New Managers at Buckhorn Gardens!

Hey all! We are so excited to be here at Buckhorn Gardens. We arrived two weeks ago to take over. This week will be our third CSA pick-up for the winter! A big thanks to Breigh for all she has done for the Gardens. She will be missed but Idaho is lucky to have such an energetic person. Also, a big thanks to Buckhorn Mountain Ranch for enabling us to farm such beautiful land. We will be updating this blog weekly now to help share the activities of the gardens. We cannot wait to meet all of the customers that have supported Buckhorn Gardens thus far. We would like to give everyone a little bit of biographical information about the farmer's in residence!

HORTON: I was born in the great state of Mississippi in 1982, in Tupelo, the lovely home town of the one and only Elvis Presely. During my youth I grew up in Mississippi and Alabama and always enjoyed the home-cooking out of my grandpa's garden. I went to Mississippi State University where I obtained a degree in Banking & Financing. During my last summer of school a group of friends and I lived in Edwards, Colorado. After finally graduating school I moved back out to Colorado and landed in Telluride. I worked at a few different places in town but my main job was at Allred's Restaurant. It was at this nice restaurant where I gained a new respect for good food. At the same time I was also gaining a new found respect for mother nature and the way we humans are living on this planet. While working at Allred's I met a co-worker named Darren Cloud. Many long post-work discussions later, we decided it would be good idea for me to come visit Buckhorn gardens on our days off to help his girlfriend, Breigh. Before I knew it, I was spending all my down-time out at Buckhorn getting my hands dirty! By the end of that first Summer at Buckhorn, I had convinced myself that i needed to go back to school and further my education in agricultural ecology/ soil science. I spent two years at CSU, where I was so lucky to meet my love, Genevieve. During this education stint I spent one summer coming back to Buckhorn to be a full-time intern, and the second summer as a full-time employee on CSU's C.S.A. research farm. Also, while I was attending school I worked for Dr. Keith Paustian at the Natural Resource Ecology Lab and Dr. Frank Stonaker at the Specialty Crop Farm. After these two years of school and an exhausted student loan account, Genevieve and I thought it would be a great idea to move to some family land in Mississippi and start our own farm! And we did! For two years we ran a 25 member CSA, Isis Gardens. We started this farm from absolute scratch on five acres of pasture behind my great grandmother's house. The soil had never been cultivated, so it was challenging to say the least. All of our financing came from our community supported agriculture members and somehow we made it work. But after two grueling and pleasurable years we got a call from a friend (Breigh) saying her time was up at Buckhorn and she was moving to the north, Idaho that is. Breigh explained that there might be an opportunity for us to come back to Colorado and take over the great gardens that she had created. Of course this threw us for a gigantic loop, but after many sleepless nights we decided that we should pursue this opportunity to the fullest. After bringing our CSA to a close in Mississippi and painstakingly shutting down the farm we had built, we made the move early December 2011. With snow covered everything we have taken over a bustling CSA/market farm in the start of a winter CSA season......We are really looking forward to meeting everyone that has supported this farm in the past and we hope to see your continued support for fresh, local, and natural food!

Genevieve: HEY! I was born and raised in Canton, Ohio. I moved to Colorado my senior year of high school to au pair for a family in Edwards. After my time in Edwards I moved back to Ohio to train for triathlons, as I was part of the Jr. National Triathlon team for a few years. When I turned eighteen I decided to go to college in Westerville, Ohio. I studied at Otterbein University for one year and decided that I wanted to go back to Colorado for good. I enrolled myself at Colorado State University where I studied International Relations and Medieval History. While in college I took a couple of semesters off to study art history/wine in Florence, Italy. I also took time off school to work at the Basile vineyard in Cinigiano, Italy. I found my true love for agriculture in Cinigiano where I decided that growing food was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I met Horton in college at Colorado State University. We both share the dream to become more sustainable as well as living a life where making things and watching growth is part of our everyday living. We moved to Mississippi in 2010 where we started a small CSA farm on Horton’s great grandparents land. While in Mississippi, I was working part time teaching kids along the autism spectrum. Horton and I were able to get many of the kids I worked with out to our farm where they could be a part of their food. We are now here at Buckhorn Gardens with exorbitant amounts of energy to make a healthier environment around us. We cannot wait to be more involved with the community and share our very lucky fortune of having such beautiful land to grow food on.

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Winter at Buckhorn

Once again vegetables are thriving here at Buckhorn!

The nights have been cold, but we at Buckhorn Gardens are still growing food, and now we are back to blogging as well! The herbicide contamination made for a difficult summer. Test came back positive that milestone, created by the DOW chemical company (makers of all those wonderful chemicals from agent orange to napalm and the worlds largest maker of plastics) was the culprit.

Fortunately for us here at Buckhorn, the herbicide exposure was through wind drift (verses brought in through compost). It took about 70 days for the chemical to break down sufficiently so that our crops could again begin to flourish. It was too late for most of our tomato, legumes, potato, and pepper crops, and anything we had seeded within that 70 day period, but we were able to produce enough greens, squash, leeks, kohlrabi, bok choi, eggplants, and tomatillos to continue participating in our local farmers' markets. We also produced enough to put away canned goods for the winter. Lots of salsas, pickles, beets, apples sauces, jams, and of course fermented foods. It was also a great season for mushrooms so we were able to dry lots of hawk wings and porcinis, we also froze many chantrelles.

Getting ready to make some pickles

The beginnings of tomato sauce

An abundant mushroom harvest

We were also able to produce and store enough winter squash and garlic to provide the Winter CSA members. This year the Winter CSA runs for sixteen weeks from December through March. Shares include large bags of our salad mix every week, along with turnips, radishes, celeriac, chard, bok choi, leeks, herbs, head lettuce, collards, kohlrabi, and more. Many thanks to Straw Hat Farms and Circle A Garden for supplying us with organic potatoes and parsnips since these were crops we lost due to the herbicide. We are so fortunate to have these great neighboring farms!

Alyssa watering scorpio this winter.

Snow helps insulate the sides of high tunnels, however it can also block the sunlight when the sun is low in the horizon.

The last two nights have been our coldest yet here on the farm at 14 and 15 below zero. If you make it out to the farm during the day, be sure to take a peek inside the high tunnels -- there's nothing nicer than seeing the rows of greens standing happy and healthy despite the frigid temperatures. We love working in the greenhouses on these sunny, cold days, so come on up and say hi!

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