Today we’d like to introduce you to Jill Spurgeon-LaForm.
Hi Jill, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
We have been gardening for over 20 years. In the last 7 years we have enjoyed a YouTube Channel called North Texas Vegetable Gardening and cooking where we explain the importance of growing a garden and how to preserve your harvest. As our channel began to grow, we expanded with two High Tunnels where we are able to extend our growing season and protect our plants from the extreme weather North Texas experiences all four seasons of the year. High winds, large hail, drenching rains all threaten the back yard gardener. We also experienced high insect population and poor soil conditions driving us implement regenerative gardening practices which is a step above organic gardening helping with these issues. We start all our plants from non GMO, organic seed varieties which drove an interest in our plants around our community. As a result we began to sell our plants to those who desired to purchase from us. We started a Facebook page, Alvarado Community Farm where we advertise to other pages located in Midlothian, Alvarado, Venus, Burleson, Grandview, Fort Worth, Cleburne, and Waxahachie and the farm began to explode. We also sell our organically grown produce to local communities at our location. We then started our website alvaradocommunityfarm.com where we sell our freeze dried medicinal and culinary herbs. All of these have given us a good footprint and exposure creating a loyal customer base whom we enjoy visiting with during the growing season. We take a great deal of pleasure hearing from our repeat customers how well their garden did the year before after purchasing our plants. We like to say our plants are hand planted and crafted to prosper in our gardening zone. We can, freeze dry and dehydrate various varieties to insure freshness and explosive flavors from our veggies and herbs. Our medicinal herbs began to take off last year where we offered a large selection that you are unable to find in local nursery’s, our customers enjoy our vast variety. Regenerative farming begins with our soil, the method requires much work to convert poor soil conditions into a biologically sound, mineral rich based soil, the way it used to be before we depleted our farmlands. It makes the vegetables and herbs taste as they should and as the good Lord intended. This practice also helps combat insect damage and disease. Our sale begins March 1st and continues until the end of April which is prime planting season for North Texas. We are open all Friday and Saturdays of that period of time and during the week as the weather gets warmer. We teach our local customers about regenerative gardening and the importance of healthy soil. Our customers count down the days when our first tomato harvest is ready to sell and tomato sandwiches become the favored dish the first several weeks of the harvest. It is not uncommon to see the same folks every weekend throughout our harvest buying large volumes of tomatoes to enjoy with family and friends. We are just getting started and seem to double our customer base each year as returning customers spread the news about us by word of mouth. We do not attend farmers markets, but instead have chosen to sell at our farm insuring fresh picked veggies from that very morning. It is not uncommon for us to run out of tomatoes each selling day only to have customer return the next day for the fresh picked, vine ripened goodness.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Our situation evolved slowly and changed as we recognized the need of our customers. I would say our biggest struggle is the weather patterns and keeping our plants safe and warm during the seed starting season. We experience very high winds, clocked one storm at 104 MPH wind gusts and then of course temperatures that occasionally drop below freezing during this time. My husband has created a process that helps us keep our plants safe using various tools to germinate the seeds and the High Tunnels withstand the high winds (so far) protecting the plants. We then hand pot over 7000 plants gearing up for our sale, this is time consuming and we are improving our process each year as we continue to learn. Family jumps in during the time our seedlings are maturing enough to up pot giving us the help we need to be ready for our customers when they are ready to plant.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am the Juvenile Case Manager for our County, that is my full time job. My husbands full time job is the farm. I retired from being a procurement manager of 30+ years in 2022 where I had hoped to farm full time. We were not ready yet, so I took on the challenge of guiding our juveniles to make better life choices. I work with the Justice Courts and all the school districts in Johnson County. I enjoy seeing young lives changed and being a part of small successes we see with our kiddos.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I am not a believer in Luck. I believe the Lord has guided our every step in this venture as it has happened naturally and not planned or forced.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.alvaradocommunityfarm.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/548008133705392
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ntxg
Image Credits
These are photos taken by myself. Jill Spurgeon-LaForm
