Decibel
Growing Forward
Clip | 5m 19sVideo has Closed Captions
A new Pflugerville farmer must contend with agricultural challenges.
At the height of the pandemic, Jane Taylor decided to trade in her nursing scrubs for work gloves and started farming. She expected hard work, but she didn’t plan on a drought, locusts and skyrocketing land prices.
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Decibel is a local public television program presented by Austin PBS
Funding for Decibel is provided in part by Texas Mutual and Roxanne Elder & Scott Borders
Decibel
Growing Forward
Clip | 5m 19sVideo has Closed Captions
At the height of the pandemic, Jane Taylor decided to trade in her nursing scrubs for work gloves and started farming. She expected hard work, but she didn’t plan on a drought, locusts and skyrocketing land prices.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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[soft piano music plays] [Jane] It started as a hobby and it ended up being a business.
But that also has its own challenges.
[Birds singing] [Oil sizzling] [Jane] We are originally from Kenya.
For me, a meal with collard greens just brings back that nostalgia.
So when I grew the collards back here and they flourished, I was like, huh.
Even in Texas.
As long as they can get the water.
[whimsical music plays] My name is Jane Taylor.
I'm a 54-year-old Black woman who is really, really passionate about farming.
Our business name goes by Green Thumb, like the thumb, Farming LLC, and we are based in Pflugerville, Texas.
Okay.
This is a bok choy.
Nowhere in my dreams did I ever think when I grow up, I'm going to be a farmer.
But this one needs to move up because of light.
I was working as a nurse.
Growing the vegetables was just a way of trying to save some money and also to grow good food for my kids.
[Adeline] There are times I go to the garden and I'm like, we did not plant that.
I'm like Mom, she goes, yeah, I find these seeds.
And I just wanted to see if they'll grow.
So I just toss them in the garden.
I'm like, That's going to be a lot of cilantro, but okay.
[Jane] You combine the stress of work and COVID, I was burned out and farming was was something that has always been at the back of my mind.
I decided I'm going to quit my job as a nurse and try farming.
But really, until you do something, you don't realize how difficult it is.
[shoveling dirt] [Jane] There were many surprises waiting for me.
[Adeline] We had not bought the truck.
So we had to put some produce in mom's car so her car would smell like onions the whole time.
[Jane] We had an infestation of grasshoppers.
And then there was the prolonged drought.
By June, literally nothing was growing.
The other challenge really to me, and it's still a challenge even now, was not having our own piece of land.
The cost of land just went through the roof.
Just we just didn't have the finances to be able to do that.
So that's a challenge.
You're like, okay, what am I getting into?
[coffee pot burbling] [Jane] I remember I think I was a little bit upset.
I had put in so much work, like manual work, and my kids looked at me and they were like, Mom, this is life.
I was discouraged, but I did not think about giving up because it's something I really am passionate about.
[water spraying] [birds chirping] [Jane] There are things that motivate me.
This week we we made an African dish.
Half of what we made was actually from our gardens.
That's a good feeling.
We are interested in encouraging a lot of young people to get into this.
People of color.
We would like to collaborate with like school districts.
There are some kids who don't know where the food comes from.
Bring them out.
Let let them see where a carrot comes from.
If we achieve that, we will have done something positive.
[soft piano music] The morning I walked out of my last job, it was scary.
I was making a choice to move into the unknown.
Aah, we go to our first fruit!
Farmers go through a lot.
But yeah, it is that satisfaction of from a seed to this.
It just makes you happy.
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Decibel is a local public television program presented by Austin PBS
Funding for Decibel is provided in part by Texas Mutual and Roxanne Elder & Scott Borders