WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO FOR A LIVING!

We, Mark and I, are both Texas Hill Country agriculture children, own and operate McCall Creek Farms, a commercial vegetable and peach operation, and McCall Creek Farms Market, the retail fruit and vegetable roadside stand in Blanco County, Texas! The business is currently in its tenth year of production!

Mark hails from Fredericksburg. Mark’s great-great grandfather, Karl Itz, came to Fredericksburg from Germany in 1847 and began farming in Gillespie County. Through the generations, Mark’s family has continued to prevail in agriculture participating in produce and peach production in the same county! Mark’s father, Melvin Itz, owns and operates Itz Gardens, a specialty produce operation in Fredericksburg, which features peppers, tomatoes, and blackberries! And we are lucky enough that he sells his blackberries through us! One of Mark’s brothers, Bruce Itz, owns and operates Itz’ Peaches and Pecans, located on Main Street in Fredericksburg!  And Mark’s sister and brother in law, Mary Ann and Keith Reeh, own and operate Hill Country Homestyle, a specialty canning business producing primarily pickles and pickled okra are also based out of Fredericksburg!

I was also born into an agricultural family. My father, Roy Conn, bequeathed half of his ranch to me upon his death. The Conn ranch originated from a land grant of 160 acres by the State of Texas in 1874, and through the years and generations, the ranch grew in size. The Conn Ranch was inducted into the Texas Family Land Heritage Registry in 1998! The Texas Department of Agriculture recognizes families who have continuously lived on and actively managed productive land for 100 years or longer! In fact, the house that we live in was built by my great grandfather, J. Lee Conn, around 1905, the best we can figure. My mother, Lanell Mengers Conn, compliments the agriculture heritage coming from maize and cotton farmers in San Patricio and Bee Counties.

At the business’ conception in 1995, we started farming commercial cut flowers for the wholesale market in Texas. With only two rows of zinnias and sunflowers in a fallow hay field, the production grew to encompass approximately 20 acres of field grown cut flowers. But starting in 1999, we made the decision to replace the flower production with produce. The transition from farming solely floral to farming predominantly produce took a couple of years. And with that in mind, in 2000, we decided to embrace the dream of operating a market on a portion of the Conn Ranch to include products we grew and the products of our family and friends in various agriculture operations. 

Everybody wonders why, with a name like “Itz”, that we named the business McCall Creek Farms! Both of us are very hard headed, each wanted to name the business after our own family’s name, and that lead each of us to concede that another name should be chosen. The business’ name was then conceived by recognizing the creek that flows through the entire Conn Ranch and contours each and every field. That would be the McCall Creek! Not even the old timer’s in Blanco County can not tell them why the creek was named McCall Creek, but it’s there, on all the old maps!

In addition to the farming aspect of the business, we also added a small commercial kitchen to the Market location! It was primarily built to make jams and jellies from the fruits that were sold, but it evolved into the little bakery that it is today!