More growers across the Bluebonnet region are experimenting with unusual crops

SMALL TOWN FARM

Fentress
Turmeric, cardamom, papaya, curry leaf trees and more

IF YOU GO 
San Marcos Farmers Market, 
111 E. San Antonio St.
9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday (preorder plants online)
smalltownfarmtx@gmail.com
smalltownfarm.com  

Cristen Andrews and Miguel Guerra used to visit Caldwell County and find campsites around the area. After 20 years of visiting, they put down roots there in 2020.

Lavender farms have taken root

The couple follows an expansive growing philosophy at Small Town Farm in Fentress. “We feel like it’s really important to get to know the plants, seed to harvest,” Andrews said. They stay mindful of their surroundings: what’s native, what the local wildlife eats, what weeds tend to pop up. Different species mingle in their garden. It is not a place of orderly rows.

Small Town Farm's owners respond to what nature is saying by adapting their practices to the changing environment. “We’ve been picking more and more plants that tend to be able to survive in our current climate, not what we’re used to,” Guerra said. 

Andrews and Guerra grow several crops that don’t bring Texas to mind, like turmeric, the ginger relative native to Southeast Asia. The leafy flowering plant’s rhizomes (or rootstalks), when dried and powdered, become a vibrant yellow spice used in many Asian dishes. 

The same is true with turmeric’s cousin galangal, another leafy flowering plant whose rhizome is often used in Thai cuisine. The farm’s cardamom, yet another ginger family member, also has similar growing preferences.

The two owners of Small Town Farm have dabbled with papaya, a tropical fruit native to Mexico and Central America. Their papaya trees grew from seeds from a grocery store fruit. If they can weather a winter, they grow fast and can shoot up taller than a house, making them great shade umbrellas.    Guerra’s favorite plants at the farm are the curry leaf trees, native to India. Small Town Farm has also grown Armenian cucumbers, which are melons, botanically speaking, but taste like cucumbers; Kajari melons, also known as Indian honeydews; and snake gourds, also known as snake beans. 

“You can plant year-round,” she said. “It just depends on what you’re planting.”

DELL’S FAVORITE TEXAS OLIVE RANCH

Elgin
Olive oil and private-label jars of olives 

IF YOU GO
186 Youngs Prairie Road, Elgin
9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday 
512-229-8443
fmajfarm@gmail.com
dellsfavorite.com 

The party starts at Dell’s Favorite Texas Olive Ranch when it’s time to harvest the goods in the fall. 

Frank and Renee Majowicz, who own the Elgin orchard, host a volunteer team that gets a crash course in olive picking and enjoys a community meal in exchange.

Frank should know a thing or two about hospitality, since he was a corporate chef for Hyatt Hotels for 43 years before retiring in 2020. Anticipating the need for a new project, the Majowiczes planted their first olive trees in the 3½-acre orchard in 2014. They primarily grow Arbequina olives, which are native to Spain, Renee said. The fruit is aromatic and purple to dark brown in color when ripe.

Dell’s Favorite Texas Olive Ranch turns that fruit — yes, it’s fruit — into olive oil, which they have pressed at a mill in Hallettsville. Arbequina oil is mild and subtly sweet. The Majowiczes also sell a private label of jarred olives from another source. The little guys that they grow themselves are used only for oil, Renee said.

Olive trees love the sandy loam of their Bastrop County orchard, which drains well. Like lavender, olives don’t like wet feet. The trees start budding in March and mature from late September through early October.

Texas heat doesn’t bother the trees much, Renee said, thanks to the orchard’s irrigation system. But especially cold winters have been a challenge. The big freeze of 2021 took its toll on the orchard, and in 2024, the Majowiczes planted 450 new trees to replace those they lost.

“They are technically evergreen,” Renee said. “So, if the weather stays right, the trees should stay green all year.”

LOST PINES YAUPON TEA

Bastrop
Roasted yaupon tea leaves and flavored tea concentrates

TRY YAUPON TEA 
Purchase teas and merchandise on their website or find them at select retailers in Austin, San Marcos and Lockhart (store hours vary)
512-748-4546
lostpinesyaupontea.com

A few years ago, Jason Ellis heard that the leaves of the yaupon holly, a native shrub in many Texas landscapes, could be brewed into a caffeinated tea. “It must taste awful if nobody's actually doing anything with it,” he remembers thinking.

In fact, Indigenous people have made yaupon leaves into a beverage since ancient times. Colonists even exported it to Europe. Yaupon tea eventually faded from popular use, but the plant didn’t go anywhere. 

Yaupon is so plentiful in the Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative region, particularly in Bastrop County’s Lost Pines, that people are willing to pay to get rid of it. So, along with friends Heidi Wachter and John Seibold, Ellis founded Lost Pines Yaupon Tea, which turns the unwanted greenery into liquid gold. If you ask Ellis, it tastes great.

Yaupon is a native plant to the region and incredibly well-adapted to its home, Ellis said. After any brush-clearing, it is one of the first woody plants to reappear. Yaupon Tea crews drive to areas overgrown with the plant, then trim and remove branches. That work gives other native plants a better chance to flourish, Ellis said. 

Ellis and company take the yaupon back to their warehouse, let the leaves air dry and then roast them in a convection oven. Their light roast tastes like green tea, while the dark roast is comparable to a “really roasty, oaky, almost whiskey barrel-ish black tea,” he said. The company also sells flavored yaupon tea concentrates, like mint, basil and peach. 

Inevitably, the yaupon grows back, so Ellis and his crew return to trim again. There’s no chance Lost Pines could ever run out of their tea supply, he said. They’ve even had to turn away some property owners who asked them to clear their yaupon. 

“It's literally the predominant understory to the entire pine forest,” Ellis said.

TWISTED TIMBER FARMS

Lexington 
Persimmons, jujubes, pond plants and more

WANT TO FORAGE OR SHOP?
Call 512-818-5278 for information to plan a visit
Get event details on the Lee County Gardening Club Facebook group
Buy products at the Buffalo Bazaar Community Market, 119 N Burleson St., Giddings; 9 a.m.-2 p.m., second Saturday, March-November

When the COVID-19 pandemic strained food supply chains, it inspired Kathleen Canales to take action. She now spreads the gospel of growing good stuff to feed the community.

Canales moved to Lexington from Hutto about six years ago. She runs Lee County Garden Club, which aims to make sustainable food production available to anyone, offering meetups, seed swaps, farm tours, classes and more. She also grows a variety of plants on her 10 acres called Twisted Timber Farms. 

She speaks excitedly about all the crops people might not know they can grow in the area. Pomegranates and figs can do well in Lee County, Canales said. Mustang grapes thrive, and some folks turn them into jelly to sell at the Lee County Farmers Market. 

Native Texas persimmons grow on Canales’ land. The trees aren’t very big (under 10 feet) and the fruit they bear is small, too. One of the more interesting plants she grows is the jujube. Not to be confused with the candy of that name, the fruit is also known as red date or Chinese date. The deciduous tree originated in China but is well adapted to Texas, she said. Canales started her jujubes from seed. The sandy soil in the region provides sufficient drainage. The jujube fruit looks a bit like a long kiwi, she said, and tastes a little like a banana.

Twisted Timber Farms grows and sells pond plants, too: floating lettuce, lilies, Texas hibiscus, floating lotus and more. These need to live in water, but they’ll grow anywhere, especially in sunny Texas. “Even in the shade, the sun filters through our trees,” she said. “Mine are out in full sun.”

Canales specializes in companion planting at every scale, from small garden beds to an entire food forest. Teaching people about the latter is her passion. If you do it right, it just takes one acre to feed a community, she said. 

ANTIQUE ROSE EMPORIUM

Independence, Washington County
Old Blush Rose and other antique Texas rose varieties

IF YOU GO 
10000 FM 50, Brenham
Nursery and gardens open 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Sunday
979-836-5548
antiqueroseemporium.com

There’s no shortage of roses in the Bluebonnet region, but among the 330 varieties available at the Antique Rose Emporium, 11 miles north of Brenham, there is one with a particularly rich history. Old Blush is one of the first rose varieties grown in Texas, brought by European settlers in the mid-1800s. Also known as Parsons’ Pink China, this rose bush with soft lilac-pink blooms originated about a thousand years ago in China, and appeared in Europe in the mid- to late-1700s. 

The emporium sells about 45 true antique or old garden roses — defined as varieties existing before 1867, according to the American Rose Society. Old roses in Texas have been found growing wild in cemeteries, vacant lots and near old homes, including in eastern Central Texas. 

An Old Blush bush was rediscovered in the 1970s, according to a story in Texas Monthly magazine, when rose aficionado Pamela Puryear said she found it growing in front of an 1824 log house in Washington County. 

Old Blush, like many heirloom roses, is tough, disease-resistant and can flourish in rugged soil without much human help. Its medium-sized, semi-double blooms have a soft fruity fragrance. Like other old roses, it can grow as a hedge, border or the bushy star of a garden.