farm tour

farm tour: coyote creek farm 5/29

Date: Saturday, May 29th
Location: Coyote Creek Farm

Slow Food Austin is supporting a farm tour at Coyote Creek Farm/Texas Best Organic Feed Mill in Elgin.

This tour is a fundraiser for the Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (TOFGA) and therefore there are no take-home food items; instead, you’ll take home a wealth of information about the hardworking people who are the infrastructure necessary for our vibrant local agriculture system. Proceeds go to support TOFGA programming.

The tour will be led by mill owner and farmer Jerry Cunningham, and TOFGA President Sue Beckwith. Tickets are $10; proceeds go to TOFGA.

Email levyb@slowfoodaustin.org to RSVP; spaces are limited.

photo courtesy of coyote creek farm.

farm tour: Stryk Dairy/Strykly Cheese 3/27

Date: March 27th
Time: 11am – 2pm
Location: Stryk Dairy

You’re really from somewhere when you live on a road named after your family. Bob Stryk’s grandfather was running the family dairy in Schulenberg before industrialization drove all the small Texas dairies out of business. With true farmer innovation, Bob and Darlene Stryk have found the niche direct markets that enable them to continue this tradition and milk their Jerseys on a small, intimate scale. The Stryks offer raw milk to a small but growing and passionate group of locals, and they have built a loyal clientele for their own hand-crafted cheese, including a traditional Czech specialty, ‘koch kase.’

Raw milk has been in and out of the news with increasing frequency. The City of Austin is considering passing an ordinance allowing its sale within city limits, in response to federal and state regulatory pressures to stifle it. Bob and Darlene have a few things to say on the subject, naturally. Come out to the dairy, meet the herd, taste the milk, and decide for yourself. Participants will take home a selection of the dairy’s products. Limited spaces will fill fast!

Please RSVP to education@slowfoodaustin.org to coordinate ticket purchase.

farm tour: Johnson’s Backyard Garden 3/6

Johnson’s Backyard Garden Offers Farm-Grown Heirloom Vegetable Transplants

Date: March 6th
Time: 10am – Noon
Location: Johnson’s Backyard Garden

Slow Food USA maintains the Ark of Taste, a catalog of historically and culturally important foods, to encourage their continued enjoyment. Now Slow Food Austin invites you to join them on a Farm Foraging Tour of Johnson’s Backyard Garden, a certified-organic produce farm and greenhouse operation. Tour participants will receive farm-grown Ark of Taste vegetable transplants to grow in their own Backyard Gardens! Get a jump start on that spring garden!

From its humble beginning on East Holly Street, Johnson’s Backyard Garden has outgrown Brenton and Beth Johnson’s backyard and become the largest member-subscription farm in the southern U.S. – right here on the near-east side of Austin, Texas.

Now the Johnsons and Slow Food Austin will help you grow your own, plus tell you a little bit about their phenomenal growth. How have they done this? And why is this growth good for you, Austin Locavore? Limited spaces will fill fast!

Please RSVP to education@slowfoodaustin.org to coordinate ticket purchase.

farm tour: Springdale Farm 4/10

Date: April 10th
Time: 10am – Noon
Location: Springdale Farm

Local farms come in all sizes, big and little. The new buzz words – “spin” farming, urban farming, “pocket” farming – are embodied in Springdale Farm, a 78702 4.8-acre patch cultivated by Paula and Glenn Foore. The couple has rescued a little bit more of Austin’s fertile river bottom from impervious surface and runs the city’s newest community-supported agriculture (CSA) operation. Tour attendees will learn how the couple stopped dreaming and started practicing their brand of “sustainable urban farming,” right here in Austin. Attendees will receive a box share of spring vegetables featuring fresh herbs. Limited spaces will fill fast!

Please RSVP to education@slowfoodaustin.org to coordinate ticket purchase.

slow food austin launches farm tours

slow food austin farm tour: yonder way farm Saturday, January 16, 2010
11am – 2pm
Yonder Way Farm
Tickets: $25 single/$40 couple/family (includes sampling of farm product (i.e. meat, produce, etc.)

Slow Food Austin (SFA) Farm Tours offer a signature opportunity to forage food items directly from area farms, in the context of an informative tour showing how and where the items were grown or produced, and introducing the people that produce them.

Goals of Tours:

* Increase understanding of the contributions area farmers make to our local food community
* Offer opportunities to sample local foods
* Increase understanding of Slow Food Austin’s goals to promote our local food culture and encourage conscious and appreciative enjoyment of it
* If possible, provide food for thought – novel discussion topics and angles on local farming

SFA is launching our farm tours with a bang – come with us on January 16 to meet Jason Kramer of Yonder Way Farm, an ambitious and exciting operation along the lines of Joel Salatin’s pastured salad bar beef farm, Polyface. Jason raises pastured pork, beef, poultry and eggs, and is completing construction of an on-farm commercial kitchen from which he plans to serve barbecued pork, sausages and other eatables. In the best farming tradition of cooperation, Jason also offers organic produce and milk from two other neighboring farms.

Yonder Way Farm [directions]
5500 Hwy 105
Brenham, TX 77833 (1 hour 45 min from Austin)

Tickets are SOLD OUT.

The tour carpool will leave Austin at 9am on January 16 (depature location TBD). Expect to return to Austin by 5pm
For more information, send an email to education@slowfoodaustin.org.