|
FrontRangeLiving.com -> Cooking -> Zweck
 A
COLORADO CENTENNIAL FARM
By Niki Hayden
Behind a biotechnology factory, down a half mile from a county airport,
nestled among a new housing development, situated on a busy road--a 320-acre
organic farm dating to 1863 is known as the Zweck farm. Originally given as a grant to a
veteran of the Civil War, then a homestead turned dairy, the farm is working on
its second century.
About 29 years ago, Tom and Connie Zweck changed the dairy into a certified
organic farm selling mostly to neighbors. Some are old-time Longmont
residents who make a weekly drive. Others are new housing development homeowners
who moved to Colorado and settled around the farm.
 Tom can remember his grandfather and father planting wheat on land that now
grows everything from arugula to zucchini in a rich, loamy soil with no history
of pesticides.
"Tom’s grandmother was able to keep the farm during hard times by
selling butter," Connie says, "In the ’60s, when we started with the
back-to-the-earth movement, we figured that organic was the only way to go. Why
would you use pesticides? Now we know it’s difficult. We were very small at
first, mostly sweet corn and then tomatoes. We kept adding until we have what we
have now."
 FOLLOWING THE PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIC GARDENING
"We only grow on about 20 acres," Tom says, "and we move the
crops." Organic farming requires crop rotation with a variety of crops to
cut off the breeding cycle of pests. Most pests and diseases are specific to a
single crop. Rotating where they grow is perhaps the most important measure an
organic farmer takes to ensure success. That goes against modern farms that
specialize in one crop.
"You just can’t be organic with a monoculture and few people
understand that," he says, surveying fields of sunflowers, winter squash,
peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, sweet corn, basil, onions, melons, zinnias, okra,
cucumbers, beans, carrots, cilantro, parsley and potatoes.
 Organic farming, Connie says, depends on soil fertility. "It’s
preparing the soil in the fall for the next year with compost and a green cover
crop. Because you have to rotate your crops, well, that can be difficult in a
small garden. You have to weed. Every few days, water and hoe, especially when the
plants are babies. Hoeing helps to stimulate the roots of the plants. There’s a
saying, ‘tickle the earth and the plants will laugh back at you.’ That’s
because you get water and nutrients to their roots. If you have clay soil and
don’t hoe, it gets harder and you can’t get air to the roots. And don’t
overcrowd plants. Beginners often do that."
The Zwecks not only shun pesticides, they don’t use commercial fertilizers.
They have a built-in manure factory next door. "We can get composted
manure from beef cows. Tom’s brother has a herd. But Tom still thinks our
raspberries don’t do as well as when we had baby calves."
A WORKING MUSEUM
 At a time when family farms are posting going-out-of-business signs, the
Zwecks are the rare farm that survives. In the agricultural world, they’re a
working museum. Loyal customers line up each day to see what Tom hauls to the
stand. Some come because they want organically grown produce. But most come because
they relish the high standards the Zwecks insist upon. Purple black eggplant
skins shine with a gloss. Sweet onions pulled from the earth have an outer skin
that will squeak when rubbed. Emerald green basil is gathered and placed in a pail
of water. Customers lean over a bin to smell the sugary ripeness of the melons
and the tassel on the ends of sweet corn is damp.
 An elderly man from North Carolina fingers the okra and onions. A woman with
a box of cucumbers and garlic asks for dill seed heads for her pickles. A couple
picks up a box of sweet corn bound for Kansas. "They’re all out of sweet
corn there by now," the man says. Others are buying six or seven melons for
a party. A restaurant chef picks up boxes of tomatoes for sauce. Newly arrived
immigrant families choose cilantro and jalapeno peppers for Mexican or Thai
food.
The Zwecks sell only their own produce. If they can’t grow it to their
satisfaction, then they won’t sell it. And if customers once lined up only for
sweet corn, that’s changed. "About three-fourths of our customers care
about buying organic and appreciate it. I have some of our original customers
and they’ve changed. Little old ladies in their 70s now are trying fresh
basil. People are open to change. And we are, too. We’re growing okra now. We
didn’t think it would grow here, but people from the South kept asking for it.
When we put it out, it’s gone in a minute."
A QUEST FOR PERFECTION IN A CHALLENGING CLIMATE
 Behind their farm stand, row after row of vegetables, flowers and fruits grow
in mounded beds, water from irrigation pipes dripping into the furrows. Dense
clouds of mosquitoes swarm from the lilac bushes. Connie doesn’t dare pick
produce without mosquito netting: "Everything is challenging in
Colorado," she says, waving away the insects. But it's not the mosquitoes
that make farming in Colorado unpredictable. It's the late spring frosts and
early fall snows. "There’s nothing that
you can say is perfect," she says, "It’s mostly the weather. Onions are fairly easy from
seed. I would have said potatoes were easy—but not this year. Tomatoes are the
hardest. Once you plant the seeds, transplant, cage and stake them. Well, you
don’t get much of a crop."
"I wouldn’t be without eggplant, although they are difficult and not a
great producer. And then, I love peppers. I used to grow all kinds, but I’ve
narrowed it. It got too hard to classify for customers. The trick to growing
peppers and eggplant is to not put them out until the cold truly is over."
Eggplant and peppers dress her dinner table regularly. She slathers mayonnaise
on each side of sliced eggplant, sprinkles it with Parmesan cheese and broils
it.
But her favorite collection for the grill is to marinate eggplant, squash,
red peppers, onions and tomatillos. She cuts them into flat slices, pops them
into a Ziploc bag with a vinaigrette of balsamic vinegar, honey, olive oil and
garlic. It’s one of the recipes she recommends to her customers.
Connie roasts and freezes her peppers. She says the skin peels off more
easily once roasted peppers have been frozen. "I love tomatillos, but they
do terribly. They start getting mature and then drop all their fruit."
 We wind our way between melons, full and round, their webbing like raised
ropey veins around the fruit. The Zwecks keep honeybees to pollinate all their
fruit and provide honey for their farm stand. This year a bear raided one hive.
It was the first bear in all their years of farming. "There’s no place
for him to go," Connie says ruefully, "we’re surrounded by
houses." Now the hives are barricaded to dissuade him; after all, he was
easily frightened away. "I was amazed at how fast he could run when we
pulled up in the pick-up truck."
 CREATING THEIR OWN MARKET
The Zwecks once sold to small markets like Wild Oats and Alfalfa’s. Those
stores no longer buy from them. Connie still takes fresh basil to Whole Foods,
but she finds the markets are less inclined to buy local produce. They’ve shut
out the smaller, local farmers who once provided the bulk of organic foods. But
the Zwecks have discovered that they can provide a direct link to the customer.
There’s no need to them to join a farmers market; people have found them.
And it’s not easy. Tearing down the road at a rapid clip, you’ll surely
miss their small sign, "Organic produce" or "Honey". You’ll
never see the rows of sunflowers behind the roadside trees, or the marigolds
that line their dirt driveway. Even the stand is hidden from view.
 It’s only when you’re parked along the driveway that you see rows upon
rows of zinnias. Connie relies on annuals as cut flowers and starts
seeds in a greenhouse each winter and spring. Sunflowers, cosmos and zinnias
stand in galvanized cans. Each year she tries new varieties but no longer finds
the seeds that she likes. "I’m saving some of my own flower seeds because
they keep discontinuing the flowers I love. I’ve always had flowers at the
market. I love cosmos bouquets, there are so many kinds and I’ve found one
bred for cut flowers."
Over the years, Tom and Connie have discovered through trial and error how to
grow the best cultivars for their weather conditions and soil. A striped
zucchini is the best. Some tomatoes are sweeter than others. Fingerling potatoes
are too difficult to dig up, but ruby reds grow to perfection. A smaller
eggplant will thrive more easily than the giant cultivars. Their customers give
instant feedback; Tom and Connie will try almost anything once. But even if the
vegetables didn’t sell, Connie would never abandon her flowers—always
annuals, always brightly colored.
 "My grandfather and grandmother had acres of flowers. My grandfather
grew them for my grandmother because she was ill for a number of years. She
could look out her window and see acres of color."
Purple cleome, hot red cannas, orange and yellow marigolds, magenta cosmos,
giant sunflowers, nearly an acre of sunflowers alone. It’s not too extravagant
to plant acres of flower seeds each spring. By mid-summer the fields are
streaked in colors. Connie’s reasoning is simple: "I grew up with all
those flowers and thought you should always have them."
The Zweck farm is at 10901 Airport Road, outside Longmont. They will be
open from June until October 5.
Connie’s Chicken with Sour Cream and Poblano Chilies
- 1 whole chicken stewed with the meat taken off the bone
- 10 cloves of garlic, sliced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 6 poblano chilies, sliced into strips
- 8 oz. sour cream
- 2 cups reserved chicken broth
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 cups hot cooked rice
Sauté garlic in oil. Add strips of poblano chilies and sauté together until
tender. Add the chicken and broth, then lastly the sour cream. Serve over hot
rice. Serves 6.
The following recipes were developed by Front Range Living to use the last of
summer squash and green beans.
 Summer Squash Soufflé
- 3 tablespoons of butter
- 4 tablespoons of flour
- 1 cup hot milk, regular or nonfat
- 1 medium zucchini or yellow summer squash or three small squash
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- 4 eggs
- pinch, cream of tartar
- ½ cup cheese: Asiago, Parmesan, Gruyère or cheddar—any strongly flavored
cheese will do
Grate the summer squash and sauté slowly in oil. Grate cheese and set aside.
Prepare a white sauce by melting butter in a heavy skillet. Add flour to form a
paste and slowly stir in the milk. Stir until it forms a smooth sauce. Remove it
from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Separate the eggs. Add the pinch of
cream of tartar to the egg whites and beat with a whisk or electric beater until
stiff. Set aside. Add the egg yolks to the sauce mixture. Add the grated cheese.
Fold the sauce mixture into the egg whites taking care not to over mix. Pour
into a casserole that holds at least 6 cups. Place in a preheated 400-degree
oven for about 30 minutes--or until the soufflé has set and the eggs cooked
through. Serve immediately. Serves 4 in small portions, or two as a main
entrée.
 Green Beans with Blue Cheese and Roasted Pecans
Julia Child is right. There is one best way to cook whole green beans and
it's the French way. Bring a 6-quart pan filled with water to a boil. Add two
tablespoons of salt. Slide in your prepared fresh green beans. Cook seven to ten
minutes or under just tender to the bite. Remove from the stove and plunge the
beans into cold water. Set aside.
- 1 pound green beans, cooked
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoons of crumbled blue cheese or feta
- 2 tablespoons of roasted, chopped pecans. Place nuts in a 350-degree oven for
five minutes to roast.
Mix the olive, cheese and nuts together. Drizzle all over the green beans.
Serve immediately.
Baked Eggplants in a Crust of Breadcrumbs
This is a quick and easy way to serve small, tender
eggplants. They can be part of tapas party as well as a companion to a meal.
- 3 small eggplants, any kind
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 or 2 cups of fresh breadcrumbs, French or Italian white loaf
- 4 Tbs. olive oil
- 1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Cut off the tops of eggplants and slice down the middle. Cut off a sliver
of eggplant skin on the rounded sides. Dredge the eggplant slice in flour,
then dip in egg, then in breadcrumbs. Sauté in the olive oil until each
side is brown and crusty. Place eggplant in a baking dish, cover with foil,
and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. In the last five minutes of
baking, sprinkle the grated cheeses over each slice. Serves three to four.
|
