Local Garden Spotlight Greenies

Greenies Urban Farm

interview by Amanda Micek

The Greenies Urban Farm, located on the East Side of San Antonio, aims to educate the community about gardening and fill gaps in the food system. On a once vacant lot locally known as the “goonies,” the urban farm was situated in this particular locale to lower criminal activity and address a lack of access to affordable produce. This ten acre space is already providing fresh vegetables for an area heavily affected by food insecurity.

E U R A T E F N R D E G A L L O C A

On a cold November morning, I was able to visit the Greenies Urban Farm to hear about their efforts during the first phase of this project and see what crops are currently growing. First, I talked to a frequent volunteer, Ray Montez.

Amanda: So, can you tell me what you’re growing out here?

Ray: Well, basically we started in late August. And we’ve planted watermelons, cantaloupes, tomatoes, three different kinds of zucchini and two squashes. Right now we just picked the green beans and we have a lot of cucumbers still left. And of course, we have broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. And there’s all kinds of produce that we’ve already harvested. And that’s not even including what we’ve already sent out. I think we have a total of 5,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables that we have harvested here.

A: What are you going to do with all of the produce you have harvested?

R: Well, in the beginning, we started giving to Catholic Charities. And then through Bexar County Commissioners, everything’s been donated to the University Health System. They distribute it amongst the people. So we just plant, grow, and give it to them.

To learn more about the operations taking place, I also spoke with Larry Stein, an associate department head, professor, and extension horticulturist with the Texas A&M Agrilife extension program.

Larry: We’re trying to show people that you can grow vegetables in a small area of land. And that’s basically what we are doing here. We started in the spring, and we grew cold crops. Then we planted warm season crops in August. Since we waited so late, we were able to direct seed those instead of using transplants. . So squash, beans, cantaloupe, watermelons, cucumbers, we just direct seeded it, which is a lot cheaper and easier to do than using transplants. And so basically [this is] just an experiment to see if we can grow produce in the city.

From here Larry walked me to a small shed with pallets of recently harvested produce. There were signif-

icant amounts of green beans, watermelon, cantaloupe, and tomatoes. Despite the amazing harvest, Larry mentioned that producing food at the Greenies hasn’t always been easy. He took me alongside the rows of crops. A: Can you talk about why you chose this area to have the urban farm?

L: You see this dirt right here? It’s not really soil. It’s pretty rocky. So that soil out there had to be amended. We actually brought in organic matter and mulch and things like that to get it to where we could have a bed to grow on.. And so the challenge that you have in some of these urban areas is that you don’t have the best soil. And so we had to build it up. But once we did, you can see it grew a lot of stuff. The other challenge we’ve had is that they haven’t put water in the place yet. We have irrigation, but we have to run it off a fire hydrant. While the urban farm faced a few delays because of COVID-19, there are plans in Phase Two to address the lack of on site water. Yet, despite the pandemic, the urban farm has not had a problem getting volunteers to aid them in their mission. Larry mentioned that they have about 53 people associated with the Master Gardener’s program alone. I also got to see five different individuals, Ray included, receive a certificate for recognition of their service hours. Everyone I interacted with was very optimistic about the future of the Greenies Urban Farm. Tommy: Well, it was really the community who asked the county judge to do something about it. Back in 2013, he was running against my predecessor, Commissioner Atkinson. And this was an overgrown area, they were concerned about the kids at Wheatley potentially getting in trouble back here between the tracks, and it was called The Goonies because of how overgrown it was. And now it’s been named the greenies. So we purchased it from Union Pacific and began to do soil tests. We did about $50,000 in environmental remediation and then began to put together the funds to expedite the actual planting of vegetables in the pandemic.

There has been a lot of partnership to make this happen. We

Before wrapping up for the day I was able to interview Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert. Commissioner Calvert has been instrumental in the creation and implementation of the Greenies Urban Farm and addressing the food desert in his precinct. wouldn’t have been able to do it with just the county itself. So we felt it was very important with supply chains being interfered with during the pandemic and holidays that we have our own source of food locally. And that we empower people about how food is medicine. If you understand the health benefits of what food can do for you, you can have, you know, much greater health. So we know people are struggling with the cost of food. It’s very expensive in the stores. So we’re kind of alleviating those financial pressures of inflation on a lot of families, and that lack of stress is also a health care benefit. So we’ll end up having all kinds of classes taught by the ag extension service. And we’re just excited about people being able to literally have prescriptions from our University Health System, which we have I think 22. Plus clinics, where they literally will prescribe you to go down to the urban farm and get you some vegetables that are good for that particular

ailment. I mean, that’s really the vision long term, that people don’t just get a pill, they actually get something to eat that will help them heal.

A: How are you ensuring that what’s grown here is going to families in need that are affected by food insecurity? Commissioner Calvert and I were also able to talk about what’s coming in the future for the Greenies Urban Farm. Most notably, there will be an $11 million investment during Phase Two of the plan which will allow for a 300 person event center, an outdoor pavilion, and an outdoor classroom to be built on site. When I asked Commissioner Calvert what sorts of things people could learn from their educational programs, the options were many. From growing and cooking vegetables, to accounting or falconry, and leadership classes, the opportunities at Greenies Urban Farm are endless. Furthermore, Calvert hopes for students to be able to earn scholarships in the future to further promote education.

T: A couple different ways. We partner with some of the nonprofits and churches that serve those families. We also partner with the food bank. We know the income level of a lot of our families through the University Health Systems Carelink.

A: And now that you’re actually here and in the community, are you still seeing that positive reception that they had before you were here?

T: I think so. I mean, we’re out here on a cold day, and everybody’s here happy. I’m surprised by the great turnout. So I think we have a lot of support. And we need it because, you know, doing all these vegetables is a lot of work, it’s a day to day thing, and it’s going to grow. The Greenies Urban Farm is up and running. The produce grown on site has already contributed to 415 bags of food that have gone to families affected by food insecurity. In addition, due to established connections with local public schools and the University Health System, the Greenies Urban Farm stands to bring positive systemic change to the health care sector and education in San Antonio, as well as addressing the limits of the food system and its associated supply chains. If you are interested in contributing to the amazing work done at the Greenies Urban Farm, get out there and start volunteering!

A: Have you seen members from the local community come out to volunteer?