Old Man Winter told the women working at Rohwer’s Farm to take a break. Nevertheless, they persisted.
In the dark, quiet months between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, Judy, Heidi and Angela Rohwer plan for the cultivation of their 7-acre market garden. Like many professional market gardeners and home gardeners, they use the seasonal down time to till through seed catalogs.
Perhaps the two generations of Rohwer women listened a bit to Father Winter – there is one hard and fast rule about catalogue gazing, said Judy, matriarch of the family operation, “No one around here gets to crack a seed catalogue until after Christmas, and we hold each other to it!”
This hiatus seems reasonable enough after laboring from sunup to sundown during the height of the growing season on their 22-acre, family-owned farm on Ruin Canyon Mesa in Pleasant View. Producing fresh, organic, heirloom varieties of vegetables, fruits, flowers and eggs to sell at the Durango Farmer’s Market is an intense labor of love. The Rohwers also keep bees as pollinators and raise and shear sheep for their wool.
But these women are passionate about growing food, stewarding their land and sharing their bounty with local communities. They are experimenters and diversifiers, committed to producing more food each year over a longer growing season. “Filling in the gaps,” Judy says, “is challenging and exciting.” One example of their willingness to branch out is their production of fruit leather from their 60-year-old apricot trees.
Even during this cold time of year, things are heating up at the farm. The small seed-starting house has more than 2,000 seeds germinating right now with the assistance of electric heating mats. Many are the hot and sweet peppers for which the Rohwers have become known.
“Our market customers have really taken to our smoked and dried peppers – we grow over 50 varieties now, and people are loving them,” Heidi said, stroking the tiny pepper starts poking up out of the soil packs.
“We are growing a new variety of mild habañeros this year and we are excited to try them,” Judy said.
Along with the seed-starting house, “plasticulture” makes this winter gardening possible. This term refers to using agricultural plastic for various applications, from ground cover to heat the soil and hold moisture, to row covers and high tunnel greenhouses to extend the short 120-day growing season.
When the seed starts are large enough later this month, they will be taken to one of the Rohwer’s four high-tunnel greenhouses and planted in rows. The high tunnels capture the days’ heat and before the sun goes down, the seedlings get “put to bed” under frost blankets that cover the planting rows, keeping the heat close to the ground. When the temperatures drop into the teens, Heidi employs strands of incandescent holiday lights laid amongst the greens to add additional heat under the covered rows.
Every year is different, the women say, and they learn a lot from their failures. What remains consistent is their flexibility, curiosity and easy laughter. And their loyal customers, a dozen of which head out to the farm each year for their annual onion-planting party. “We love to involve customers in the operation. People come for all sorts of reasons, like wanting to connect with the earth and to have fun,” Judy said. “And they teach us things like how to grill bok choy. Who would of thought?”
Locals need not wait until the Durango Farmers Market opens on May 13 to enjoy the Rohwers’ bounty. They sell their produce at the Smiley Café, inside the Smiley Building at 1309 E. 3rd Ave. every other Friday from 12:30 to 3 p.m. throughout the winter.
This Friday, you can expect to find such fresh greens as lettuce, spinach, arugula, baby kale, mizuna, endive and cilantro; cellared roots such as carrots, onions and six varieties of potatoes; a dozen varieties of smoked and dried peppers; and USDA certified eggs from the Rohwers’ feathered friends.
And the Rohwers are not alone. On Wednesdays during the winter months, other local growers also attend the Farmers Market at the Smiley Café from 2 to 5 p.m. Wild Mesa Farm, located in Lewis and operated by farmers Margaret and Andrew Riedel, offer frozen grass-fed Mangalitsa pork, beef and lamb and pasture-raised heritage chickens and eggs. Fields to Plate Produce, run by James Plate and Max Fields, sell their “better than organic” golden and red beets, carrots and numerous varieties of potatoes grown at the Old Fort Lewis Field Station in Hesperus.