Latest / Conservation Stories / Connecting Gardeners, Growers, and Cooks with Jessica Tullar Caroom

Transcript

Connecting Gardeners, Growers, and Cooks with Jessica Tullar Caroom · Conservation Stories

• 0:12
  Speaker A: Welcome back to conservation stories. This is Tillery Timmins Sims, and we are continuing our conversations with local pioneers and folks that are kind of paving the way and trying new things. And today I have with me, I.
• 0:26
  Speaker B: Am doctor Jessica Tuller Karum with growing together, Texas.
• 0:30
  Speaker A: Growing together, Texas. I'm so excited that you're here, and I've connected with you through mutual friends in particular, because looking for folks that we're doing, locally sourced foods and that kind of thing, and that's your niche. So why don't you give us a little background first, though? And I'm curious, are you from this area and how did you know, how'd you get here and all that kind of stuff?
• 0:54
  Speaker B: Absolutely. So I am not from this area. I grew up outside the Dallas area and went to school, went to undergrad and graduate school, all in the Houston area. So I've been all over Texas, met my husband there in Houston, and then my husband is in the medical field, and he found a job here in west Texas.
• 1:16
  Speaker A: Okay?
• 1:16
  Speaker B: So that is what brought us here. And I bloom where I'm planted. And so despite West Texas being a little bit more challenging to grow, it's very interesting. Start out in horticulture. I don't have a degree in horticulture. Actually. My background is in public health. I have a PhD in epidemiology.
• 1:36
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 1:37
  Speaker B: And I did research for many, many years, population health research. I don't know. I got to a point. My husband actually had a very serious medical issue, a traumatic mental issue that he's recovered from completely. But there was a time when, yeah, our life just kind of got to a standstill, and we had to go through rehab and all kinds of things as he was recovering. And after that, I just. I don't know. I got to a place where I thought, I don't really want to spend two months making edits to a manuscript that gets published in a scientific journal that 30 people read. And it just felt when I could be out in a garden pulling carrots with my kids, and I didn't want to just do it with my kids. Like, I wanted to do it with lots of kids, and I wanted to show all these kids how wonderful it is. I didn't realize, because I'd been so academically focused, how I had actually had this thread of growing throughout my life. I just hadn't seen it. I had a pot. I had a plant. I mean, the entire time. Of course, just like many of us, I had grandparents that had me out in the garden. My own dad had some raised beds in our backyard, so it was always there in the background. I did not realize how important it was to me until. I don't know, until I realized, like, this isn't, why am I going to spend my time on this stuff that felt like was the right thing to do for some outside reason, when what's really feeding me spiritually is to be able to show people how to grow things. So I like to say I'm doing public health practice now, right. Not research those. I'm in practice, which means I'm trying to get those public health things out into the universe.
• 3:37
  Speaker A: I love that.
• 3:38
  Speaker B: So growing killer Texas supports gardeners, growers, and cooks. I see it as a three legged stool. We are not. We cannot have one without the other. We need more growers. That's how you found it. It was through growers. We need more local growers. And my efforts there are supporting our local growers that grow vegetables and fruits. Obviously, all the things, I think it's amazing how much agriculture we have in west Texas, and yet the food we eat so often is not from this area, our food system. It really. It's an area we should, you know, we can all improve.
• 4:19
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 4:19
  Speaker B: And there are many other areas, you know, in Texas that have built up that system, so it's possible we can get there. And then. So I support local growers by helping. First of all, every time I go to the farmers market, I'll do a post about the stuff I've bought and how I'm using it. I also started a this. Most recently, I started a produce box where we sold the boxes as a whole. Traditionally, this was known as a CSA. A community supported agriculture is what that stands for. Traditionally, you would buy that ahead of time, maybe for a season. And essentially, the idea is that you would go in on the risk with the farmer. So whatever they had, you were getting a share of. I like to market it as a produce subscription box, like your magazine subscription. It's an automatic thing you have ordered for this period of time. The beauty of that is that it's reduced marketing for our growers. It's reduced time for our. For the community, because you just know on Wednesdays, I go pick up my box, right? And so, like, it's not like, okay, I have to make it time. Not everybody has time on Saturday mornings. And so that can be, unfortunately, all of our, all of our farmers markets here, which we do have several, and I love all of them, but they're all Saturday morning. And so if you have other things going on or you're traveling that weekend, like, boop, you missed out on all the local food this week, you know, like, that's not cool. So anyway, that's one of the ways I've been supporting local growers.
• 5:52
  Speaker A: Awesome. So I think it is really interesting to me because I see now people beginning to put these public health things together, like tracing it back to the roots of what we eat, you know, and not that I think we can cure everything with what we eat, but I do think that we've been so busy and our culture has, you know, kind of herded us down this alley of processed food because we just don't spend the time. You know, I grew up, my mom was grinding wheat when I was a kid, and we've talked about this in another podcast, and we thought she was trying to kill us, you know, and then, then I did the same thing when my kids were younger, and then when we adopted our youngest son, when we were in the process of doing that, I actually sold all of that equipment to raise money for the adoption. And now I'm thinking, man, I wish I had my meal back. I'm seeing people going back to doing that, and it's so, it's just really fun to me to see it kind of making that comeback after we've kind of vilified bread in particular for so long, you know? And so it's fun to see that making a revival. I'm curious if you have heard of a and M's. It's actually not just a and M, but it's a collaboration that A and M is leading. Doctor Patrick Stover. It's growing health through agriculture, I believe is the name of it.
• 7:21
  Speaker B: I haven't. I have to look that up.
• 7:23
  Speaker A: What they're doing, tracking how, you know, our food system is impacting people's health. And so there's quite a bit of investment there that's gone into that, and I'm really excited to see what their results are going to be.
• 7:38
  Speaker B: I love that. Absolutely. From my public health days and the education I got and the conversations we were having. So I was primarily in population health. So we did a big population health survey of the Houston area, and then my job was translating that because Houston, Harris county, is like, bigger than like five states. So it doesn't, if I told you that a rate of diabetes in Houston is blah, blah, blah, that doesn't help us figure anything out. So we were breaking it down to more, not at quite neighborhood level, but more smaller areas to try and figure out how we could help neighborhoods. Right. And that same idea, I mean, that applies anywhere we are. But some of the lessons that I really gleaned from public health and from the research that's out there, we know more vegetables, the better.
• 8:33
  Speaker A: Right.
• 8:34
  Speaker B: We know we're low on the amount of vegetables we eat.
• 8:37
  Speaker A: Right.
• 8:37
  Speaker B: I see that as this is, again, a public health word, but multifactorial situation. You've got access, which is how many vegetables can you get whether you're going to the grocery store. Some of our neighborhoods here in Lubbock don't have close grocery stores available. Some people have transportation issues. So that's access. Sometimes that is not affordable to you to buy fresh produce. It makes much more sense for you to buy something that's already packaged, et cetera. We have absolutely subsidized. I mean, we just have our packaged foods industries, we have absolutely created a catch 22 here where we are, where we do have some issues with our system encouraging those fast calories, those calorie dense things. And so anything I can do to try and lower that barrier to entry, try and make it just that much more accessible, whether that's a community garden. So I support. This is on the gardener side. I support a community garden, several community gardens. One of them is on the east side at 19th and Avenue A. And that's the primary, most active one. That's the roots Booker T. Washington community Garden. There's also a community garden in the Guadalupe neighborhood. There's also a community garden at the heart of Lubbock, which is like Avenue X in 19th. And so that's another food desert. I mean, it's like two blocks behind the McDonald's and not close to any grocery stores. And so that gets you to, can I find fresh produce? Right. How can we encourage those spaces, those community spaces that create connection but also access to that fresh produce? And then it doesn't do us any good to have that fresh produce if you don't know what to do with it.
• 10:28
  Speaker A: To do with it. Right.
• 10:29
  Speaker B: That's the cook side. And so we have done, I've done many different areas of this, and there's other organizations that are coming alongside and working in the area. So exciting. So one of the things I did especially, actually, we're earlier talking about COVID During COVID was I had a recipe bag that I would pre purchase local produce, all things around a certain recipe. And seasonally I sold some. So I had one for sale and one for share. So every time, oh, I had a sale, I then also gave away.
• 11:03
  Speaker A: Gave away.
• 11:04
  Speaker B: Same idea, because if I would like a meal kit, everybody could use a meal kit. And so that was a way of encouraging that fresh produce. And now that has translated to this produce box that we've been doing. And that's the for sale part. And then the first share is that I have a kids farmers market. And so I pre purchase produce. I do a couple of these a year, three or four, and I'll go to, like, Lubbock impact or I was at the Patterson library this fall and give kids $5, a little fake $5 monopoly money, and they get to pick out whatever produce they want. And I've been able to partner with the sustainable food center. They are heavy into access and they have now, have been expanding in our area. They're actually based out of Austin, but they have a division here and are now up to, I believe, four employees, which is really exciting. And so they will come alongside when I have a kids farmers market and they'll talk about their programs that they support, which are double up food bucks. Someone can use their Snap card and purchase produce at the farmer's market using their snap dollars that they would be using anywhere else, but this would be for fresh produce. And they will get up to $30 matched from that $30 they spent at the farmer's market that they can then spend on fresh produce. So it lowers that cost because, yeah, the farmer's market is more expensive than the grocery store. And PS, when you buy fresh produce, it does not last as much as when I go and buy, you know, a bag of frozen peas. It just doesn't.
• 12:38
  Speaker A: Right.
• 12:38
  Speaker B: And so we've got, we do have a time crunch on using that up.
• 12:43
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 12:43
  Speaker B: And so this is a nice way of kind of, again, lowering that barrier to entry, making these fresh and local produce more accessible. But I'll tell you, if you buy a bag of spinach at the farmer's market, it is going to last so much longer than your bag of spinach from the grocery store because a bag of spinach from the grocery store has been on a truck from California.
• 13:01
  Speaker A: Right.
• 13:02
  Speaker B: And this one has been like, it was picked yesterday.
• 13:04
  Speaker A: Right?
• 13:05
  Speaker B: And so even my friends, when we had those bags to share and we included a bag of spinach in there, they were like, I can't believe it's been two and a half, three weeks. I'm still eating this spinach. It looks great. I was like, uh huh. That's what happens when you get to buy local. And so I get to share free produce with kids at these locations. And then also come alongside and show them where they can get produce tomorrow. Cause I can't always. I can't always provide it today, you know.
• 13:31
  Speaker A: Right.
• 13:31
  Speaker B: But here's today, and here's an idea for tomorrow. And they, because they're brilliant. They always have a food sample. And so we get to. And sometimes, like, the food sample, I've done the food sample with them sometimes, and it's just like, we're gonna chop a bunch of zucchini and give you some ranch. And I'll tell you, the kids love that. I had kids that are like, I will eat three more radishes. Thank you so much. Because I get to eat this ranch. And so. And I don't. I mean, do I love ranch? No. I mean, in a sense of public health, yeah, we got all kinds of problems. But you know what? If you ate veggies with it today, then that's more veggies than you ate yesterday. Right, right.
• 14:06
  Speaker A: I know we had this. We had a women's ag conference last weekend.
• 14:10
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 14:11
  Speaker A: That was one of the things that came up. Is our fruits and vegetables less nutritionally dense? And this researcher said there's, their research shows, know that they are, they're still the same density, but we just don't eat them.
• 14:32
  Speaker B: We don't. We really don't. And so I. Public health, like the generic thing, let's just say big messages. Please do not let all of what I'm saying about local food discourage you from buying vegetables at the grocery store. Please buy those and eat those.
• 14:46
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 14:47
  Speaker B: Those frozen peas are like, eating those. If that's. That's great.
• 14:51
  Speaker A: Well, and a lot of times, frozen food is. I mean, it's going to be frozen at the peak of freshness.
• 14:57
  Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 14:58
  Speaker A: And it does get vilified. And it's interesting because I have a friend that works in food, like food shortages and hunger and that kind of thing. And that's one of the things that, you know, like, how often frozen food gets vilified and you can't, or you can't. It's not really getting provided where it actually might be faster for people, maybe more accessible for people. People can.
• 15:25
  Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 15:26
  Speaker A: And that, you know, that points to, like, a discussion that we've had a few times about the value of two food supply chains. You know, one that is a big supply chain and then the local supply chain. And we really need both of those things. Oh, you know, I see.
• 15:46
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 15:47
  Speaker A: You know, and so, like, I know when I was recently in New York and, you know, there's, I'm in a warehouse, a distribution warehouse. And, I mean, these folks have food that's from South Texas and beef from all over the state of Texas. You know, I'm recognizing people that I know recognize that are brand this. You know what I mean? Little bear produce in South Texas.
• 16:09
  Speaker B: I'm like, oh, my gosh, I know them.
• 16:11
  Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I recognize that meat company, you know?
• 16:14
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 16:14
  Speaker A: And I know also, too, that, like, they're family farms.
• 16:17
  Speaker B: For sure.
• 16:18
  Speaker A: For sure. For sure. Right. So there's this value in both of these things. And so it's not like we're saying we need to grow the local at expense of the international chain.
• 16:32
  Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. So. And, I mean, I'll make this real practical. Do I love local carrots? Do I grow local carrots? Absolutely. Do I currently have a bag of baby carrots in my fridge? Absolutely. Because for my own children, if I don't have time to do the like, I made a spinach smoothie with faith to farm spinach this morning. Sure. Did I also include bananas and pineapple? Yes, I did. Because that is easily accessible. And my 14 year old drank one.
• 17:00
  Speaker A: Right.
• 17:01
  Speaker B: And so I just got a serving of spinach into my 14 year old, you know, and he didn't have it. He was happy to have it. But did he also take some hot house peppers that I have no idea where they came from, to be honest with you. Yes, he did. Because I don't care. Any serving of vegetables I can get into my children as a mom, that's what I'm gonna do. And I want that for all the moms and dads out there. Like, I want to be able to make sure. If you can't have this, then have this.
• 17:26
  Speaker A: Yes, yes.
• 17:27
  Speaker B: And it's a. You know, this is a little bit better. This is, you know, like, is it. If I pulled that carrot from roots garden, would that be a little better than the baby carrots I bought? Absolutely. They taste better. They last longer. Like, for sure. More nutrition. I'm sure of it. But do I have those carrots in my fridge? And today, that's. That's the answer.
• 17:47
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 17:48
  Speaker B: And so, like, we just kind of got it, like, a little bit easier, and there's. Nobody needs to beat. Beating. Beat themselves up for so many food rules. Oh, and I'm.
• 17:58
  Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
• 17:59
  Speaker B: Anytime I hear a food rule, I'm like, oh, guys, don't make, don't make, don't make. Perfect the enemy of good.
• 18:06
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 18:06
  Speaker B: Let's just go for, you know, like. And can we get a little better? Yes, sure. But, like, don't.
• 18:11
  Speaker A: Let's.
• 18:12
  Speaker B: We don't have to throw it all out.
• 18:14
  Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. And then, you know, you have this whole. The mental health part that comes with, you know, if you put fear into everybody about what they put in their mouth.
• 18:25
  Speaker B: Yes. You know, then we're not gonna be eating anything.
• 18:27
  Speaker A: Right, right, yeah, exactly.
• 18:29
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:29
  Speaker A: And just the, you know, now we know how much the gut biome impacts your mental health and.
• 18:34
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 18:35
  Speaker A: You know, so, like, that's just the stress of. I can't. I don't know what to eat anymore.
• 18:40
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 18:41
  Speaker A: It can get ridiculous. It really can.
• 18:44
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:44
  Speaker A: But I think that the value of what you're doing goes beyond just the food factor. But putting people's in kids hands in the dirt, you know, is extremely therapeutic.
• 18:57
  Speaker B: Oh, gosh, absolutely. I cannot overstate my own personal excitement about getting more people growing, even if it's a pot on your balcony with some lettuce in it. I don't. I mean, I'm happy to have any level of that become accessible to someone. And so I actually have been blessed to be able to have a contract with Lubbock ISD to support some school gardens there. I've, again, the multifactorial issue. Right. So we've got access, we've got interest. There's another issue, like, kids that see something growing and we literally either pull it out of the ground or tear off a leaf, they are so much more likely to try that. Even better. If I were to go for like, an even better situation, just like our, you know, local some vegetables than local vegetables situation, even better is if they planted that seed and got to watch it. But honestly, again, right. I don't need to hold us up to that perfection goal. We can just kind of baby step our way. Okay.
• 20:00
  Speaker A: Right.
• 20:01
  Speaker B: So yesterday I had a bunch of kids at Brown elementary, and we were building some covers. It's actually not terribly cold, and it hasn't been terribly cold. This was more for protection from, because it's in a pathway. And so kids kind of come by and pull things out, and the administrators asked if we could put the covers on to kind of prevent some of that. So fingers crossed we don't bake them. But anyway, before we did it, I was like, we have some lovely lettuce here. Would you guys like to taste some? And we just. I just pulled off leaves and everybody had a bite. And I swear to you, there are, what, like twelve kids out there and every single one of them had a bite of lettuce. If you put a salad from the cafeteria on their tray. I doubt you would have as many kids eating some.
• 20:44
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 20:45
  Speaker B: But now that they've tasted it, they're much more likely to a recognize it in the grocery store that goes back to that kids farmers market idea. They're much more likely to be okay with their. With their parent or guardian, you know, like, saying, hey, I had a radish yesterday at school. Like, can we buy some radishes? And I'll try those. Like, they're much more likely to be. To be interested. Right. Because they've seen it.
• 21:10
  Speaker A: Well, and once they have tasted what it's supposed to taste like, you know, and I know I had a friend that used to tell me, she said, I'd rather my kids not eat a carrot that tastes bad just because I don't want them to think carrots taste bad.
• 21:23
  Speaker B: You know, that's an interesting observation, and I hear you. That, like, sometimes I feel like I ruin my children on certain vegetables because they've tasted stuff that's so good that they refuse to eat anything else.
• 21:37
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 21:38
  Speaker B: Yes. I will admit to you that I jokingly. I have a child I call my bougie baby. And, like, he, only for a while there, he's gotten a little better. And he will eat some sweet peppers. Now, sweet peppers he was rejecting, but he would eat shishito peppers. And I was like, dude, I can only buy shishito peppers from, like, this one farmer. Like, are you kidding me? And so he was like, well, mom, you should try growing him. I have been trying to grow them. Like, one year it didn't work, another year they were all spicy. I don't know why. Like, I mean, I had tried all the things anyway, so, yes, occasionally we paint ourselves into a corner as parents, find ourselves chasing down farmers for prosciutto peppers.
• 22:22
  Speaker A: That's awesome.
• 22:23
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 22:24
  Speaker A: That's so funny. Yes. So what's next? You've got a. I know you have. You've got an online space.
• 22:31
  Speaker B: Yes. So in an effort to support these growers, I heard of a concept using software that's online to be able to list produce from multiple growers. So it's called LBK grown.
• 22:45
  Speaker A: LBK grown.
• 22:46
  Speaker B: Yes. Lbkgrown.com. and originally, I intended that as a way of helping growers connect with restaurants because I have two restaurants that are very supportive of growers. So La Serena is super supportive. Growers. Chef Jess is amazing and does just amazing work. And then the Nicolette chef Finn is also amazing. And I love all the things he makes. He's an artist.
• 23:15
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 23:17
  Speaker B: It's crazy. So my thought there was, they already support local growers. How could I make that a little easier? I got a grant to be able to start this online farmers market and list some growers. And so last year we had eleven growers sell produce on that site. And I'll tell you that Chef Jess, when I first started this was like, so she originally, years ago, would have a chalkboard and it would list all the growers that she was buying from. And I was like, chef Jess, I want the chalkboard back. And she was like, right now all it's going to say is Ethan from e three farms. And I was like, okay, I'll work on that. So to have eleven felt like a huge, huge increase. That was eleven. We did $14,000 in sales. That's payments to the growers last year. The site itself costs about $2,000, so we need to get that up. It, like I said, was grant funded. So that hasn't been a concern so far. I have stuff in the works to continue that grant funding and other ways, but this was a way to get restaurants like to see, you have pictures of the produce, you can see what you're buying, you can see prices, you can see availability, which that communication is very different.
• 24:33
  Speaker A: Bread and taco seasoning and buttermilk. Ranch dressing.
• 24:37
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 24:38
  Speaker A: Trail mix and eggs.
• 24:41
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 24:41
  Speaker A: And along with all of these produce.
• 24:44
  Speaker B: And you can sort it by category and producer. So you can, you know, if you just wanted to see the produce or you just wanted to see some, you know, you can kind of sort through there. And I got two more restaurants to order based on this software. One's actually a food truck. Love tastebuds food company taste buds food code. Taste buds food code. And they are right now primarily at Goodline beer. And Goodline is one of our supporters because they actually were a location for us to have our produce box pickup.
• 25:20
  Speaker A: Oh, nice.
• 25:21
  Speaker B: That's our first non farmer location where we partnered with a business. They have a courier and we just a day a week, right, drop off all these boxes and people would come pick them up and occasionally some would buy a beer. And so that helps good lying out. That's great.
• 25:36
  Speaker A: That's great.
• 25:39
  Speaker B: And so anyway, taste buds is amazing. And then our other restaurants, our fourth restaurant was Nashwell. Nashwell coffee. And they also make just delicious snacks and bites and coffee and tea and stuff. So, yes, they do. I love going there. So I got those four. I worked hard to get more restaurants and there are other restaurants that buy local. I just couldn't get them to buy off the site. Okay. And there may be many reasons for that. It goes back to our behavioral health situation. Right. I got behavior changed that I've gotta encourage someone. If I'm used to buying from Cisco, I already have a relationship with a grower. Like, I'm not gonna switch. So that's, I don't know. I hit a wall sometime last fall trying to get more restaurants, and I was like, okay, I give up. Like, I'm, I've been interesting. I've been trying, I've advertised, I've gone, you know, phone calls. I've brought samples, like, I can't fix. Figure out how to kind of change behaviors that way. And one of the markets was shutting down, and the software people said, well, you know, honestly, most people use this site for a CSA and, or, you know, for subscription programs, and the restaurant is a bonus. And I was like, come back. What was that? I don't understand. They're like, when you have a CSA, you have guaranteed orders for a certain period of time. And if you get a couple extra orders from your restaurants, yay. You know, and so, and so I was like, huh? Well, we have this market closing down. What do you guys think, growers, about us trying this? It's kind of, you got, it's a commitment, right? And they got to be able to say they have 20 shares of radishes, right? Because if we're doing 20, you know, boxes, like, that's what we're trying to do. And so they say, yeah, we want to try it out. And we sold out within 36 hours. And we were able to, because some people do have shares. We did every other week as well. So we had, like, 40 customers over that ten week period that we sold, had 20 shares each by the end of the season because somebody had, some people had kind of gone. Like, you could put things on hold and come back. So we ended up like, I think our last box was, like, 32 shares, little stretch. And by the end of that season, we're talking about December. I started adding fresh milled flour from revival mills and eggs from some of our growers because our produce, a, was running out, and b, it's a variety. It helps.
• 28:08
  Speaker A: Yes. Right.
• 28:09
  Speaker B: My contribution, I don't grow any of this stuff, is to curate the box. But then also, I always included two recipes so that you could figure out, like, what do I do with more turnips? Yes. Anything new? I made sure we had a recipe for things that maybe you've had before. Like, let's say you've had spaghetti squash, but maybe you've never cooked it yourself. Like, I had a QR code that linked to a video, not my own video. I don't really care. A video to give you an idea of how to. How to cook that. That's fabulous.
• 28:43
  Speaker A: How many hours a week are you spending doing this?
• 28:45
  Speaker B: Well, in the fall, it was easily a part time job, if not close to full. And then, I'll be honest with you, the last two months have been all school gardens.
• 28:56
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 28:57
  Speaker B: And I haven't even touched that stuff. And so I need to figure out how to switch those gears and be able to bring it back online. My growers, theoretically, I think I have one grower that's like, yes, I'm ready. And we had four to start. And so part of me isn't 100% that we are ready. We just. Cause you are ready. Cause I have two other growers that are like, don't. No, not it, you know, not ready.
• 29:27
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 29:28
  Speaker B: Just.
• 29:28
  Speaker A: It's too much work.
• 29:29
  Speaker B: Well. And they just haven't gotten the volume up.
• 29:33
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 29:33
  Speaker B: And part of what was awesome about. Well, again, this goes back to, like, businesses and local food systems. And how do we do? Was in the summer, often that produce is coming off, and the stuff that's ready on Monday is no longer looking super hot on Saturday.
• 29:49
  Speaker A: Right.
• 29:49
  Speaker B: And so a midweek option to shed some of that produce is really helpful. And that's where the boxes, csas come in when you're in the spring. Right now, especially, a lot of our harvests are greens and roots. That's going to be a one time harvest. And then you've got to wait two more weeks to be able to harvest again. So this midweek option is not quite there. And my farmers that sell at markets, like, they are selling all of their stuff basically through the market.
• 30:19
  Speaker A: The market.
• 30:20
  Speaker B: And honestly, the price you're going to get at a farmers market is a lot better. It's a lot better. I try and I let the growers set their own prices on this website, and all the money has gone to them. And to the tune of, I've actually even paid the credit card fees for now. But as we move forward, that's going to adjust. It needs to be sustainable. But as a box, especially the box level, you're gonna. Not everybody charges the same. You get to have these conversations about what should be charged right with the market. I can get this much right. And then somebody else is like, if I asked my customers for that much, like they like they would.
• 30:57
  Speaker A: They would do it.
• 30:57
  Speaker B: They would murder me. You know, like, that would never work out. They would go somewhere else. Right. And so you have to find this happy medium, because I can't be paying everybody that price. The box can't afford it. That kind of thing.
• 31:09
  Speaker A: Right.
• 31:10
  Speaker B: We came to an agreement. There would be an average, but sometimes, like, I couldn't. I just, like, the market's not gonna hold that. So anyway, so that's. It's a. Having a mixed producer box is a whole other animal, right? Yeah, it's a whole other animal.
• 31:24
  Speaker A: Well, you know, and it just shows the pain points, you know, along this value chain that there's really pain points in every. At every section of the chain.
• 31:35
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 31:36
  Speaker A: Like, because, you know, one reason restaurants may be like, well, if I switch to this now, what's going to happen if this person goes out of business?
• 31:45
  Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Or heard that. I have heard that from this, or.
• 31:49
  Speaker A: We'Ve tried this before, and that chefs, you know, so.
• 31:53
  Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It is a risk. It is a risk for the chef to go in is a risk for the grower to shift their produced that way. When I tell growers who are new to selling to restaurants, what should they say? What should I price it at? I say, well, look, imagine if you're going to put it on the site. Let's put it at a pound or two pounds of greens. You're not going to do a half pound that you would do at a market, because at a restaurant, I would hope that you would be using at least that much.
• 32:21
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 32:22
  Speaker B: Now, restaurants are notorious for being able to make the most out of the least amount of production. Yeah, that's why we go to restaurants.
• 32:28
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 32:29
  Speaker B: And because they do amazing work.
• 32:30
  Speaker A: Right.
• 32:30
  Speaker B: Okay, so there's a trade off there.
• 32:33
  Speaker A: Right.
• 32:33
  Speaker B: But if you're having to wash and package less, you can bring that price down a little bit.
• 32:38
  Speaker A: Right.
• 32:38
  Speaker B: Your per pound price. So that's what the trade off is.
• 32:40
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 32:42
  Speaker B: So when I do a produce box, it's back to that market size. And so you got to figure out how much. And so my. My conversation with growers is how much are you willing to give to the produce box at a lower price, let's say, because it's just not your market price. But you get to. You get to have a constant demand. You get to have kind of a piece of the pie and the branding and all that stuff.
• 33:10
  Speaker A: So what is the demographic of the folks that are interested in being growers? Are these folks that they've grown up on the farm or they're already in farming and now they're adding this market to their, you know, as another source of income. Are these people that are completely inexperienced.
• 33:29
  Speaker B: I've got all the things I've tried and I try and honestly, I consider part of my work to be recruiting.
• 33:35
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 33:35
  Speaker B: I consider part of my work to be. To be. If you are a. I had growers and they unfortunately are leaving our area. I had growers that generally made like, soaps and mate, but they were growing their own and they would grow pepper plants and that kind of thing and sell them at the market. And I was like, anytime you have extra, I would love to list it. Like, I am trying to sneakily get you into the food chain, because if you can do it on this scale. If I can. It's better for us as a community if we can continuously be bringing people into that. Into that.
• 34:10
  Speaker A: Into that world.
• 34:11
  Speaker B: Into that world. But yes, there are some that maybe were originally cotton farmers or maybe were and are now dedicating some space to produce. There is a trade off. It can be both. And, and I, yeah, I try to be flexible in that thought. Like, could I get you into this? Even if it's a flower grower?
• 34:36
  Speaker A: Yes. Right. What can that look like for somebody that is it. Is it possible for somebody that lives in town? A lot of times people think I need to move out and homestead and then they deal with tumbleweeds for a couple of years and go, I think I'm gonna move back to town. Cause it's not that fun.
• 34:52
  Speaker B: Right.
• 34:53
  Speaker A: You know, so. But is it possible to, for somebody to take their backyard and turn that into a garden and then it is absolutely possible.
• 35:03
  Speaker B: The question is, is that a livable wage? I don't know that you're gonna get to a livable wage. I think you can get to a side hustle. I think you can get to a supplementary income easily on a backyard situation. But then my next thought, if I were to make some recommendations, is to either lease some land, not buy, but lease some land to get yourself up and going if you want to expand.
• 35:29
  Speaker A: What do you think the acreage has to be for someone to be able to make a living wage off doing something like this?
• 35:35
  Speaker B: Oh, gosh, you've asked them million dollar question. To be honest, I will not hazard a guess, but I will say that I can see some of my growers, I feel like getting close, that have a couple of acres, like two or three. I can see them getting close, but I'm, again, I think the biggest challenge for growers is that, unfortunately, with a grower, you have to be your own marketing, your own this, your own. And if you're a jack of all trades, you're a master of none.
• 36:08
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 36:09
  Speaker B: And so that's where I see the online market coming in, is if I can take some of your product off your hands and move it through the system, then that's less work you're doing. And so that's the trade off I am pitching. I want to, and I'm going to help promote you, and I'm going to help all of those things because I want those sides. I need our food system to be sustainable. But, yeah, there's some pinch points.
• 36:35
  Speaker A: Well, I sure appreciate you being here. It's been grid. Yeah, I've learned a ton. And I had no idea you were in public health. And it makes so much sense that what you're doing now makes so much sense.
• 36:44
  Speaker B: It's my sneaky side mission to get people to eat more vegetables. I see so much value in, I mean, getting our hands in the dirt, like you were saying, there's mental. There's literally research out there that shows getting our hands in the dirt helps reduce anxiety and depression.
• 37:04
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 37:05
  Speaker B: So I'm a huge proponent. It's not just about the vegetables. If you want to grow flowers and put your hands in the dirt, by all means. I have a tendency to only see the vegetables, and I have to have people tell me, no, no, come on, some more flowers.
• 37:21
  Speaker A: All right.
• 37:23
  Speaker B: I love the flowers, too. I just forget.
• 37:25
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 37:26
  Speaker B: I just forget. So that's fun. Yeah.
• 37:29
  Speaker A: That's really great. Well, I just value what you're doing, and it's part of, you know, our mission here is to make people aware of opportunities that they might not know that are available to them, especially in the ag community, you know, where there's always a need to expand the markets. Absolutely. You know, so it's a lot of work. You know, we remember, like, probably most. I mean, I grew up by my grandparents and my mom, and then I had a garden. You know, I mean, it's. My grandmother used to say, anybody can plant one, but not. Not everybody can make one.
• 38:02
  Speaker B: Ooh, that's good.
• 38:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's good. Yeah. So it's a. It is a. It's a full time job.
• 38:09
  Speaker B: It is. And our grandparents were doing that because they had to.
• 38:12
  Speaker A: Yes. And.
• 38:13
  Speaker B: And I realized that we don't have to.
• 38:16
  Speaker A: Right.
• 38:16
  Speaker B: And so there isn't as much. It's. Yeah, they had to. They were. There were some hard things happening.
• 38:22
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 38:23
  Speaker B: So it's not all romantic and amazing.
• 38:25
  Speaker A: No, no, it's not. It's not. It's not.
• 38:28
  Speaker B: But we can find some romance in doing it today. That's how I like to see it.
• 38:34
  Speaker A: That's true. Well, thanks again for being here.
• 38:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 38:37
  Speaker A: And thanks for having everybody for listening to us here at conservation stories. And we'll have all of Jessica's grow together Texas info linked on the website and on the episode notes. You can find everything and they can go to see if they can sign up for your food boxes and that kind of stuff and see what's available there. Give us more time. The website for the boxes, it is lbkgrown.com, lbkgrown.com. and you can learn more about Sarah at Sarah Dash conservation.com. and we look forward to seeing you guys or visiting with you again next time on conservation stories. It.