of fennel and celery. Both of these cool season crops are members of the Apiaceae family along with other favorites like carrots, cilantro, and dill. Members of this family are characterized by the umbrella-like shape of their flowers, though we typically harvest them before they reach the flowering stage! Fennel takes just about two months to go from seed to petite harvesting size while celery takes a little longer at about three months. 

In Season at the Farm Stand: Collard Greens, Bunching Broccoli, Red Russian Kale, Tuscan Kale, Bok Choy, Lettuce Heads, Swiss Chard, Arugula, Hakurei Turnips, Amara Mustard Greens, Wasabina Mustard Greens, Radishes, Spring Onions, Okra, and Bell Peppers.

We celebrated the arrival of fall this week by planting another round of delicious fall crops! This round includes favorites like broccoli, kale, and Swiss chard. Though it will be a while before you see broccoli make it to the Farm Stand due to its longer harvesting window, you can expect to see the first kale and Swiss chard in about a month! If you’re a kale connoisseur, you’ll be pleased to know that we are growing a couple of different varieties including the ever-popular dino kale. We can’t wait to share it with you!

Your favorite summer crops are still around for now but that will change over the coming weeks as cooler weather eventually returns and we begin harvesting fall crops. Members of the nightshade and cucurbit families make up a significant portion of our summer crops and are suited for growing in the warmer months rather than cooler ones. In order to prioritize the current growing season, we’ll begin phasing them out and replacing them with cool weather crops. We highly recommend enjoying the following items over the coming weeks before they make their way out of season: zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, basil, and okra.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Scallions, Summer Squash, Okra, Eggplant, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Lunchbox Peppers, Jalapenos, Bell Peppers, Shishito Peppers, Poblano Peppers, Basil (Italian, Lemon, Thai, and Tulsi), and Flower Bouquets and Stems

We hope the members of our Community Vegetable Share Program have been enjoying their farm-fresh veggies over the past couple of weeks! If you’re a Jordan Ranch resident and missed out on the initial sign up, we still have a couple of spots available. Shares are delivered directly to your door every Tuesday afternoon from now through Tuesday, December 17th. That means there’s still a month’s worth of shares left if you sign up before the end of this week! Our share members not only get the perk of home delivery, but first dibs on limited harvests like our upcoming delicata squashes. To learn more and sign up for your own share, head here. 

Scallions are back in season at the Farm Stand! Often called green onions, scallions are a great way to add a mellow onion flavor to a multitude of dishes. They can be used raw as a garnish or cooked. The white and light green portions tend to have a stronger flavor and stand up better during the cooking process while the darker green tops have a delicate flavor perfect for garnishing. Try pairing scallions with cheddar cheese in a batch of biscuits or cornbread. Or, use them as a garnish for soups and salads. 

Have you had a chance to try our baby broccoli yet? The baby broccoli we have at the Farm Stand is actually a variety of sprouting broccoli. It differs from standard one-cut varieties as it produces several smaller crowns with thinner stalks rather than one large primary crown. We love to char grill or roast baby broccoli with olive oil, lemon, chili, and garlic. It makes a simple yet incredibly flavorful side dish that we can’t get enough of lately!

In Season at the Farm Stand: Cherry Tomatoes, Early Girl Tomatoes, Hakurei Turnips, Red Beets, Arugula, Salad Mix, Dino Kale, Curly Kale, Mustard Greens, Collard Greens, Komatsuna, Baby Bok Choy, Swiss Chard, Baby Broccoli, Cauliflower, Scallions, Roselle Greens, Roselle Pods, Long Beans, Okra, and Asian Eggplant

Broccoli is back in season at the Farm Stand! We harvested some incredibly beautiful (and delicious) crowns of broccoli from the first succession that we planted. Even though we typically just harvest the crown of broccoli, the leaves, stems, and florets are all edible. Did you know that the crowns (above) are made up of thousands of unopened flower buds? If we were to leave our broccoli in the field without harvesting it, the florets would eventually begin to sprout small yellow flowers.

Don’t forget to join us for our last Farm Tour of the year this Saturday, December 16th, at 10:30am! We’ll be discussing our cool season crop diversity as we take a stroll through the farm. We’ll also be talking about the importance of cover cropping and how it affects the health of our soil and future crops. And, we’ll highlight some upcoming veggies and sample some of our freshly harvested spinach. Our Farm Tours are open to the public and free of charge. We would love to see you there!

It’s always a good feeling to see every bed in the high tunnel fully planted. Since we love growing flowers, we decided to fill a vacant bed this week with both an orange and a yellow marigold variety. These marigolds will eventually make their way into cut flower bouquets throughout the winter season. As space becomes available over the next few weeks, we’ll be adding a couple more cut-flower varieties. We can’t wait to share flower bouquets with you again!

In Season at the Farm Stand: Lettuce Heads, Collard Greens, Swiss Chard, Mustard Greens, Kale, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Spinach, Napa Cabbage, Hakurei Turnips, Radishes (limited), and Dill

Coming Soon: Scallions, Carrots, and Beets

We are delighted to introduce you to the newest member of the Farm Team, Reuben! Originally from Laredo, Reuben received his B.S. in Agriculture from Texas State University. He’s worked on both large and small scale agricultural farms in addition to hydroponic and aquaponic operations. He took a short break from farming but soon realized he missed being outside and working for his community. Reuben is excited to interact with the Jordan Ranch community and share his love of farming. If you see him around the farm, make sure to say hello and ask him about his favorite crop to grow!

Summer squashes are making their way back into season! This week, we have the first Zephyr squashes available for you at the farm stand. As you can see in the photo above, Zephyr is a straight yellow summer squash with a band of light green on the blossom end. It has a lovely nutty flavor and tender texture that can be used in any recipes calling for yellow squash or zucchini. Farmer Reuben recommends grilling it with some of our onions for a simple and tasty side dish. In addition to Zephyr, we’ll have the first green zucchinis (pictured below) for you next week in order to give them time to size up.

This is the last week broccoli will be in season so make sure to snag some while you can! This purple broccoli is great for roasting, especially when combined with our carrots or fennel. If you’re a big broccoli fan and would like to extend its season, you can easily blanch and freeze it to enjoy throughout the year. Here’s an article that outlines the process step-by-step. If you’re curious why broccoli season is ending, or you want to see what else we’re growing on the farm, make sure to come to our next Farm Tour this Saturday, April 8th at 10:30am! Our Farm Tours are free of charge and open to the public but we ask that children be accompanied by an adult.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Zephyr Summer Squash, Beets (red, golden, & Chioggia), Fennel, Carrots, Spring Onions, Cabbage, Purple Broccoli (last week!), Collards, Kohlrabi, Celery, Kale, Turnips, and Icicle Radishes.

We planted the first round of summer squashes in the field last week! We have one row each of green zucchini and Zephyr summer squash. We’re excited to share the Zephyr variety with you because it produces slender yellow summer squashes that are light green on the blossom end with a deliciously nutty flavor. Since summer squashes are quick growers, this will be the first of many successions planted throughout the spring and summer. We expect to start harvesting the first squashes in about a month!

In addition to the summer squashes, we planted two different cucumber varieties: Bristol (a standard slicing cucumber) and Max Pack (a pickling cucumber). Similar to summer squashes, cucumbers are fast growers. We’ll be installing trellises for them in the next couple of weeks to ensure their vines have a place to climb and sprawl. Farmer Anna is especially excited for the return of cucumbers because they’re one of her favorite crops! She sees a lot of cucumber, tomato, and onion salads in her future…

As we slowly transition the farm for the upcoming warmer season, we’ll be phasing out our cool season crops, namely our brassicas. The last round of cauliflower will be harvested this week and next. We’ll also be harvesting the last of our green and purple broccoli over the next couple of weeks. Make sure to take advantage of these delicious veggies before they make their way out of season! You can pick some up at our Saturday Farm Stand from 9am-noon or at any time from our Self-Serve Farm Stand.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Baby Carrots, Spring Onions, Cauliflower, Purple Broccoli, Celery, Hakurei Turnips, Icicle Radishes, Kohlrabi, Collards, Cabbage, Kale, Spinach, Lettuce, and Cilantro.

We’re offering a special pre-order option for our farm-fresh produce this Thanksgiving! We’ll gather the items you want and have them ready for you next Tuesday, November 22nd. This is a great way to save some time shopping and incorporate locally grown veggies into your holiday meal! You can choose from any of the items in our “in season” list at the bottom of this post. If you’d like to place an order, email us at JordanRanch@Agmenity.com with a list of what you’d like along with the quantities. Make sure to put “Thanksgiving Pre-Order” in the subject line and send it to us no later than Tuesday morning.

Broccoli and cauliflower just made their way back into season! This is the first of many successions of broccoli and cauliflower that will be harvested throughout the fall and winter months. Since both of these are typically a “single-cut” crop, we space out plantings of them in order to ensure a fairly steady supply. How do you like to eat these delicious members of the brassica family? Farmer Alex loves to roast broccoli and enjoy it with pasta. She recommends combining pasta with ricotta, lemon, herbs, and roasted broccoli for a simple and delicious meal.

Our onions starts just arrived and we can’t wait to plant them! An onion start (pictured below) is a small, bare-root onion plant that has already been started from seed. We’ll be planting a mix of yellow, white, and red onions in our prepared beds for a spring harvest. Since we’ll have some starts left over, we’ll be offering small bundles of them at the farm stand for $3 each beginning this weekend. Onions are a great addition to your home garden because they’re fairly easy to grow. And, we’re more than happy to offer you some planting tips when you stop by to pick up your starts from the farm stand!

In Season at the Farm Stand: Beets, Salad Radishes, Watermelon Radishes, Broccoli, Cauliflower (limited), Dragon’s Tongue Beans (limited), Scallions, Roselle, Bok Choy, Kale, Cabbage, Napa Cabbage, Collard Greens, Salad Mix, Arugula, Sweet Peppers, Eggplant, Cilantro, and Dill.

December 16th, 2021

Carrots are officially back in season along with broccoli and cauliflower! These veggies will provide some delicious contrasting flavors and textures alongside all of our leafy greens. This succession of carrots is the Bolero variety. These carrots are perfect for snacking, tossing in salads, forming the base of soups and stews, or roasting. Curious how we like to enjoy them? Farmer Alex recommends serving roasted carrots on a swath of dill-flecked yogurt. Yum!

Our Burgundy broccoli is starting to form the first heads despite this unusually warm December weather. Burgundy is a sprouting broccoli which means it produces several smaller heads with thinner stalks. This broccoli variety lends itself to multiple harvests throughout the season as it will keep producing side shoots when regularly harvested. Did you know that the leaves of Burgundy broccoli and all other broccoli varieties are edible, too? They’re a nice substitute for collard greens and can be prepared in the same way. If you’d like to try some, make sure to stop by the farm stand on Saturday!

In addition to feeding our community through our farm stand, we partner with several local chefs and restaurants. If you’re not able to make it to the farm stand and still want to enjoy our produce, we highly recommend trying Nancy’s Hustle, Ostia, and UB Preserv. If you’d like to come to our farm stand, these are our remaining hours for the year: Saturday December 18th from 10am-noon, Wednesday December 22nd from 4-6pm, and Wednesday December 29th from 4-6pm.

Currently In Season: Carrots, Broccoli, Broccoli Leaves, Cauliflower, Slicer Tomatoes, Dill, Cilantro, Sage, Fennel, Kale, Napa Cabbage, Arugula, Lettuce Mix, Head Lettuce, Baby Bok Choy, Tatsoi, Tokyo Bekana, and Swiss Chard

December 9th, 2021

The farm is looking mighty green this week especially with the addition of the Little Gem lettuces and Barese chard that we planted! Little Gem (pictured here) produces heads of lettuce with a sweet flavor and buttery texture. We’ll be harvesting this lettuce variety as mature heads rather than younger leaves like we do with our salad mixes. Barese is a variety of Swiss chard that produces glossy dark green leaves and thick white stalks. The leaves are smaller than standard Swiss chard.

We planted a couple of different kale varieties this week that we plan on overwintering. When it comes to plants, overwintering simply means to live through the winter. Since our overwintered kale will be in the ground longer than our earlier plantings (ideally until spring), we space each plant slightly farther apart to provide more space for each to grow. Here’s to plenty of delicious kale this winter!

Our next succession of broccoli is coming right along! This variety is Green Magic and as you can see it has already begun forming heads. As for our cauliflower, the first succession is nearly ready for harvest. We might be able to get away with harvesting the first heads just in time for the farm stand this Saturday but we should definitely have some for you next week! To make sure we can provide a relatively steady supply of both of these crops, we’ll be regularly planting successions of them throughout the winter.

Currently In Season: Carrots (limited), Slicer Tomatoes, Eggplant, Dill, Cilantro, Fennel, Kale, Green Leaf Lettuce Heads, Salad Mix, Arugula, Swiss Chard, Mustard Greens, Napa Cabbage, Turnips, Icicle Radishes, and Fresh Cut Flower Bouquets

October 28th, 2021

Coming in slightly ahead of schedule, broccoli and cherry tomatoes are back in season! We’ll have limited amounts of each available at the farm stand on Saturday from 10am-noon. The cherry tomatoes are a mix of Sungold (yellow) and Sweetie (red) varieties. We highly recommend roasting the broccoli florets and halved cherry tomatoes together on a sheet tray until caramelized. Toss the roasted veggies with your favorite cooked pasta, toasted pine nuts, and some grated parmesan for a quick and delicious meal.

Last week our carrots were germinating and this week it’s our beets! We direct-seeded the first succession of beets last week and noticed their sprouts popping up this week. Did you know that beets and Swiss chard are members of the same family? They both prefer cooler temperatures and can even tolerate light freezes (which is why we don’t grow them during the hot months of the year). These beets are a golden variety which is why their stem is yellow rather than red or magenta.

We’ve been planting some fun crops in the greenhouse for fall in order to increase the diversity on the farm. Here are some of the varieties you can look forward to this fall and winter:

• Burgundy Broccoli - a sprouting broccoli with beautiful dark purple buds
• Purple Cauliflower - the same cauliflower you know and love but with a brilliant purple hue
• Romanesco - a light green member of the Brassica family that forms heads like cauliflower and broccoli but with a visually striking fractal form

Currently In Season: Cherry Tomatoes, Broccoli, Kale, Hakurei Turnips, Shishito Peppers, Padron Peppers, Jalapeno peppers, Poblano peppers, Eggplant, Yellow Squash, Cucumbers, and Marigolds for cut flowers