Homegrown Food at 8,000 Feet – Always a Challenge!

Greenhouse Conservatory, new condition

Happy Memorial Day weekend! I’ve been so busy I hardly even noticed that April and May have passed on by.  I have also been traveling, first to New York to begin shooting season two of my FoodyTV cooking show – Therapeutic Cuisine, and then down to The University of Arizona’s Center for Integrated Medicine’s – Nutrition & Health Conference, which I always look forward to and enjoy every spring.

Not so enjoyable however, has been the unusual long stretch of rainy weather that we have been having here in my neck of the woods.  April showers ushered in May with a non-ending string of torrential rain, hail and snowstorms.  Our rocky mountain wildlife as well as my horses is all starting to look like drunken sailors marching through prehistoric arctic tundra and mud bogs.  And my annually anticipated spring garden is appearing to be a bust this year as most of my early plantings have been pulverized with hail or freezing temperatures.  Also, my nifty weather-protecting, wildlife-proof, gazebo-shaped greenhouse collapsed and was destroyed under the excessive burdens of this spring’s unexpectedly late, heavy and wet snow.  The growing season is short lived up here at 8,000 feet and I fear I’ve lost the time-line needed to fully grow and harvest any seeds I manage to re-plant, at this point.  And buying plantings from the commercial nurseries and re-purchasing a greenhouse is just too expensive for me to afford this year.

Therefore, and as usual, my commitment to eat as much organic and homegrown food as possible is tested to the limits.   But, I will persist to be resilient.

And I will keep you posted on my ongoing challenge with Mother Nature and my garden’s harvest.

And finally, be sure to stay tuned for season two’s new episodes and recipes of Therapeutic Cuisine.

Chef Kelly