Today we’d like to introduce you to Hannah Gongola.
Hi Hannah, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
It’s kind of a long story – I moved to Austin right out of college and started working at the CTFB as the garden intern. I had previously worked at my university’s organic farm, that’s how I knew I wanted to garden/ag/farm work. I worked at CTFB for the summer and while I was working, I came up with the idea for my business, H2Grow. I was harvesting all sorts of beautiful produce every day and I wanted to share that joy with everyone. While I was working on my H2Grow vision, I started my job in sales. Close to the end of 2019, I was able to close on a piece of property, which would be my home base for the H2Grow operation. I didn’t know at the time all the things I would be doing out here. When COVID hit in March 2020, I moved out of my Austin apartment and into my farmhouse full time and launched H2Grow in July, much earlier than I had anticipated. Being a first-generation farmer, doing it all by myself, I had my work cut out for me. And still do.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Death has been a huge part of my journey. I have been extremely fortunate that in my young adult life and childhood, that I have never lost anyone close to me. I had a pretty vast disconnect with death and grieving it and coping with it. Never experiencing it to experiencing it sometimes daily, alone, was something that challenged me the most. Raising animals is extremely trying work, it is also extremely rewarding work. I don’t welcome death on the farm, but I have adjusted to participating in its rituals, thankfully, much less than in the beginning.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
H2Grow launched in 2020 as a way to reconnect people with their food. Our vehicle for doing so, gardens. We wanted people to experience the joys of growing their own food in the comfort of their homes. Knowing exactly where your food comes from shouldn’t be difficult information to obtain, but in our modern world of convenience, it is. H2Grow will be taking on a rebrand within the next few months. We will still be building custom gardens for customers, but we are expanding our mission to include ALL food and a true farm experience. We believe showing our customers how our animals and plants thrive as one unit to produce food is invaluable. We are currently building a multipurpose building with a commercial kitchen. This kitchen will be available for rent for events, dinners, classes, etc. We are planning to share and expand our knowledge of food by hosting our customers, in addition to selling our products, so they can see exactly where it all comes from. How our animals are raised and where their produce is grown. We will host farm to table workshops in addition to being a part-time farm stand to include our eggs, beef, and produce, future dairy products, and various other products from other community farms such as pork, honey, and chicken. Our goal is to bring our local farm community together in addition to educating about what it is that farms DO and why it’s important.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I have taken risks and I am taking risks every single day. I have committed my whole life to this entity, I have a huge YES to agree to every day. This makes saying no to small things very easy, however, I am just one person doing this all by myself. There is a risk every day that I injure myself and can’t feed the animals or tend the crops. There is a risk that I commit all this money to my venture and see zero return. My dad says, “I’ll drown in 9 feet of water just as easily as I’ll drown in 900 feet of water, so why not go all the way.” I’m risking more and going deeper because there is a huge yes telling me it’s what I’m supposed to do. I don’t let the risk scare me, I just don’t look down, I can’t afford to look down.
Pricing:
- Grass-Fed Beef:
Ground: $9/lb
Steaks: $18/lb
Ribs: $12/lb - Eggs: $7/doz
- Farm Box: $23 (6-7 varieties of produce)
Add-ons (optional): eggs, beef, pork, delivery to Austin
Contact Info:
- Email: hannahgongola@h2grow.co
- Instagram: hannahgongola
