“What Are You Eating?”
A Journey for Purity and Balance
Croft Family Farm Visit
My respect and admiration for the family behind Croft Family Farm has, if possible, grown even deeper since my second visit to the farm. It is impossible to remain unchanged when you rub elbows with people who drive singularly toward one goal - one unequivocally good goal - especially when they also emanate kindness and compassion along the way. A big statement for a big family. Steve and Michelle Cockroft (and their seven kids) are the crew behind Croft - the family that brings the trailer full of picture-worthy vegetables to the market each week before they get mobbed by the City Park community at 8am (the line starts even earlier). When you’re reading this I want you to remember one thing along the way… beautiful, nutrient dense, as-it-should-be produce is hard to grow. Like… really really hard to grow. And when you visit people with an insatiable appetite for perfection, you begin to think we should be paying a lot more than we do for our food.
Peter and I pulled into the farm on a balmy 100 degree Monday, catching both Michelle and Steve Cockroft hard at work, bent over, pulling weeds in succession along with a crew of family members and volunteers that were trading work for veggies. Both of them grew up working on conventional family farms, which helped create an impressive work ethic and the heart for farming that they still have today. They didn’t consistently farm through their lives, but when their eldest son was diagnosed with autism they began exploring natural ways to better support him. They quickly learned that nutrition played a key role in supporting their son and their family, so they wasted no time in growing their own food and learning as much as they could about organic and nutrient dense practices. When you talk to Steve about farming, there is an inevitable return to the same two words over and over again - purity and balance. I genuinely believe that Steve Cockroft goes to bed at night dreaming about perfect soil and wakes up the next morning ruminating over the next step in his quest for perfect tomatoes.
Tomatoes are actually perhaps the best example of how Croft is putting their love for agriculture, nutrition, and flavor into practice. Seven years of experimentation, trial, feedback, testing, tasting, and planting. Seven years of finding the perfect soil balance and microclimate. Seven years to arrive at a place that makes Steve beam with pride as he walks you through rows of perfect vines.
Naturally the first place we went on our walk through the 20 efficient acres of produce was the tomato high tunnels. And holy wow! I’ve never seen tomato plants that big and fruitful. After seven years, Croft has dialed in an equation of perfect water (all water on their farm is meticulously filtered), perfect soil inputs (all organic, focused on thriving microorganisms and balance), perfect temperature and humidity, and an enormous amount of energy and effort (each high tunnel takes 80 hours of labor per week to prune, pick, and tend). One quick note here - high tunnels are not to be confused with greenhouses - high tunnels utilize soil directly from the ground creating microclimates for plants such as tomatoes or tender greens to thrive in our sometimes harsh Colorado climates.
As we walked back through the rows, Steve noted the different varieties of tomatoes they are currently growing, explaining each one, eating some here and there, and talking in depth about the various flavors he experiences. We had an almost identical experience at Ela Family Farms two summers ago, with Steve Ela walking through an apple orchard explaining tasting notes, the complexity and depth of vine ripened fruit, and the beauty of eating produce just days after it was picked. There was a full-circle moment for us, walking with passionate farmers who have independently arrived at the same conclusion for how growing should be.
The farm consists of three high tunnels (they are working hard to expand these each year), two open air fields (one field is resting this year), and a total of six pastures for two large chicken flocks (each flock rotates through three different pastures). As Steve was our tour guide for the day, we obviously spent a lot of time with tomatoes, but the two high tunnels we visited next were just as beautiful - young leafy greens, crunchy cucumbers, and rows upon rows of earthy, fragrant herbs. Each family member clearly has their passion and expertise - Michelle is the queen of the leafy greens and Marilyn heads up the herbs, while the boys (Jacob and Andrew) take charge of the massive chicken flocks and much of the infrastructure. The term “family run farm” couldn’t be more literal. The agriculturally inclined crew moves around one another like flowing water, naturally owning their task and moving about with an element of confidence in leadership regardless of age.
And… of course we have to mention our meal that capped off our tour. We’re big Marilyn fans around here - partially because we’ve now had two beautiful, delicious, and creative meals from her that came fresh from the farm. But partially because she has this uncanny ability to take any freshly grown vegetables and turn it into an inventive, original, absolutely delectable masterpiece of a meal that is equal parts beauty and flavor. Our meal this time consisted of the worlds best tasting asparagus soup topped with Five Freedom Dairy ricotta and seasoned radish seed pods, perfectly grilled steak accompanied by a tender beet salad and quick pickled cucumbers. Right when we thought the meal was over, Michelle brought out the moist vanilla bundt cake with dollops of fresh cream and Croft grown strawberries on the side. Although they may have made an extra thoughtful meal for our tour, the custom in the Cockcroft family is to pause daily for lunch. The honor that is given to family and to the food that they grow and prepare is truly noteworthy, not just because they have an insurmountable number of tasks to complete in a day and pausing is a rarity in our busy culture, but because their actions are so perfectly aligned with the messaging and vision they convey (also a rarity in our busy culture).
When shopping from the farmers market, we are getting first dibs on what was picked the previous day directly from the farmer who grew it. We’re taught to grab a tomato at the store and lightly squeeze it to ensure its freshness because more times than not we will get a rock hard, flavorless, red tomato. If you grab one of Croft Family Farm’s tomatoes and do the ol’ squeeze test, you will crush it due to its mature, full grown, and ripened state (and Steve will yell at you for damaging one of his babies). With tomatoes grown to harvest like the ones sold at the market, there is no need to squeeze… as they are all ripe. No grocery store, however high-end, local, or organically labeled, can ensure such quality and freshness as the produce that is sold at the farmers market by local farmers themselves because truly ripe tomatoes literally cannot be distributed.
As we were closing out the tour of the farm standing in the humid heat of one of the high tunnels housing the already towering tomato plants, Steve shared a sentiment that stirred in me, "Someone that is able to do hard labor and then bring it to a level of purity that we are striving for - it's not normal and we are proud to be a part of that process and thankful for the people who value what we do”. The methods and techniques that the farmers at CPFM are using to grow produce is just not the norm in society. The effort they pour into their crops simply to provide the best produce around is… not normal. We, the CPFM community, get to shop weekly from our local farmer, purchase the best produce we could possibly find, and give our money directly to the farmers who grew it - what a true privilege!