Texas Young Farmer Coalition

My first thought walking up the driveway, through a gate, and onto the grounds of HausBar Farm was, “Those carrots are blowing my mind.” These were also, literally, my parting words to Dorsey Barger, the owner of this lovely East Austin urban farm, as I walked out that same gate an hour later. This bed of carrots was an absolute forest of lush green tops. Dare I not even disturb them by culling one unlucky carrot from the bed to get a root specimen. The message was clear: We are delicious, probably some interesting color(?), and just the right largeness. Carrot Top aside, the other fruits and vegetables looked delectable, healthy, and highly diversified. Everything from fall tomatoes and okra, to the more unexpected Moroheiya greens and sweet potato (also grown primarily for its greens).

HausBar Farm is very much an urban farm. It’s roughly two acres, and about 3 miles from Downtown Austin. On said two acres, they have set in place a whole host of systems that produce:

• Fruits and Vegetables
• Meat Chickens / Ducks
• Chicken / Duck Eggs (Duck eggs will begin to come on in the near future)
• Meat Rabbits
• A Lovely Bed and Breakfast
• Two Sweet Looking Mules
• Compost / Vermi-Compost
• Tilapia (Beginning In The Near Future)
• Hydroponics (Beginning In The Near Future)
• Classes / Tours / Education
• And Probably Some Other Things I’m Missing

If this farm were run by, say, me, I would be doing all these things in a very half-assed sort of way, but not Dorsey. Each of these systems are maintained to a high degree of detail, and it shows. The farm is very pretty! Here’s evidence of that:

HausBar produces fruits and vegetables 365 days a year. Cultivated soil on the land is relatively small – maybe 1/3 of an acre? But because all the work is done by hand (not even a rototiller), they seem to get a lot of food out of what soil is cultivated. The hoops in the picture, above, help extend the growing season in the spring using row cover and in the summer / fall by using shade cloth. The hoops looked to be made out of 10′ PVC pipe, and were maybe schedule 40? Low tunnels like these seem to be a good way to extend the growing season on the cheap, rather than investing in high tunnels, which might run you a few or many thousands of dollars. I’ve seen low tunnels work on farms up to an acre, but even at that size, it seems to be a handful (lots of materials to manage!). HausBar seems to be workin’ it super proper, though.

Seeing a meat bird operation up close is always an interesting experience. There are so many variables in bird production, and it’s fun to pick a farmer’s brain and see why they do what they do. What type of bedding do you use, and why? Why have the brooder here, and the adolescent birds over there? How do you protect the birds? What materials are used to build the structures? How do you process them? What feed and why? Etc, etc, etc. Dorsey was extremely open with her knowledge, and she was more than willing to thoroughly answer all our questions in detail. Here’s some chicken photos:

Above, Dorsey shows us the brooder she’s designed.

Chickens lounging.

These will be the first duck egg producers at HausBar.

All chickens produced here are also slaughtered onsite. They have a small processing area on site, which is very cool/rare. Processing meat (ie. killing them) is always a weird, touchy subject when it comes to regulations. With chickens, though, it’s relatively more lax, as you can produce 10,000 birds and not have an onsite USDA inspector. I didn’t inquire further about the requirements for the processing area, but I’m sure this would have been interesting to touch on.

Dorsey is the first to admit that her rabbit operation has had more failures than successes. She’s had bad luck with hawks, securing structures, and flooding. This is a very successfully cute rabbit, though:

It was inspiring to see Dorsey persevere in the face of past failures. She’s clearly blazing a trail as she continues to experiment with new structures (one uses an old satellite dish, and looks oh so rad), and how these structures interact with each other. The rabbit brooder below is a lot like some of the chicken tractors I’ve seen, but for adorable bunnies. Honestly, there are so many nuances to rabbit produciton, I don’t think I can really dive into it here. There’s a lot to it.

ALSO: Do you know why HausBar has an extremely difficult time with rabbit production? Because they want rabbits to spend their lives on the ground, in the grass. This was something I was personally very interested in, as I’ve looked for information on this in the past and found next to nothing on the subject. (Almost all rabbits that are produced for meat spend their entire lives in a pretty small, suspended cage [all the ones I've seen aren't chicken-battery style. They have space to move around, for sure, but they just don't get their feet in the soil / grass]). Dorsey found very little on this subject, as well, but is just plodding ahead anyhow, learning through trial and error. I’m very excited to see how this operation evolves. Right now, the rabbits run around the property semi-willy-nilly, to which my mind instantly turned to a U-Hunt operation. Am I right?

Alright, more good stuff. They’ve recently completed their new gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous house. Here’s what it looks like:

My phone/camera thing ran out of batteries, or else I would have taken some shots of the sweet pool they have out back. Not only will it be a sweet pool, it will be part of an aqua/hydroponic loop they’re creating. The pool water is pumped into an aquaponic area, which will produce tilapia. This water (and all the nutrients that the fish pump into it) will drain into a hydroponic area, where they can produce vegetable crops. This is then pumped and steralized by lights (I’m short on details here), and then pumped back into the pool, closing the water loop. All very, very cool stuff.

I’ve failed to mention thus far that this property used to be a crack den (really and actually). As such, it was an unhealthy blight to the community. Now the community has this super amazing resource! Huzzah!

There was more, lots more, like the bed and breakfast they are opening very soon, the outdoor cooking facility (for classes and events), other cool structures, etc. But, I think you get the point.

“Those carrots are blowing my mind.” And then I left.

Driving through the quaint, small Texas town of Kyle, we approached Tim Miller’s artistically functional creation, Millberg Farm. Pulling into his driveway was like trying to infiltrate a decidedly confused system of roads in which to maneouver, like that of historic cities that used this as a tactic of war to confuse enemies. Of course, war has no place on this farm. Rather, the human embrace of all things natural directs this farm, masterfully ordered and maintained by the knowing hand of Tim Miller, gardening / farming master of Texas food production.

The emphasis of this farm tour was dry farming and gardening. Tim has devised some ingenious ways to hold on to every possible drop of water, rationing it to his plants accordingly. He catches rain water in a variety of vessels, including a hand dug, plastic-lined pond fed by a now defunct shed roof. Rain barrels dot the land, where he also hand delivers this water to his plants as necessary (which is not as often as you might think). One of Tim’s keys to holding on to precious H2O is by building his soil using composted or partially composted wood chips. He applies this liberally to his fruit and vegetable beds. He said that one of his rules is to never walk into his fields empty-handed. That is, you might as well bring a wheel barrow filled with wood chips, and apply them as you best see fit. The soil could use the spongey carbon.

Millberg Farm is filled with life. Everywhere you look, there is a deliberate system put in place. Each of these systems is specifically put in place with the micro-climate in mind. For instance, in the image below, you’ll find freaking lettuce growing in freaking July. Check out how he managed to do this:

First, the image (sorry, I came ill prepared with a proper camera)

• First, this bed is lined on one (or both?) sides with dug down paths. These paths were then filled with wood chips, to allow water to penetrate more deeply into the soil, while also aiding in the decomposition of said wood chips.
• He added wood chip compost to the beds. Shortly after, there was a rain, soaking this compost. Tim then added another layer of compost on top of this, trapping the moisture in the compost and soil beneath, increasing the length of time it would hang out in the soil.
• He then covered the lettuce bed with wire mesh, which was covered with dry debris from around the farm (largely sunflowers and johnson grass). This provides partial shade from the sun, relieving it from the heat and direct sunlight that would cause the lettuce to bolt prematurely.
• The soil in this particular bed was more suitable for water retention than any other bed in the immediate area. The soil was finer, which allows it to hold more moisture. He demonstrated this by showing us soil from the bed directly next to it, which was more coarse.
• Mulching has the added effect of never letting the soil crack and split due to dryness. Once soil cracks, it dries the soil out deep down, and water retention is nearly impossible until the soil is tilled again.
• He also knows the shit out of his land and micro climates. Direction of wind over this bed helped aid his decisions. Knowing when rainfalls might come during the month also helped (he references Ed Hume’s 2012 Almanac for this, which he says is an invaluable resource).

Dry gardening, from what I learned, is more than just knowing certain techniques, although this is certainly part of it.  It’s more about a deep and intimate knowledge of your soil and land that can only be obtained through long, arduous work and incredible attention to detail observed over years.

As stated earlier, wood chips are very important to this operation. You see them everywhere: Piles and piles in the front yard, wood chips composing entire raised beds, mulching pathways, providing much needed compost on the tops of virtually every bed. This valuable resource requires foresight more than anything else. Tim has piles delivered by various private companies that are looking to off their wood chip byproducts on anyone. These piles sit for years (the wood chips on the lettuce beds had been sitting stagnant for three years), and it’s only once time has taken its course that this product is truly useable, at least as a source of nutrients.

Sunflowers are also omnipresent. They line virtually every field, and are even interplanted among many of his crops. This deters the deer population on his land, which is significant. Deer are irritated by sunflower’s spiny skin, serving as an excellent repellent. The sunflower is then used as a mulch directly on top of plants (this works especially well on melons), where they keep weeds down and the deer away.

At Millberg Farm, pests are deterred from eating precious fruits and vegetables, rather than simply desiccated. Grasshoppers are offered a lush patch of switchgrass towards the back of the farm, where they are free to consume as much food as they’d like. This swithgrass is then used as a mulch as needed, as it is voluminous and does well in dry weather. Birds are given the opportunity to consume fruit and nut trees that line the farm, where they stay put, diverting them from devouring the more valuable fruit trees that lay deeper in the heart of Millberg Farm.

More than anything else, this farm tour was about how the entire farm operates, rather than simply running a fine comb through dry gardening. He informed us of all sorts of varieties that have proved drought resistant on his land (and, subsequently, most farms in the Austin area; although, Tim does have black land clay). Tim informed us that 60% of the seed he uses is from his own saved seed inventory. He sells some of this seed to Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (his Egyptian Multiplying Onion and Harvey Wilson Leeks are in seriously high demand, selling out before they are even made officially available). His green onions are clearly a point of pride for him, outlining the story of how he provided two farmers on the east coast with his seed, and how it has truly been a boon for their farming enterprises. The Egyptian Green Onion developed on his farm has proven to be popular variety outside of Texas, where folks, incredibly, have water. In fact, we use it at Green Gate Farms (where I work), and we’ve been saving the seed and replanting it for the a few years now. It’s adapting to our land’s needs, and pleasing our CSA member’s palates. Hooray!

We left the farm with a small burlap sack filled with his saved seed. I’ll plant mine in my own garden, as well as give some to Skip and Erin at Green Gate Farms, to propagate, consume, and save.

I’ll certainly put some aside for TXYFC members. Get in touch, and let’s connect.