This fall, a five-year experiment to grow food at 8500 feet concluded with significant successes, and many lessons learned came to an end. When we began this project in 2016, we cleared a 10th acre and built up the soil with manure and compost to make it garden-capable.

Our first planting was calico quinoa. The seed was delivered in person by Ernie New from White Mountain Farm in the San Luis Valley. Ernie was one of the first growers of quinoa in North America in the late ‘80s.

Unfortunately, the aftermath of the Cold Springs fire destroyed the crop, and we were left with only a few heads of quinoa to hold back seed. The following summer, with Mark Smith’s help and some able-bodied sawyers, we cleared five acres of burned forest for a horse pasture and a new test plot. We contacted Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance and received samples of 22 different heritage grains to test high altitude. While there were varying degrees of success, Turkey Red Wheat was the outlier that made the most sense to try and scale. We soon found out that elk and deer loved the quinoa and knew within a day of harvest that it was good to eat and wiped everything out in about 20 minutes.

The following summer, we built a seven foot fence around the garden and the two acre test plot. The height is the minimum for elk in this area. We scaled up to planting an acre of winter wheat and an acre of quinoa. The wheat did well, but the quinoa flowered but never went to seed due to drought conditions.

In 2019 we planted winter wheat in the fall and again quinoa in the spring. That year the wheat did well, but again the quinoa did not make it due to the drought. Bear in mind this is all dry farming, and even Ernie irrigates his quinoa here in Colorado. We also did painted mountain corn in the garden along with 450 feet of potatoes. However, by fall, we had been inundated by ground squirrels and chipmunks. We heard that a couple of foxes and an owl were found poisoned. The absence of predators had allowed the overpopulation of small mammals who decimated everything except the potatoes. But we did get enough potatoes to sell at the Ned Farmers Market!

In the fall of 2020, we planted an acre of wheat, and in the spring of 2021, we planted 650 feet of Painted Mountain corn and 400 feet of red, white, and purple potatoes. We also bought eight live traps to catch ground squirrels and chipmunks. We were not going to lose to the critters this year. We ended up relocating 46 trapped animals, and we only lost about 10% of the crop to the ground squirrels and chipmunks.

A lot of life and farm lessons in the last five years have tempered my being. First, if you have any tendency to procrastinate, don’t bother farming. Chores have to happen in nature’s time and not yours. Critters in the mountains are inevitable, and sharing with them is okay if they are reasonable. Fences and population control are essential to yields. Don’t farm if you hope to make money. Keep it small scale to feed yourself and maybe a couple of friends. Find plenty of folks to help with the harvest, especially if you are harvesting grain, and share some with them.

Special thanks this year to Dave, Erin, Uproot and my family for help with the harvest!

During harvest, we got an offer to buy the property. We agreed to sell. It was a bittersweet end to a 13- year journey. We will be helping the new owners learn to carry on the farming and gardening process.

I know someday growing at 8500 feet will be necessary as climate change makes growing in the plains impossible. I am glad I could prove it feasible and perhaps economical at another time in the future.