{"id":43371,"date":"2021-12-07T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/four-corners-farmers-say-it-was-a-good-year-despite-some-setbacks\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T09:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:13:09","slug":"four-corners-farmers-say-it-was-a-good-year-despite-some-setbacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/four-corners-farmers-say-it-was-a-good-year-despite-some-setbacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Corners farmers say it was a good year, despite some setbacks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Linley
Linley Dixon, co-owner of Adobe House Farm, spreads organic compost at the base of tomato plants Wednesday in the solar-heated greenhouse north of Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Durango Farmers Market ag vendors had varying experiences with weather, available water and finding workers this growing season, but they reported that they fared well at the 25th annual market.<\/p>\n

Agriculture vendors at the market provide produce, meat and dairy. Other vendors include artisans and nonprofit organizations, such as the League of Women Voters of La Plata County.<\/p>\n

Vendors come from a range of places inside and outside La Plata County. A couple of vendors are from Archuleta County and many are from Montezuma County and San Juan County, New Mexico.<\/p>\n

\"Tomatoes
Tomatoes havested from the vine Wednesday at Adobe House Farm\u2019s solar-heated greenhouse north of Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Adobe House Farm<\/div>\n

Linley Dixon has owned Adobe House Farm and operated it with her husband and brother since 2010. Dixon said 2021 was slightly less successful than 2020, though still a good year for the farm and business, but 2020 was the best year she\u2019s ever had thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a whirlwind because business really skyrocketed when COVID hit,\u201d Dixon said.<\/p>\n

She said everything she grew, including tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, basil and kale, sold well. Her cherry tomatoes were the best-selling produce in 2020, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sell through James Ranch and a farmer-owned cooperative and people didn\u2019t want to go into grocery stores,\u201d she said. \u201cThey felt more comfortable going into the small James market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dixon said 2020 sales were so good she decided to invest in a new greenhouse so she can grow year-round.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe built the greenhouse because we do get strong winds in the spring,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have a very short season and passing hail storms every year. So in order to kind of mitigate from those extremes, we\u2019ve got the insurance of having protected culture. Everything is very highly controlled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conditions in the greenhouse are highly controlled, but they\u2019re highly expensive and there\u2019s a steep learning curve, too, Dixon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with that is we\u2019re highly mechanized now,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of equipment to run that and if that breaks down it\u2019s expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

What did the Dixons have to learn? They knew how to drive a tractor and perform outdoor planting, but now they\u2019ve got an indoor grow operation with a pad and cooling fan and different heating systems. Dixon said they\u2019ve installed solar panels and a lot of welding was involved in setting that up.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust a whole different skill set to run a year-round greenhouse,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said the farm uses compost from a local business, Table to Farm, which collects compost from homeowners in town.<\/p>\n

They apply the compost by sprinkling it on top of their greenhouse grow areas once every four weeks or so to maintain fertility and continue a year-round cover crop.<\/p>\n

Dixon said she wants people to remember her farm the next time shelves are empty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m disappointed it\u2019s not the same as it was when everybody was panicked,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s like, remember that we\u2019re here for you when times are tough and shelves are empty. There\u2019s local food happening. I want people to remember that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adobe House Farm has been a vendor with Durango Farmers Market since it entered into business in 2011. Dixon said the Durango area is a supportive community for local food because people are loyal to local farmers.<\/p>\n

Plus, the surrounding area is a good place to have a farm, she said.<\/p>\n

Rohwer\u2019s Farms<\/div>\n

Heidi Rohwer with Rohwer\u2019s Farms north of Cortez said this year\u2019s growing season was stressful because of how short on water she was.<\/p>\n

Rohwer\u2019s Farms, which has participated in the Farmers Market since 2009, consists of about 24 acres, 12 of which were dedicated to produce and orchards. The farm is normally allotted 22 inches of irrigation water, but this year it received just 1\u00bd inches.<\/p>\n

Water at the farm was turned off at the end of June or the first week of July, Rowher said. The farm had to switch to municipal water use for the rest of the year, which made her unsure of how the crops would turn out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt affected our potato crops,\u201d she said. \u201cWe got like 15% of what we should have gotten out of our potatoes. We had to cut down a lot of our crops by half or more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rowher didn\u2019t even bother to grow some of the more \u201cwater-hungry\u201d crops such as corn, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time ever for us (that we had to switch to municipal water),\u201d she said. \u201cThe first time that we ever had our water turned off before October.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rowher said the water system her farm uses is typically pretty reliable, but it is lower in priority than other users on the same system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ended up getting cut pretty short,\u201d she said. \u201cSo hopefully we get a pretty good winter this year or else it\u2019s going to be the same situation next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rowher said she\u2019s had a good year at the market despite the water shortage. She said the Rowhers are happy with how everything turned out, but they definitely had less produce this year.<\/p>\n

The farm produced fewer potatoes, but sweet potatoes were \u201cawesome,\u201d she said. Their onion crop fared better than average and peppers were \u201cfantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Water was in short supply for the Rowhers and seeds were, too. Rowher purchased seeds in November 2020.<\/p>\n

She said the usual seed company they deal with loves variety in the seeds it offers and normally offers plenty of varieties because it travels a lot to collect seeds. But it couldn\u2019t do that this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome varieties, we had to give up because you just couldn\u2019t find them anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cBut this was a good year for that because we had to cut back on things anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rowher said getting potting soil was \u201ca big headache\u201d as well. She ordered the soil in January and didn\u2019t receive it until March even though she \u201cdesperately needed it in February.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Linley
Linley Dixon, co-owner of Adobe House Farm, walks through a greenhouse Wednesday with freshly planted greens north of Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Green Table Farms<\/div>\n

Tyler Hoyt with Green Table Farms in Mancos said despite the drought that forced the farm to pare down the number of crops it grew, everything turned out just fine thanks to an end-of-year rain and an extra-long growing season.<\/p>\n

Hoyt described Green Table Farms as a \u201cvery diverse, well-rounded farm\u201d that produces everything from eggs, meat and ice cream to vegetables and fruits. The farm has been operating for eight years and has been a vendor at the market for seven. Hoyt serves as president on the farmers market\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year was really bad for Mancos,\u201d he said of the drought. \u201cIf you didn\u2019t have senior water rights, you basically didn\u2019t get much water this year. We\u2019re not a very senior water right. So we didn\u2019t have a lot of water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green Table Farms is on 72 acres, although most of that is woodland. In a typical year, Hoyt grows on 2 to 3 acres, but the water shortage made ranch managers decide to grow on just 1 acre this year. Some of the items Green Table Farms did not grow because of the drought include potatoes and sweet corn.<\/p>\n

\"Linley
Linley Dixon, co-owner of Adobe House Farm, harvests tomatoes Wednesday in the solar heated greenhouse north of Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThe rain definitely helped at the end of the year,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 We wouldn\u2019t have had half of what we got without that rain. It ended up being pretty good. It was a long season. The frost kind of cooperated this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoyt said he didn\u2019t experience an intense spring frost. He said fruit can often be \u201ccrushed\u201d in early spring frosts, but he didn\u2019t experience a killing frost until early October. This year\u2019s growing season lasted a long time, too, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think two seasons ago we had a 78-day growing season, so this was like 100-plus, which is way better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Green Table Farms is family owned and operated. It has grown every year, he said, and the market is strong right now.<\/p>\n

Hoyt finds extra workers through a program called Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, although he doesn\u2019t need too many helping hands, he said. He described the program as a short-term, almost volunteer program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like an internship, is the way I think of it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s an educational opportunity for people to come out to a farm. We take care of all their living expenses, and we take care of them really well while they\u2019re on the farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerby Orchard<\/div>\n

Kerby Orchard in the Farmington area has been in business for 76 years, Leslie Kerby said. Kerby\u2019s father started the orchard in 1945 after stints in Washington, Oregon and other places regarded as \u201capple country,\u201d but settled on Farmington because of the presence of the San Juan and Animas rivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople told him he\u2019d never make it, a fruit orchard on that land, and he said, \u2018You\u2019re looking at the man that can,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cSo we\u2019ve been growing fruit since then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seventy-six years later, Kerby Orchard grows 15 kinds of apples, eight types of peaches, four kinds of pears, five or six kinds of plums, three or four varieties of prunes, cherries and apricots.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything that will grow \u2013 except oranges, they freeze,\u201d Kerby said.<\/p>\n

Although, he also said the orchard has \u201cpretty good\u201d heating systems as an insurance policy against spring frosts.<\/p>\n

Kerby has attended the Durango Farmers Market as a vendor for about 12 years. He said it\u2019s definitely worth the time for him to make the trip from Farmington, although he fared even better 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

\"Tomatoes
Tomatoes hang from the vine Wednesday in Adobe House Farm's solar-heated greenhouse north of Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI\u2019d come up here with 200 or 300 bags of peaches and I\u2019d sell them all,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s gotten a little bit slower but so has it for everyone. The economy\u2019s been a little tougher the last five years. We do good here. And I do the markets in Aztec and Farmington.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerby said the weather hasn\u2019t given him too much of an issue, but 2021 has been the worst year for him to find workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cCOVID hasn\u2019t been too bad,\u201d Kerby said, \u201cbut this \u2018everyone stay home and draw paychecks from the government\u2019 stuff sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerby said he\u2019s about a week and a half off in picking fruit and guessed that he lost $20,000 over Yellow Delicious, a variety of apple, because he couldn\u2019t get the apples picked in time.<\/p>\n

Kerby Orchard had some fruits left as of mid-October, including plums, pears and peaches. He said the apricots were gone, and the farm didn\u2019t produce many cherries this year.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

vendors report plentiful crops, but a lack of water and labor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,1934,799,1587,28,83,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-farmers-market","tag-farmington","tag-farms","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85677,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43371\/revisions\/85677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43371"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}