Personalities: Happy Heart Farm

10 05 2010

Community-supported agriculture isn’t just about produce. It’s about community, too. So I always love talking to the Colorado farmers who are bringing us the fruits and vegetables we’ve grown to love — before they get too busy in the fields to talk! For other profiles in this series, click “Personalities” under the “Categories” heading at right.

If you are lucky enough to live in Fort Collins and are able to become a member of Happy Heart Farm, you will be joining a strong community that goes back two decades. Owners Dennis and Bailey Stenson are credited with opening the first CSA in Colorado in 1990, long before movies like Food, Inc. and Michael Pollan’s books helped to popularize the movement.

Back in the late ‘80s, the Stensons had already been working at farmers markets for years when they decided to attend a conference in New Mexico on upcoming trends. Among the topics under discussion were co-housing and community supported agriculture. The latter resonated for many reasons. “To have the food presold was a huge thing,” recalls Bailey, who had young children at the time. She also appreciated “not having the stress of moving the food.”

Another aspect of the CSA model they particularly liked was the connection with members. Indeed, this connection remains as vital today as it was when they started. “We’ve chosen to stay a small farm instead of one with thousands of members because of it,” she explains. Members feel the connection, too: Happy Heart Farm has nearly 30 working members, one of the highest participation rates in the state. Last year, one member – a chef — even cooked meals. “To come up from the field and have food prepared for us was like a dream come true,” she said. The Stensons have also opened up their farm to apprentices and students in a commitment to sharing their knowledge and expanding their community.

The farm practices not just organic but biodynamic techniques, such as using homeopathic herb-based sprays for pest control and following the lunar and planetary calendars for planting and composting. For a member, a season at Happy Heart Farm typically starts in late May with spinach, cilantro, radishes and chives and ends in late October with herbs, squash, carrots, potatoes, cabbage and more. Along the way, members might receive anything from chard to Brussels sprouts, edamame to tomatoes. For a list of last year’s produce, broken out by week, click here .


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Categories : In Spring, Personalities, Uncategorized

Personalities: Monroe Organic Farms

5 04 2009

This story is part of an ongoing series to introduce our community to the local farmers growing food for farmers’ markets and CSAs. For more profiles, click on the Personalities category at right.

As more people look to eat local and decrease their carbon footprint, interest in farm shares has skyrocketed. “Now so many people know about CSAs, I don’t have to explain so much,” says Jacquie Monroe, co-owner of Monroe Organic Farms. But things were different in 1993, when she and her husband launched their CSA. Back then, she first had to start with the reasons for eating organic before moving on to the how’s and why’s of a CSA.

Over the years, her farm share has expanded according to members’ interest. About a decade ago Monroe added eggs; fruit was added about five years ago, in partnership with another grower; pork was added last year and lamb will be added this season. Vegetables come and go, too, such as daikon radishes, edamame and white carrots, which were added in recent years based on customer feedback.

Monroe is a family operation, with husband Jerry running the fields; Jacquie handling bookkeeping and marketing; and their grown children Alaina and Kyle helping out from time to time. Son Kyle intends to take over the business one day; for now, you can usually find him “running around on the four-wheeler,” she laughs.

There’s more to organic farming than just avoiding pesticides. Take crop rotation, for example. Jacquie says that cucumbers do well after strawberries, and garlic does well after the cucumbers. After four different crops have been grown in one area, a crop for animals is planted in that space and the vegetables are moved to a piece of land that hasn’t had crops in it for awhile. “If you move the garden to a different area,” she says, “you stump diseases and bugs.”

This season, members can expect approximately 100 varieties of 30 or so kinds of vegetables, including six types of tomatoes and 4 types of hot peppers, all grown on the 175-acre farm in Kersey, which has been in the family since 1936. Week by week, that translates to an enormous bag of produce, but Jacquie encourages members to think beyond weekly consumption. “Our goal is to tell people how to freeze it as they go. That extends their food dollar into the winter.”


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Personalities: Country Roots Farm

3 03 2009

Community-supported agriculture isn’t just about produce. It’s about community, too. So for the next few weeks I’ll be talking to the Colorado farmers who are bringing us the fruits and vegetables we’ve grown to love — before they get too busy in the fields to talk!

Ryan Morris spent his childhood in Pueblo just three miles from Country Roots Farm, but it took him years of working as an occupational therapist all across the West to realize that farming was his calling. Why make the switch? “You go to many less meetings,” he deadpans. Besides, he adds, “I love working outside and it’s a more well-rounded way to raise a family.” And a family operation it is. Morris runs the 13-acre farm with his wife Betsy, his son Reed and his mother Virginia.

Morris is a veteran when it comes to community supported agriculture. His CSA opened 15 years ago, the same year as the farm. For years interest grew steadily but after the publication of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, he noticed a change. “When Kingsolver’s book came out a whole new type of person was interested…your average basic Joe walking around.” That’s when business really took off. The farm currently has more than 100 members, with distribution points in Pueblo and Colorado Springs.

The CSA lasts from June to October and, weather permitting, includes some 35 kinds of vegetables from beets to melons. But when you factor in all the different varieties the number is far higher. For example, Morris tries his hand at lemon and Poona Kheera cucumbers (which are the kind grown in Nepal, as he happily learned from a visiting Nepalese student). Morris also grows five or more varieties of tomatoes, peppers, winter and summer squash, potatoes, watermelons and basil. And while novelty is nice, he stresses that other factors go into his decision about what to put in the field. “It’s fine if it has the looks,” he says, “but taste is always more important to us.”


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Local & Sophisticated

27 01 2009

Let’s get one thing straight: You don’t have to be a farmer to eat locally.

Okay, so that’s obvious. We all buy from farmers’ markets and seek out local goodies from Whole Foods. But be honest. Deep down inside, as you ponder how to add more local ingredients to your diet, aren’t you afraid someone will assume you’re one slippery slope away from driving a pick-up and owning a pressure canner?

Eating locally still conveys a bit of homeliness that, frankly, it doesn’t deserve.

After all, many restaurants have joined in the local parade. Props to Tucker Shaw in last Wednesday’s Denver Post (“The Audacity of Dinner”) for bringing that fact to people’s attention in his discussion of Shazz. Shaw describes the menu as “contemporary fare” that’s, in the words of chef/owner Benny Kaplan, “ingredient-driven.” And many ingredients come from local sources, including dairy from Wholesome Milk Products in Pueblo and all-natural beef from River Ranches in Steamboat. Other local sources are listed on the restaurant’s website.

Shazz isn’t the only area restaurant focused on local and sustainably harvested ingredients. The Kitchen in Boulder and Duo immediately come to mind as being dedicated adherents to this philosophy. Bravo to all three for showing us that local and sophisticated can be synonyms.


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Categories : Personalities, Uncategorized

Personalities: Javernick Family Farms

26 01 2009

Cooks love summer, when the year’s best strawberries, tomatoes and sweet corn are finally rolling in. But Beki Javernick of Javernick Family Farms begs to differ. “Spring,” she says, without hesitation. “I really love when you do seeding in the greenhouse. You get that little layer of vibrant green sprouts at a time when nothing else is green.”

Seeding begins in February and the annual cycle of nurturing, watering, weeding and harvesting begins. For Beki, it’s a familiar routine. The granddaughter of a Colorado rancher/farmer, she remembers many an afternoon spent transplanting cabbages and helping out wherever needed after school. After moving away and getting an art degree, Beki returned to Canon City in 2004. She started the CSA the following year, planting everything from artichokes to zucchini on 13 acres that still belong to her grandparents. Javernick Family Farms remains a family operation, with mom and dad pitching in—and her toddler watching on.

While the farm isn’t certified organic (more about the certification process another time), they follow organic practices and are good stewards of the land, practicing crop rotation and the like. But give her a minute and Beki will eagerly tell you that local is just as important as organic. “It’s important to keep the chain as short as possible,” she stresses, something she does by buying carrot seed from a local farmer and using local compost, for example. For more information on her CSA, which runs from May to October, visit www.javernickfamilyfarms.com.


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Categories : Personalities


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