I'm the Farm Manager for Opal's Farm - a non-profit5 acre urban farm in Fort Worth that grows for neighborhoods denied access to fresh, nutritious produce through food apartheid. I firmly believe that not only is healthy food a human right, it is also what brings us together Everyone has a seat at the table!
It’s almost Christmas and I haven’t done well in keeping our friends up to date with Opal’s Farm this December. I guess you could include October and November in that as well. It’s been a hectic Fall! Our unseasonably warm weather and only occasional cold spells have been great for the farm.
Thanks to the Conservation and Environment Fund at North Texas Community Foundation we’re looking forward to a great Winter and an even better Spring. Christmas came early for Opal’s Farm when we were awarded a grant from the Conservation and Environment Fund at North Texas Community Foundation. We’ll be adding new pollinator habitats throughout the farm, improving soil health with better composting, and expanding our production area so that we can feed more of our neighbors while taking care of the land we’ve been so graciously been granted by the Tarrant Regional Water District.
“North Texas Community Foundation drives meaningful change through charitable investment. The Foundation helps donors meet the needs of our community by providing tax-efficient strategies to support the causes they care about most. At the core of everything we do is a network of generous individuals, families and businesses intent on shaping the future of North Texas for good, forever. Learn more at northtexascf.org.
It’s hard to believe that December is already here. This year has flown by! It seems like only yesterday I was planting early Spring crops and now I’m getting beds ready for them again. I keep hearing the old Harry Chapin song over and over in my head as I pull out the old summer crops and prepare for the coming year. “All my life’s a circle, sunrise and sundown. Moon rolls through the nighttime, ‘til the daybreak comes around. All my life’s a circle, but I can’t tell you why. Seasons spinning round again, the years keep rolling by…” I keep thinking that things will slow down at Opal’s Farm, but the circle keeps rolling on.
Opal’s Farm Stand went on the road yesterday with all the greens and root vegetables that’re coming in this time of year. We were at the monthly Funkytown Mindful Market on Wesleyan Street. Attendance was strong despite the chilly overcast December day, and a good time was had by all. I got to spend the morning with our stand next to my friend Steven from Tabor Farms and catch up with one another. He and all the Tabor crew have done an amazing job building the farm up and growing some fantastic winter produce. Please go by and visit Tabor sometime for a real treat. Even better than that – volunteer with them!
My friends at CoAct, Jesse Herrera and Ashley Munoz, saw to it that Market Bucks went to every market visitor and any produce left over was sent to the Funkytown Fridge. Everyone’s so busy this time of years that it’s easy to forget that many of our neighbors go hungry during this hectic holiday season. CoAct, Funkytown Mindful Market, Tabor Farms, and Opal’s Farm hope to make the holidays a bit easier for those going without. Food, and good healthy food, is a basic human right and we want to do what we can to ensure that everyone has access.
Please remember too, that Opal’s has Fresh Bucks available through the end of December to help those who were affected by the government shutdown. The Sustainable Food Center has graciously shared a grant to make sure those affected can purchase up to $30.00 per day on fresh food with the Fresh Bucks available until they’re all gone or the end of December, whichever comes first.
Fall saw above normal temperatures and December’s moved in the opposite direction. It’s the coldest start to December in sixteen years so we’ve been covering crops to make we have plenty of winter produce available. The good Lord willing, we will be open throughout the year both Cowtown Farmers Market and Opal’s Farm Stand.
There are some changes coming to Opal’s Farm Stand in 2026 so we can serve more of our neighbors. We’re finalizing those plans now and we’ll be making an announcement about those changes soon. Meanwhile, the circle keeps rolling on. Happy Holidays everyone!
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday. We had a wonderful day with food, family, and Dallas Cowboys football, I normally have a little anxiety around family gatherings being the introvert that I am. My social battery tends to run low after a couple of hours, but this year it lasted from around two in the afternoon until after ten o’clock in the evening. I normally am worn out after being around people, even loved ones for so long. This year was different. I was tired, but happy to have spent our time together. Something special happened this year that been somewhat absent in the past.
One of my wife’s family traditions is to take time between Thanksgiving dinner and dessert to read a passage of scripture and go around the table and have each person tell what they are grateful for. I won’t go into details except to tell you that each of us found deeper appreciation for each other and the grace we’ve been given. This year the passage was from I Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live” (The Message Bible). Good advice to everyone no matter what their faith I’d say.
No matter what happens. Most of us find it easy to be grateful when things are going well for us. It’s equally easy to take the good times for granted, but we’re going to focus on gratitude only here. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines gratitude as: “Gratitude noun – the state of being grateful.” When everything seems to be okay – the rent’s paid, there’s food on the table, we can afford a nice vacation or a new car – it’s easy to have a grateful state of mind, but what happens when tragedy strikes – the death of a loved one, unemployment, financial fear, the old car breaks down – and everything and everyone seems to be against us.
My youngest son, Jeremy, died in May of 2020. Let me be clear, I am not grateful for his death. It’s one of the most difficult things I’ve ever experienced. Parents who have lost a child know what I mean. The grief feels insurmountable and honestly, I don’t think it ever goes away. I still have moments when a song is played, I glance at one of his paintings, or my grandkids talk about how much they miss him when the sadness burst into my day and I feel as emotionally raw as the day I received the phone that he was gone. It’s a constant reminder of loss. It feels sacrilegious, or even hateful, to find gratitude in such a thing.
However, there’s immense gratitude for what happened after Jeremy died. God had placed all the people in my life that would help me walk through this tragedy. My friend and sponsor, Edgar, had lost his own son some twenty-two years earlier. He was the second person I called (the first was my wife) as I drove to my oldest granddaughter’s house to tell her the news. Over the following months he answered every phone call and walked me through the pain. He had been there before. He shared my pain and gave of himself to offer healing and hope during a dark time.
Moreover, two of our friend’s circle lost their sons as well, one to an opiate overdose like Jeremy. I could share with him the little experience I had. Helping others helps me. We were all there for one another – something I will be eternally grateful for.
Most recently, this last year has been one I don’t wish to repeat for a myriad of reasons. Funding cuts began in January. I had to lay off my staff. My paychecks were few and far between causing huge financial difficulty for both the farm and our personal finances.
In April, I blew my left knee out. Subsequent doctor appointments revealed that both knees were now bone on bone, a knee replacement was my last option, and pain became a daily issue. The farmers markets have been much slower, a reflection of a weakening economy, and sales have been down. In October, my Volunteer Coordinator quit suddenly with no explanation. After five years she had become a friend, and her loss was hurtful. I now had to give up Saturday morning markets to be there for volunteers already on the schedule. To make matters worse, my planned knee surgery fell through and it would be next November before I could again take time off for recovery. There were more than a few dark days for me. Why would anyone find gratitude in such a year?
I scaled back, took on only what I could handle, and we’ve had more volunteer groups than in past years. What wasn’t sold was donated to some great local organizations and we’ve still managed to keep moving forward. We still yielded produce totals like the year before with less land and labor. Funding has increased (we’re a non-profit farm) and new market opportunities have arisen to help us better meet our mission of improving food access for our neighbors. We saw new grants relieve the payroll anxiety thanks to Texas Health Community Hope and the North Texas Communities Foundation (more on that to come this week!) we are greeting the new year on a firm footing.
I’ve been able to let go of the hurt (it’s taken awhile) and disruption of (our Volunteer Coordinator) Stacey’s sudden departure and work with some amazing volunteers I’d been missing for the last few months. My knees still hurt but not like they were. Work is much more tolerable. A bit slower perhaps but that may be age over injury. Who’s to say?
I’m grateful for what this year has brought to me. I’m still out there every day doing the best I can and far better than expected. I’m able to keep moving and I’ve learned that my physical (and sometimes emotional) limits are not nearly as bad as I thought. I’m getting much better at thanking God “no matter what happens”.
It’s often simply a matter of perspective – whether one sees difficulty as a problem or as an opportunity. Living in a state of gratitude helps shift one’s perspective. Sometimes I only learn to be grateful looking back at how God had blessed and stood by me. One of my favorite quotes is from Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement speech, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward “. Many times, I stumble through the dark times until I look back and see how I’ve been loved and cared for. I’m getting better staying in the moment…
There’s an abundance of studies and articles about the benefits of gratitude, but I choose a very simple definition: gratitude isn’t just a noun. The dictionary may not say it, but it’s a verb as well. It’s not just a state of mind, but an action word. Sometimes placing one foot in front of another is the simplest form of gratitude one can have. My prayer for us all is that we may truly come to “Thank God no matter what happens”.
It’s Thanksgiving week. The grandkids are out of school, the calendar is empty for the first time in several months, and the weather looks like we’ll have a “Fall feel” to Thanksgiving. It doesn’t mean the farm takes a break. Plants don’t take holidays. The farm may not take time off, but it does slow down a bit as we all do during the holidays. It rained last night so I got to sit down and write the Opal’s Picks column this morning. I’m so thankful for the rain we’ve had as I’m sure you are too. Nature’s way of irrigating is simply the best!
We spent last month planting cover crops for the winter – cereal rye and Austrian winter peas are our wintertime choices. Othe winter seed mixes are available but these two have worked best for us in North Texas. Cereal rye is great for increasing soil tilth and weed suppression. Austrian winter peas are fantastic at fixing nitrogen into the soil. They also provide excellent weed suppression in the Spring. They die off as it gets warmer and provide a think mat of decaying vegetation over the beds to smother out new weed growth until the beds are ready for new planting.
We were fortunate to have a warm November, but we still need to prepare row covering for our winter crops. We’ve been busy setting hoops and row covering both (both insect cloth and frost cloth) for our larger crops. We always use floating row covers with insect cloth for our salad mixes and arugula and can easily add frost cloth when required.
The insect cloth limits pest issues, particularly with the Brassica plant family. Bogada bugs, of which Harlequin bugs are a part of, love brassicas. Infestations are worse in Fall and Spring, but fortunately, if they can’t see them, they tend not to eat them. The other thing that works well for us is planting a “trap crop”. We use Tokyo Bekana (Chinese cabbage) and leave it uncovered. The Bogada bugs tend to flock to it and leave our production beds alone.
We also take this opportunity to prepare our potato, onion, and tomato beds for Spring. We clean out the new potato and onion beds and cover them with black silage blankets to kill of the weeds. We prepare next year’s tomato beds with new compost and cover them with hay to help with water retention and weed suppression.
We hope you have a delightful holiday and a happy New Year. Don’t forget to put coverings, new tools, and seed on Santa’s list…
“When people were hungry, Jesus didn’t say, “Now is that political or social?” He said, “I feed you.” Because the good news to a hungry person is bread.” – Desmond Tutu
In October of 2018 I shut down my business to work full-time as the Farm Manager for Opal’s Farm. I knew from my first meeting with Ms. Opal that the farm is where I was called to be, but the first time I saw the whole five acres tilled I wondered how I’d ever “eat the elephant” in front of me. Thanks to my dear friend and mentor, Charlie Blaylock, I didn’t have to. He told me to take one bite at a time, plant one row at a time, and do what I could do each day. If I did that the “elephant” would turn into a glorious farm.
Charlie was right. Nobody wanted to donate to a dream that first year, so money was scarce. All we had were donated tools, donated seeds, and one volunteer to help start our first acre (We love you, Brendan!). The two of us built beds, planted those donated seeds, and with help from the weather that year we had our first harvest on the first acre of Opal’s Farm. What started as a vision of what could be has become a reality over the last seven years. Ms. Opal reminds me that “we’ve done so much with so little for so long that we can do anything with nothing.”
Once we had something to show the funds started coming in slowly and we added more tools, equipment, and crops each season. More volunteers came to the farm and became valued members of the Opal’s Farm community. We were even able to add some paid farmhands (my back was celebrating!). We’ve been proud members of the Cowtown Farmers Market since 2019, hosted events and pop-up neighborhood markets, and opened our own Opal’s Farm Stand in 2024. We became an authorized Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – SNAP – retailer in 2023 and recently added the Double Up Bucks program this year thanks to Texas Health Community Hope and Double Up Texas.
The past ten months have seen many changes in the political and social climate we live and work in. It came to a head when the federal government came to a screeching halt for forty-three days while the Democrats and Republicans argued about policies and funding issues. On October 27th, SNAP Benefits halted to forty-two million Americans in addition to the many federal workers going without paychecks during the shutdown. Food insecurity and hunger became an even harsher reality for more low-income households, seniors, and children. People face tough choices – food or medicine and bills, – even if the shutdown has ended for now.
I have private opinions regarding the debacle but the bottom line for me is that food is neither political nor social in nature as so eloquently in the above Desmond Tutu quote. Food is a basic human right for everyone. It’s not whether one is Democrat or Republican, wealthy or poor, but for everyone. No one, especially our seniors and children, should have to go hungry.
Opal’s Farm is committed to helping those affected by the government shutdown through our farm stand at the Funkytown Mindful Market and the “Doc” Sessions Community Center. In partnership with @Sustainable Food Center (SFC), we are launching
Double Up Fresh Bucks / Dólares Frescos, a temporary program to support farmer sales
and food access for families at our market. 💚
Double Up Fresh Bucks / Dólares Frescos provides [$30 or market amount] worth of
market dollars for shoppers to buy any food or drink item.
Any market shopper affected by loss of services and/or income due to the government
shutdown can receive Double Up Fresh Bucks / Dólares Frescos. Double Up Fresh
Bucks / Dólares Frescos expire on December 31, 2025.
How to Participate:
1️⃣ Visit us at Funkytown Mindful Market (1201 Wesleyan St.) on the 1st Saturday of the month and at Opal’s Farm Stand (“Doc” Sessions Community Center 201 S. Sylvania) every other Saturday from 1pm to 3pm
2️⃣Ask to receive Double Up Fresh Bucks / Double Up Dólares Fresco
gregoryjoel.com 