Farming is hard. Farming at high elevation is even harder.
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HESPERUS, Colo. — “Farming is hard. Farming at high elevation is really hard,” said Beth LaShell, director of Old Fort at Hesperus.
Old Fort at Hesperus is a 6,318-acre facility focused on agricultural education and community partnerships. Situated upon the ancestral land of the Nuuchiu (Ute) people, the fort was once home to the Fort Lewis Indian Boarding School, one of four Indian Boarding Schools in Colorado and one of hundreds across the United States and Canada.
One of the Old Fort’s programs, called Farmer in Training, is a five-month, hands-on program for new farmers, whether they’re new to farming or new to the elevation.
Rocky Mountain PBS spoke with LaShell to better understand the challenges and opportunities of farming at 7,600 feet.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Rocky Mountain PBS: What are the challenges of farming at high elevation?
Beth LaShell: First of all, our growing season is approximately 90 days here. Secondly, it's very arid. We are much drier than other parts of Colorado, so we’re definitely irrigation-dependent.
And then there’s the extreme weather, which we have had long before climate change was a thing. We can be in a snowstorm on May 15, and planting something on May 18 when it’s 80 degrees.
We are below 50 degrees here every night in the summer, which is great for sleeping — but not great for growing tomatoes or peppers.
RMPBS: What are the opportunities farming at this elevation?
BL: We can grow cool-season crops really well, such as brassicas [cabbages and mustard plants], broccoli, and cauliflower. We can definitely grow mixed greens longer than they can in Farmington. It’s too hot down there.
We can grow things that we can store, which spreads out our income. For somebody who just grows greens, when it freezes, you’re done. But for us, when it freezes, we harvest all of our root crops, put them in the root cellar, and then sell them all winter. We still have carrots and cabbage in the store from last year.
The combination of high and low temperatures is also the reason why some of the fruit grown at high elevation is among the sweetest. Why are Palisade peaches so good? Because it gets cool every night.
RMPBS: What crops are best suited for high elevation, and what crops are not?
BL: We'll start with what's not. Tomatoes have to be grown inside the high tunnel. Peppers. Eggplant. If we plant them outside, they will never produce fruit.
Things that are easier for us are root crops and brassicas. We can put out broccoli transplants when it’s kind of snowy in the spring, and we can plant them again in July.
RMPBS: How does Indigenous knowledge play a role in your agricultural education approach?
BL: Because of our history as a Native American boarding school, we have an Indigenous crop plot. We grow blue corn. We’ve been selecting a variety of blue corn that was originally from Black Mesa down in Arizona that can grow and mature here. We’ve adapted that corn to 7,600 feet. It’s been 10 years now.
We see the same thing in some varieties of Indigenous squash. You come in and plant something that’s been traditionally grown in Arizona and New Mexico, and it just can’t mature here. So we’re always trying different varieties that can mature in our time period.
RMPBS: Where do participants go after they finish the farming program?
BL: I would say 55% to 60% of the people who came through our program — over 100 now — are still farming. And another 30% are still involved in food-related jobs.
We have a couple who are in the region. One of them is Fields to Plates here in Durango. Long Table Farm, which is also in Durango.
In early years, some of them were able to buy land or secure good leases. That may not be as readily available as it was 10 years ago. So our next phase is developing a long-term land access project where we will have 15 acres or so available for farmers on a 20-year lease. We're working on that to give our graduates another opportunity to farm.
RMPBS: What advice would you give to someone interested in your program?
BL: We often get people that apply to our program, and they come with a list of everything they need to learn because they’re going to start their own farm. Unfortunately, you can’t learn everything you need to know about farming in a summer. But that’s really hard to tell people.
I’ve been farming since I was a little kid, and every year I learn something new.
That’s why we have people who have spent a second year with us, or a third year. Some of them then went to work for somebody, and only after that did they finally feel comfortable enough to start a farm.
RMPBS: What advice would you give to someone interested in farming in the region?
BL: Don't be afraid to work. Don't be afraid to try something different.
People in agriculture can make things look easy that are not. If you were to follow my cowboy around and see the stuff they do, it might look easy, but it’s because they’ve been doing it for 20 years.
We started our program in 2010 because we were seeing people moving here because it’s a great place to live and they would buy lands, and start a vegetable farm. And in about three years they were gone because they were financially and emotionally broke.
We've had people that farmed here for two years and said, “that was great, but I’m going back to firefighting because that’s better.”
So our idea with the incubator program was to give people a place to make mistakes, to come and figure out if they really want to do this.
Type of story: Q&A
An interview to provide a single perspective, edited for clarity and obvious falsehoods.
An interview to provide a single perspective, edited for clarity and obvious falsehoods.
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