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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!

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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

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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.

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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.

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Local Food Fair on October 23 to celebrate inaugural FOOD DAY

By on October 10, 2011 in

Local Food Fair to celebrate Austin’s CSA farmers, local farmers markets, and other ways to get locally-grown food! Kick off the inaugural national Food Day a day early with a Local Food Fair in the pecan tree-shaded two acre yard behind Third Coast Activist Resource Center at the wonderful 5604 Manor Road Austin, TX 78723. Our farm will be set up there with information on our CSA and some produce for sale. Other CSA farms and farmers market reps, along with local delivery services, will be there to answer questions about their services. Music by the Kudzoo Brothers will keep our toes tapping. Cooking demonstrations on the hour at our sponsors, the Sustainable Food Center‘s tasting tent. Let us know if you’re coming with an RSVP here at the Food Day website!



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The end of August

By on August 31, 2011 in

We had big hopes for this fall: our first ever Fall CSA season and the development of our new raw land down on the river into farmland. Our water woes will be greatly diminished when we can farm on land with a better water source. Oh how we miss the days of our hand-dug well chugging through drought years without missing a beat!

For now, though, there is but one hope: the return of RAIN to our soil. Without rain, fall crops will wither in the endless heat and hot ground. Without rain, mesquite abatement and deer fence construction on the new land will be nearly impossible.  We’ll keep going, as other area farmers have done all summer, because Texas farmers are tough, and fairly hardened to the cruel weather.  But I don’t know if we’ve ever wished for the end of August to signal the end of summer so badly.  The shade cloth-covered greenhouse is full of baby vegetables wanting to make their way in the world. September can go either way, but I’m all for making it as different from August as it ever gets. Get out your dancin’ shoes- there’s a 20% chance of rain Friday-Sunday -and let’s all bring that rain to Texas!

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