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On a two-acre site a few miles northwest of Salida, Colo., Cruz and her partner, Gene Tkatschenko, have spent the past year working their land using the principles of an increasingly popular practice called permaculture design. Their ultimate goals include providing sustainable food and shade, and conserving water for the benefit of themselves, their neighbors and the arid local environment.

For many of us, forgetting an ingredient while cooking can be fixed with a quick stop at the grocery store, but others are turning to a different source for fresh produce. Vegetables are starting to sprout in community gardens around downtown. At the community garden by the Mesa County Library, residents can rent a plot for the season and are free to grow whatever fruits and vegetables they want. It seems community gardens and community supported agriculture farms are finding a niche here in the Valley.

With spring and summer comes fresh fruits and vegetables, and thanks to a new law, your neighbors could start to sell you some of their crops. The Cottage Foods Act hopes to jump start local economies, allowing small- scale growers to sell their products directly to customers, without having to rent a commercial kitchen.

But one thing has not changed: Every farmer who sells at the Boulder County Farmers’ Market grows his or her own produce, setting it apart from most farmers’ markets across the state and across the country. The premise of grow-what-you-sell is woven directly into the fabric of today’s market, just as it was in 1987 when it began.

Boulder’s market will be adding new farmers and new vendors this year, including Shadow Butte Ranch, which will also sell its meats, including goat, at the Longmont market.

Amid mounting evidence of the dangers genetically modified crops pose to humans, animals, our soils and biodiversity, the corporate-controlled U.S. government continues to ignore the dangers and actively promote GM crops. Even worse are the increasing reports that scientists trying to study these dangers are having their government or corporate funding cut off. In some cases, they are even being prohibited by their universities from continued research because the universities fear losing corporate funding. And corporations with patents on GM crops are further hindering these same scientists by refusing them access to their seeds and crops.

Fracking is a thirsty process, with each Niobrara frack job using an average of 4.3 million gallons of water, or about 13 acre-feet, according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. Where that water comes from and where it goes is critical because many environmentalists are sounding alarms about the amount of water being used for drilling along the Front Range because they say it poses serious future water supply problems as the energy industry continues to boom here.

On a random Monday evening, I found myself walking around downtown Carbondale with time to burn. So I popped into a few different stores and checked out the local yoga studio and consignment shops, and what I discovered is that Carbondale has a thriving local food scene.

On Thursday, the Niwot Market will celebrate its 10th anniversary with an open house of music, local Colorado companies and food sampling.

This is an important milestone for a family-owned company with roots that stretch back multiple decades.

Owned and operated by Bert Steele and his family, Niwot Market is the recent reincarnation of Steele’s Market, which was a Colorado grocery fixture from 1942 up until its demise in 2001. In that time period, the Steele family opened and owned seven stores, their largest being in Fort Collins. After the liquidation of Steele’s Markets, the family decided to keep their Niwot location and reopen it as Niwot Market.

Today, Niwot Market stands tall as the only grocery supplier in Niwot, focusing on creative and unique ways to keep customers coming back and back again.

“We try to get and do stuff that other big groceries like Whole Foods or King Soopers can’t,” says Allison Steele, the daughter of Bert Steele.

Allison, along with her brother Seth, has been working with for her father in the grocery business all her life.

“Boulder County is very much about being healthy and having things organic, and that’s the No. 1 thing we try to market,” she said.

Potatoes are a versatile food, and can be staples for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They can be used in a main course, a side dish, breads, soups and desserts. They can be baked, fried, broiled, boiled or grilled.
But potatoes also have gotten a bad rap. High in carbohydrates, some health experts have recommended limiting the intake of potatoes as a way to combat obesity.