Providing fresh, quality products at a woman ran farm and store
BIXBY, OKLA. – It has been said “When you have more than you need, build a longer table, rather than a higher fence.” This is the philosophy of Kat Robinson who owns and operates Robinson Ranch, a certified regenerative farm located in Bixby, a suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma. “We have five acres, three greenhouses, a farm store, a lot of chickens and a couple of cows” says Kat, “Best of all I have three cute farm kids and a husband who supports me in all the crazy projects I get into. Women run the farm and the store. We have an army of women who plant, weed, harvest, and deliver our goods. We do U-pick flowers in the summer, but we hand pick all the fruits and vegetables ourselves.”
The farm has been in production for eight years and Kat explains “If you catch stuff on the right-side, things just fall into place. People are starting to realize they can get better-quality food from the smaller producers than they can in any store. I started gardening as a way to help heal myself and my family. We changed our diet to be primarily plant-based. We started drinking kombucha and elderberry syrup. I learned slowly how to grow food without chemicals and how to do it well. It became my passion to help others become healthier. However, we realized we could not do it alone so we worked with forty-five other local vendors to provide quality products in our farm store. We sell free-range eggs from happy chickens, chemical-free produce, canned goods, and elderberry syrup. We bought the equipment to produce and bottle our own kombucha, we have twenty-seven different flavors, and you can get it on tap while shopping in the store. You can sample anything we have in the store before you buy it. We have so many different things to offer to our customers.”
Kat states that around seventy-five percent of what they produce goes directly to retail. Crops are grown year-round and rotated in the greenhouse and field. They have a subscription service where they pair their products, along with their other vendors’ products, so their customers can get everything at one stop. “We have high end neighborhoods on either side of us and people can walk in, or drive in, to get their food directly from us. People come to shop off the farm, it is a fun experience to buy their groceries that way. We grow some pretty unusual products and it allows our customers to try something they may have never tried before. If we were just following the money, to have the highest turnover, we would just grow lettuce…but that’s boring, people want a variety of foods. We also deliver two days a week to local restaurants and retail locations around the area.”
Kat is very enthusiastic about teaching others how to grow food. Four years ago, after visiting her sons third grade classroom to do a presentation, she realized that not everyone knew how to grow food or even what they were putting into their bodies, she reminisces “I had this cucumber I was going to cut up to let them eat. So, I held it up and jokingly said, “Who knows what this is?” and I was shocked when only two of the twenty-six students raised their hands. In my head I said it is worse than I thought. So, I began to offer demonstrations in other classrooms and the teachers were thrilled. We began to offer field trips to my kid’s schools. The amount of science that is farm life is insane, you can teach it from kindergarten all the way up to AP high school students. I was shocked to realize how disconnected people were about where their food comes from. You remember things you have an emotional connection with so we bring the kids out and let them experience the farm. They can touch the chickens or the cows. They can plant something to take home with them. They can work in micro-greens. I want to teach kids that eggs can be blue and cucumbers can look like lemons, things that are offbeat just for the sake of it. It is supposed to be interesting; it is supposed to be different. I want to show people that if you are going to hunt down food and buy it from a farmer, it should be something you would not find at Walmart. It makes life more interesting. This all brought about an idea for a non-profit for educating others. We bring in farm savvy instructors, who are often local farmers, and they are teaching these things, it helps to lessen the load on our farm staff’s daily activities. The foundation pays for supplies; we get to go into classrooms and teach. One of our programs is called Real Food vs. Fake Food. I feel like we need to teach our children what food is best for them because where else are they getting that information these days? We help with school gardens. We learned that often schools get grants for a teaching garden but lack the staff, knowledge, time, or resources to put it into action.”
Kat and her staff not only go into public schools to teach but they also host home school families at the farm. “We do a monthly volunteer workday in the summer and that is fun. Most of the volunteers are home school momma’s and their kids who want to learn what we have to offer. Their kids want to come out to chase the chickens and play. We do a group project for about an hour, everybody leaves with a free farm goody, and they make new friends. It checks a lot of boxes for them and it is helpful to us. It gets more people to the farm and I believe that the more times someone touches your dirt, the more they are on your farm, the more they become invested, and they cannot get that just anywhere. They learn where their food comes from and it is fulfilling.”
Kat says teaching is extremely rewarding but here are other aspects of what they do that are just as satisfying. “I know my family eats like kings now. I know our health is better. We work with a local program called Fresh Rx, which is a food prescription program that is geared toward helping people with uncontrolled Type 2 diabetes, who have tried everything and still have trouble maintaining their disease. They sign a pledge to eat fresh food for a year, they go to nutrition classes and they teach them how to cook. They give them every advantage. I have seen a lot of these people lose weight and are controlling their diabetes. I love that I get to see this. I know that the food we are growing is healing people’s bodies and it makes all the work worth doing. “
“There are only two places in the Tulsa area that has this type of atmosphere.” Kat says. “The way I market my business, I get to know each and every one of my vendors. I have shaken their hands. I know their kids’ names. It is an intimate thing. We are snobs about our ingredients so you can trust what you are getting is not bad for you. We are a small team, we are extremely close and we are so grateful we get to do this for a living.”
