R E S T A U R A N T P O L L B A L L O T P . 4 6 - The Austin Chronicle

RAIN LILY FARM914 Shady, 386-7633www.rainlilydesign.com/pages/farmRain Lily Farm is located just a few blocksfrom Boggy Creek Farm, sharing the samerich alluvial soil deposited by centuries offlooding on the Colorado River. The farmitself is shaped like a very long, thin triangle,bordered on one side by the ill-conceivedconcrete drainage ditch that houses theremains of Boggy Creek. The bottom of thetriangle faces Shady Lane, where the 1940sbungalow farmhouse and circular drivewaygive the impression that you are looking atjust another residence. The farm itself isbarely even visible until you walk past thehouse and into what you think will be abackyard. Only then do you see the rows oflettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, and herbsstretching back along the waterway. At present,roughly 2 of the farm’s 4½ acres areunder cultivation.Stephanie Scherzer, Rain Lily’s primaryfarmer, worked as general manager of theNatural Gardener for six years during theNineties. “John [Dromgoole] was my mentor,”she explains. “I helped him start theLady Bug brand. I was there when it wasGarden-Ville, and I helped them with thetransition over to the Natural Gardener.” In2000, she and her partner, Kim Beal, startedRain Lily Design and Landscaping, a companythat has achieved a good deal of success– enough success, in fact, to allow Scherzerto pursue her growing passion for farming.“We bought this property eight years ago,”says Scherzer, gesturing to her verdant acreageand greenhouse. “Up until then we werejust renting. I had never really had an opportunityto grow vegetables; I didn’t have thesun, and I didn’t have the space. When webought this place, it was a total dump. Idon’t know if you know its history, but it hadbeen a rental for years. The house was inpretty good shape, but the land! It was allovergrown, all hackberries and garbage and“To clear out the trash, trees, and brush,”continues Scherzer, “we worked with dairygoats. They are my first team in!” she chuckles.“They chew just everything down to theground, even hackberries. We moved thegoats from area to area, building and plantingin their wake.”Because the available acreage is so small,Scherzer’s approach is intensive: Bright redlettuces are planted right up to the rim ofBoggy Creek’s concrete ditch, and not asquare inch of soil is wasted or overlooked. “Igrow very intensively, and all by hand; wehave never put a tractor to this land,” Scherzerboasts. “Size is my biggest challenge. Evenwhen all of the available acreage is undercultivation, I will always have to be veryintensive – there just isn’t that much space!”This type of farming requires a lot of compost,but fortunately Scherzer has massivecompost piles working at the back of theproperty. “We have over 400 yards of compostback there,” she smiles. “We’ve beenbringing all our landscaping waste back herefor the last 10 years!” In fact, such recyclingand reuse are deeply integral to the Rain Lilyaesthetic; much of the greenhouse, chickenyard,and incidental landscaping at Rain Lilyfeature the reuse of urban materials, frombicycle wheels to busted-up concrete.“Originally, I wanted to put all the land intoblackberry cultivation, but it just didn’t workout,” Scherzer continues. “So I started tryingdifferent vegetables, and then, I just – I gothooked. One row turned into two, the nextyear it was four, it just started this passion,and I couldn’t stop it. It didn’t make sense!Here I was landscaping for a living, and farmingwas just this really expensive hobby.”Occasionally Scherzer would recoup someexpenses by selling produce to friends, butshe never thought of it as a real businessuntil she joined forces with ElizabethWinslow and began Farmhouse Delivery,which gathers produce from Rain Lily andother small farms along with grass-fed meatspoison ivy and cars. CONTINUED ON P.44Rain Lily FarmJOHN ANDERSONTry the BEST!HOT BOILEDCRAWFISHEVERY TUESDAY NIGHTWHAT MAKES OUR CRAWFISH SO SPECIAL?We buy only select crawfi sh (that means the best ofthe catch). We season our boil with a special blend ofseasonings and soak them for up to 20 minutes so thefl avor permeates deep into the crawfi sh. We cook them upwith corn and potatoes for that true Cajun experience.HERE ARE THE DETAILS: WE ONLY DO IT TUESDAY NIGHTWE START AROUND 5:30 P.M.WHEN WE’RE OUT, WE’RE OUT,SO GET HERE AS SOON AS YOU CANwww.cypressgrill.net4404 West Wm. 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Lamar916-9223 Mon-Sat 9am-9pma u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m APRIL 9, 2010 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E 43