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Food for Thought

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Food for Thought

Our mission is to increase awareness around nutrition, mindful eating, and wellbeing.

07/27/2024

"What haven’t I learned from her? She taught me pretty much everything about this. Maybe one of the biggest things is the work ethic. She’s kinda a machine when it comes to staying on task and getting things done. There’s a lot to learn there from her, being efficient and thinking about the process ahead of time so that we can move smoothly from one task to another."

07/26/2024

"I learned from him to slow down more because I’m the one who’s always like we could be doing this way faster. He’s got more of a slower pace and sometimes it’s more efficient to be slower. Sometimes you can get into a groove and go quickly, but sometimes if you slow down, you’ll do a better job in the long run. He’s also done some research on it [tilling] and gets really upset about messing up the soil or the beds. I think that’s been a good motivator. He hasn’t seen the bigger operations that I’ve worked on and how it’s what I’m used to doing. For me, that’s the way it is and that’s the way we do things. But it doesn’t have to be."

07/25/2024

"It’s not really down to a science too much yet, just what looks good to me. There are some things, like layering and different dimensions. That’s why I like to use little boxes and containers to make it look more lively. I like photography and drawing, and I think it’s interesting that your eyes will be drawn to certain parts of a picture. It changes every time, oftentimes what looks good to me today."

07/24/2024

"I definitely like interacting with customers, getting to know people and seeing the regulars over and over again. I kinda like the setup, decorating with the vegetables. Those are a couple of my favorite parts. Trading, at the end of market, when we have leftover stuff, we’ll go around and offer to trade with other vendors, kinda nice going home with all kinds of good stuff that we might not normally buy. I like that barter system. Definitely the social aspect, making that connection."

04/21/2024

"On harvest days, we start by sanitizing all the wash stations, pack up the truck with all the bins and harvesting supplies. Then we’ll go out there and start with the most tender stuff before the sun gets up since they wilt the fastest. Usually we’re done by lunchtime. After lunch, it’s washing all the vegetables. We’ll harvest on Tuesdays for CSA."

04/12/2024

"I usually start the night before or the day before, or earlier on in the week on Mondays. I’ll do a walk and figure out what I need to do for the week, what needs to be harvested and how much we have. But sometimes there are things that you don’t really expect. Part of it is being a new farmer but we’re getting better at looking ahead. I do have a list in my head when I get going. I think about what needs water, the greenhouse always needs water at least once."

04/07/2024

"If we could start over again, we would make shorter beds and do more successions. Right now we have too much stuff ready at one time. I would like to start slower and not use the tiller in the beginning, but that takes more time to kill the w**ds. All the microbes–fungus and bacteria, nematodes, amoebas– make these communities around the plant because they rely on the plant for life. The plants then use what they excrete to grow. So when you till that, it kills a bunch of those microorganisms and disrupts the whole structure. It also burns up a bunch of nutrients. You get a quick result overall but you need to add more stuff because you’re depleting what’s already there. The soil we have right now is loose and sandy but when you till, you’ll notice it’ll be real fluffy on top but it creates this hard pan – hard as a rock– underneath it which is not good for drainage. When we get rain, it just holds it and makes the dirt really hard and clotty. There will also be w**d seeds all over the place. Right now what we do is we put a layer of compost on top of the soil. A lot of w**d seeds can grow up through that, but it does suppress some of it. If you were to till it, you’d be bringing a lot more of the w**d seeds to the surface."

04/04/2024

"It’s easier to find the path of least resistance for selling produce. We set up a farmer’s stand out here before, and it was more successful than I thought. But it also took a lot of work. I know if we invested more time in that, we could make it work. But it’s hard to find time when you don’t really have it. I’m really grateful for the SNAP program because that way, I know some of our food is going to people who might not be able to afford it otherwise. That’s good motivation for us, knowing that it’s at least getting into some homes. For the SNAP program, you take your WIC card and trade it for paper dollars that you can use for money. You can use any of them for vegetables. Double Dollar Days are really good for us too, we sell a lot more when that’s happening. There’s that, and there’s FMNP – the Farmers Market Nutrition Program.*"

*FMNP vouchers can be used by eligible WIC participants to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at participating farmers' markets (up to $30 value). Funding from Travis County Public Health has also enabled eligible participants to receive $30 in Double Up Food Books to match the $30 provided by WIC vouchers. Click the following link to learn more! https://sustainablefoodcenter.org/food-access/wic-voucher-program

02/05/2024

"There’s so many different levels of understanding. Some people don't know that food comes from seeds or understand that concept. I just wish people would look more into where either food is coming from. If it comes from really far away, that’s not very sustainable. It’s hard. People want to do the best they can. Farming is hard, but anyone can do it who wants to do it. We need more small farms. Most grocery stores is not from small farms. There’s so many different ways that food is grown, different scales of farming. I think it would be great for people to learn about these different ways and seek out which ones align with how they want their food to be grown. But I know that’s not always possible for people. I wish this kind of food was more accessible, I hope it becomes more accessible. I think with more farms, it could be."

01/29/2024

"On Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) day, on Wednesdays, we’ll pack up all our little baskets and go out to deliver them. Anybody can start a CSA, it’s not run by anybody. It’s a subscription. We started ours real small, we would just take orders each week. We started at 4 weeks but now we do 6 weeks at a time. It’s easier to get people to sign up all at once. People sign up and they can either pick up a large basket (Mega Pack) or a small basket (Farmer’s Fun Packs). They’re $20 and $30. Delivery is free if you pick it from a hub. Delivery to door costs extra. We just had to raise that price because the gas prices are very high right now. We pick out the best for CSA, mix it up and then on Mondays, I’ll send out emails to people and let them know what they’re going to get on Wednesday so they can plan when they go to the grocery store. I’ll give updates on the farm and a few recipes that coincide with what they’re getting. I’ll tell them about new vegetables because not everyone has heard about them. I try to explain what stuff is and how to use it. We do 22 shares for CSA, which is a pretty small number but it’s good for us. We might add more as summer goes on. My goal was 20 for this year."

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