When I first saw Betsy Ross (not the flag making one, of course) on Tom Spencer's PBS show, Central Texas Gardener, I was transfixed by her strong face, and woman-cattle-rancher disposition.  She had the smile of someone who knew a secret and was about to share it with you, but she also looked tough as hell, and a bit like her hair cut and the earrings she wore were just for this television appearance.  As she began to talk about the journey she'd taken from chemical spraying rancher to loving nurturer of underground civilizations of protozoa, fungi and other microarthropods I thought, “Oh my God, I have got to meet this woman.”

As the co-owner of the Eastside Cafe, lover of brown lake water, all animals, and the smell of trees in the summer in the mountains, I've spent nearly 20 years gardening organically, recycling everything that can be recycled, and composting all vegetable prep scrap, in my home and at my business.  I'm kind of a freak about it, and see it as a business and personal responsibility to conserve resources.  So I get really excited when I meet people as nutso as I am.  That's why when a mutual friend, Valerie Bristol, Director of External Affairs at the Nature Conservancy of Texas, invited a small group to meet Betsy and see her Ross Farm in Granger, Texas, an hour north east of Austin, I was ecstatic.

The rain that poured down on us all the way up I-35 graciously stopped as we reached the ranch and   turned in to gray damp chilliness instead.  Six of us sat at Betsy's kitchen table in the farm house which is both home and office, warming over a Ross Farm grass-fed beef stew that Valerie had made for us and brought along for the trip.  Betsy sat at the head of the table.

In her professional life before Ross Farm, she'd worked as a coach and a teacher; gotten her MBA;sold real estate, and worked for the Texas Department of Insurance; and all that time, she says, “I missed all of the grasses I'd loved so much growing up on my family's ranch in West Texas.  We raised Angora Goats, and sheep, and cattle, and we never did use insecticides or chemical fertilizers.  Everywhere we went, Daddy was always throwing out grass seeds.  It was those grasses that really were my first love growing up.” 

After our lunch, Betsy, her son, J.R., and our group loaded into a massive Suburban. We were jostled wildly over rutted dirt roads leading into several pastures.  When we'd get out periodically, we would pull our coats tight against the wind as we watched Betsy cut hunks of grass and soil out of the ground, using a knife knife Daniel Boone might have asked to borrow.

“You see this long white root here?.  And all of these horizontal white roots running off it?  They're a sign that the soil biology is doing its job.  The fungi, protozoa, bacteria, and nematodes and all of the other microarthropods under the ground keep the soil loose so these roots can spread out and get the air and water that plants need to thrive.  The same soil biology makes the soil able to retain water, makes minerals, like calcium, and amino acids and other nutrients available in usable form to the plant so that it can be healthy and provide healthy forage for our cattle who graze it.”  Healthy forage means healthy cows that won't need antibiotics or hormones or steroids. 

Betsy likes to say, “Dirt is dead, but soil is alive!”  Nurture the soil and  it will take care of everything else.

Excerpted from Edible Austin, a new magazine about Central Texas chefs, farmers, cheese makers, ranchers, wine, cooking and more, next issue arriving December 1st. Pick up a copy at markets, bookstores, selected restaurants and public gathering places to read more about Betsy Ross and her Ross Farm grass-fed beef. A complete list of complimentary distribution locations is posted on www.edibleaustin.com.

Photos by Dorsey Barger.