Fragility

The shaky ground agriculture sits on

SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! A 42x72 foot piece of greenhouse plastic is lifted by wind and smacks onto a greenhouse frame. Ideally, we would be waiting for a calm morning to skin a greenhouse, but help has arrived now and we are committed. A larger breeze comes, people brace, but it is too strong. The plastic takes flight, a crewmember goes with it off a ladder, the sheet finds rest back on the ground. Luckily everyone is okay. Luckily the greenhouse gets covered later that day.

It only takes one gust to catch the right corner and rip the plastic off a greenhouse frame. A little over a week ago, with gusts reaching 90 mph, that was the story. A whole roof gone. Another almost taken away.

To coincide with heavy wind pressure the Front Range has also been facing extreme temperature swings. In under a week, we have seen lows in the teens with windchill in single digits and highs near 90.

Everything is dry, brittle, and ready to snap. Yet here we are, growing food.

Farming often feels like rolling the dice. We farm a small space, so we have invested in houses to elongate our seasons, thus increase food production. These structures are great but with more intense storms they often suffer.

Risk is inherent even after the crop is harvested. A gas leak on a market day led to the cancelling of the Fort Collins Winter Farmers Market 15 minutes before it was set to open. We received the email and pulled the plug on participating. Without other avenues to sell microgreens we were stuck eating precious cash flow and not earning for a week. (The market ended up happening but a second email inviting vendors to return was not sent meaning only a handful of people could set up to sell.)

Then, the body breaks down. Between the stress of repairs, problem solving, and the high temperatures I slip into heat exhaustion. I am forced to stop working and take a sick day.

Farmers across the country are facing similar challenges. Conventional growers will now contend with rising fertilizer costs as a war with Iran continues on without an end in sight (currently priced 25% higher than before the start of the war). At every turn it feels like something is out to get us. Many have been got. Farm foreclosures doubled between 2024 and 2025. Farmers are getting squeezed from all ends as systems change.

The combination of increased weather severity and rising input costs has made growing profitable crops that much harder.

What are we doing about this?

Climate- Soil health is key. Healthy, living soil full of organic matter holds precious moisture and helps us produce great crops consistently. By increasing organic matter by 1% we can increase an acre’s water capacity by 20,000 gallons of water!

Infrastructure- We are creating standards of practice around windy days. Checking tunnels before storms, moving equipment to act as wind breaks, and other measures will help us better prepare and not be scrambling before weather arrives. Also fixing issues as soon as possible while building back better is priority.

Markets- Community Supported Agriculture. By growing our CSA program, we can have more dependable outlets for product. Instead of chancing weather on a market morning, we now have committing customers and guaranteed demand. These customers provide the foundation to keep our Farm Stand open 6 days a week during the main season, providing further hours to sell our products.

The new box subscription program takes this a step forward by breaking free of the traditional “pay upfront” CSA model. By giving customers, the ability to add a box, pause, and have greater pick-up availability we can hopefully build a more robust system of getting food to folks. Check out our pickup locations below! We have tried to place them near other outlets for grocery runs and open with later hours, so folks have time after work to grab their veggies.

Agriculture is facing systemic change. The way food has been grown since the “Green Revolution” is no longer working. Supply chains are fragile and geopolitics are unpredictable.

It is time to create something better. A system that feeds people, takes care of farmers, stewards land, and regenerates civilization to the next era. Our farm strives to be a leading example in what will be a better tomorrow.