Bouldin Food Forest

** Editor's note: the owners sold the property towards the end of 2016, and have relocated to Roger, TX, northeast of Austin where they bought land and are planting crops.

At Third and Monroe Streets in the heart of Austin's Bouldin Creek neighborhood lies the Bouldin Food Forest, where residents Ben and Steph have transformed their yard into an edible garden. Along with a few other plots of land that they farm, they are able to hold a Saturday morning farm stand on the corner, as well as provide produce to neighboring (and neighborhood) restaurants, such as Odd Duck and 40 North. Thrilled to have this just a few blocks from my house!

Here's some of the Saturday farm stand:

Herbs, kale, shishito peppers

Corner of Third and Monroe

Dried herbs, marmalades and t-shirts also for sale!

Gorgeous kales and chard

On Sunday, April 10th, they held a tour/open house of the farm, and Ben explained the premise of permaculture: how to design a garden system that mimics nature's ecosystems. You want something that works with you, and turns problems into solutions. To counter Austin's weather and topography issues, he dug a series of berms, about 2 - 3 feet deep, filled them with logs and sticks, mulch and compost. The berms store water and slow the flow (towards the house) during heavy rains. There's a tree planted on each berm to help with erosion control; they've got plum, pear, key lime, grapefruit, meyer lemon, Mexican lime, pomegranate, and pecan to name a few!

The garden creates no waste; all the branch and stem trimmings get recycled back into the berms or into the compost box. They also encourage an integrated pest management system to let nature take care of itself, like encouraging wasps, which eat harmful caterpillars. While these look like bird houses, they are actually homes for mason bees, a non-honey producing variety who work 30-40% harder than honey bees. By attracting the mason bees, they in turn will help pollinate. Plants such as geranium and sage are also natural pest repellers.

Bee boxes for mason bees

Bees feed on borage flowers and help to pollinate

Eggplant

Baby grapes!

Strawberries... they also have blueberries

Lettuce

Two varieties of kale and candy stripe beets pass muster from my personal produce inspector.

So if you want to be connected to where your food comes from, the Bouldin Food Forest is a great place to go check out! The farm stand is open Saturday mornings from 9 am - noon. Additionally, they work with Yard to Market Co-op in providing produce for the Saturday Sunset Valley farmers' market and the Hope market on Sundays.

Bouldin Food Forest -- website and Facebook page
Third and Monroe Streets
Austin, TX 78704