CULLEN GROOMS

Head Farmer

Growing up in the piney woods of East Texas, I found a deep abiding love of nature at a young age. Between hunting & fishing with Dad, gardening with Mom and moving cows with Grandpa, I was inspired early on by the great outdoors. Growing up I spent lots of my spare time biking the woods when I wasn’t playing baseball or swimming. As a teenager I pursued math & science with thoughts of being a scientist. I followed my grandparents, parents, and older brother in attending Texas Tech University, and even followed my brother down the engineering path. Faced with a desk job, I chose to refocus my education and blazed a trail more aligned with my passion of connecting with and caring for Mother Nature. Nature stirs reflection, which has led me to focus more on what I would like to see in the world. With an athletic background I learned to listen to my body at a young age, which developed into an interest in natural healing and herbal medicine, leading me back to food: the garden...

After earning a BS in Crop Science in 2017, I moved to Austin to study herbal medicine at the Wildflower School of Botanical Medicine, where I learned bioregional community herbalism... getting by as a landscaper. I quit landscaping to travel for 6 months then decided to “settle” and refocus on farming — my “ikigai,” the Japanese term for the conjunction of what the world needs, what you are good at, what you love to do (and get paid for). While I formally studied crop science ag & horticulture, I personally focus on understanding methods of natural farming and sustainable living. Since then, I have worked as a permaculture gardener and as a CSA farmer at Green Gate Farms. I then spent a year at Texas Hill Country Olive Company, learning all about olives from orchard care to harvest, milling and bottling olive oil, while keeping up with a garden supplying seasonal produce for the bistro. 

I am now grateful to be growing at Hamilton Pool Farms! We have big plans for 2022 and beyond... Learn how to grow with us, or I would love to be your farmer. 

I now spend most of my spare time with my wife (Kamryn), our one-year-old daughter (Poppy Jo) and new baby boy (Fraser) and my crazy adopted five-year-old airedoodle (Mr. Carson.) I am excited to teach my kids about being self-reliant and how to thrive in this crazy world. Although we love traveling, we love creating a life we don’t need to escape from. We want to expand our community of like-minded families and create resiliency through keeping ancestral skills alive and well. We reside on a quiet piece of land in Johnson City surrounded by cows, deer, junipers, oaks and other Hill Country wildlife.