When I first moved to Central Texas, what shocked me most wasn’t the heat or the size of the sky—it was the absence of food. Not grocery stores, but living food. There were no backyard vegetable plots, no small orchards tucked behind fences, no diversified patches of crops. Agriculture, at least the kind that feeds people directly, seemed to have vanished. In its place were sprawling subdivisions, ornamental shrubs, and endless stretches of Bermuda grass trimmed into submission.
Yet everywhere I went, people spoke about what used to grow here. Parents who raised corn. Grandparents who sowed rye and winter oats. Families who harvested figs, pomegranates, and pear trees so productive they required no irrigation. The fruit was so abundant it became pear butter, pear sauce, and even homemade alcohol.
Everyone had a memory. Almost no one had evidence.
At least, not where I live.
When I decided to plant an orchard, I did what farmers have always done: I looked around. I drove back roads slowly, scanning yards and fence lines. I spotted a pear tree and added pears to the plan. I saw an elderberry thriving and made room for elderberries. I checked climate zones, compared charts, read research, and ordered trees that were supposedly “right” for this region.
I even crawled under two barbed-wire fences and followed the edge of a dry creek on a neighbor’s land to collect cuttings from a legendary pomegranate tree that survives there without irrigation. It felt almost mythical. Of all the cuttings I took, only one rooted. That single survivor now lives in my greenhouse, and I’m guarding it like treasure.
Everywhere I turned, people warned me about the soil. Too alkaline. Too rocky. Too depleted. Too dead.
I wasn’t worried about the soil.
I know soil. I know how to rebuild it, how to bring life back into it, how to coax microbiology into abundance. Soil is not a fixed condition—it’s a living system. And everything I was told would be impossible turned out not to be the real problem. Cedar chips won’t kill your plants. Mulching doesn’t ruin everything. You can grow more than cows on Bermuda grass.
The real issue in Central Texas isn’t dirt. It’s instability.
Here, temperatures can swing from well above 75°F to 15°F in less than two days. As I write this, a hard freeze is coming. Two days ago, it felt like spring. Greenhouse or not, plants don’t know how to respond to that. Metabolically, they’re being told to grow and shut down at the same time—to wake up, go dormant, protect themselves, and produce sugar simultaneously.
Those aren’t small adjustments. They’re entirely different survival strategies.
Trees suffer the most. Those that break dormancy at the first hint of warmth are especially vulnerable. Illinois Everbearing mulberry performs better here than almost any other mulberry, yet right now it’s holding tiny fruit at exactly the wrong time, fooled by a false spring. My peach trees bloomed fully in early January, just days before a freeze that will wipe out the entire harvest. No peaches this year.
I’ve only been farming in Texas for three years. Before this, I farmed in New York. I farmed in California. Those places have seasons that make sense. Even when the weather is extreme, it follows recognizable patterns. Texas doesn’t. This is a continental climate that shifts abruptly and unapologetically.
Still, I’m learning.
Progress here is slow and hard-earned. My CSA members aren’t receiving summer-style abundance, but they’re still getting food: winter squash, lemongrass, basil, kale, yucca, peppers, radishes, mustard greens, potatoes, passionfruit, rosemary, and preserved goods from last season. There are also a few very sad eggplants limping along in the greenhouse, doing their best.
We’re replanting orchards based on what actually survives, not what should survive on paper. Irrigation lines are being repurposed where trees failed. The olive trees we planted will never fruit because of recurring cold blasts—but they will always produce leaves. Those leaves become tea. They become tinctures. Failure turns into adaptation.
Over time, a pattern becomes clear. The winners here aren’t the most delicate or productive under ideal conditions. They’re the ones that tolerate chaos. Plants that can convert both heat and cold into sugar. Plants with waxy leaves, deep roots, and slow, deliberate growth. Plants that protect themselves before they perform.
Standing in the field, watching plants struggle and adapt, it’s hard not to see a reflection of this moment in history.
Living in America right now feels unstable. Markets rise and fall. Crypto swings wildly. Inflation presses in. Regulations shift. Trust erodes. Institutions wobble. Depending on where you stand, every headline reads as either triumph or disaster.
Regardless of politics, the volatility is real.
It feels like existing inside a system that no longer offers consistency. Economic uncertainty, geopolitical tension, cultural fragmentation—highs and lows arrive daily. It’s an unsettling time to be alive.
And the traits required to endure it look a lot like the traits required to farm in Central Texas.
You need armor—not hardness, but resilience. You need deep roots—grounding in something older and steadier than the news cycle. For me, that means faith, soil, and daily contact with the land. You need the ability to turn both heat and cold into sugar. To adapt. To pivot. To keep producing even when conditions are far from ideal.
Growing food in Central Texas is a lot like being an American 250 years into this experiment. The systems are strained. The margins are thin. The swings are violent.
So we do what farmers have always done: observe closely, learn constantly, research deeply, adjust quickly, stay rooted, and build resilience—no matter what kind of storm is rolling in, whether it’s meteorological, political, economic, or emotional.
