CORTEZ, Colo.—Farming provides no easy life, and those who farm most likely don’t do it to get rich.
So when Rusty and Laurie Hall decided to start a salad delivery business with the excess fruits and vegetables from the summer and fall season, the sweet crunch of success came as a welcome surprise.
“There is unpredictability about it all,” Rusty said about the farming profession. “The challenge is keeping a good, consistent product. And we grow organically and use natural methods, which can make it even harder.”
Difficult as crops may be, the idea for the salad business came rather easily.
Armed with a greenhouse the Halls had built earlier in May and the desire to continue working from home during the winter season, the two incorporated past job experiences to help with their current career.
As a professional chef in New York and Dallas, Rusty took on the food aspect of the business while Laurie used her skills as a graphic designer to market the business.
“He and I marvel at what we did in the past, jobs that were completely unrelated but now come into play,” Laurie Hall said.
But farming?
Laurie said they met in Angel Fire, N.M., as professional snowboard instructors in the winter and landscapers in the summer.
After doing that for a few years, they asked, “Wouldn’t this be great to do ourselves?”
“And then we found this place,” Laurie said.
From snowboarding to snow peas, the Halls changed their job descriptions by trading a little less white for a little more green.
Even the couple’s personal meals have changed, going from a meat and potatoes menu to plates full of greens.
“We eat a lot of salads now,” Rusty said.
After the idea was established, the Halls obtained their permit from the health department and now do all of the salad prep work—cutting, chopping and cooking—at the Mancos Community Center.
The couple uses as much of their own organic produce as possible, harvesting up to 40 or 50 pounds of lettuce a week for the business. If they don’t have everything, they use other local farms for additional produce.
But with a toasty greenhouse, “row covers” for the outside crops, and a full acre—out of a total 70 acres—devoted to various salad crops, most of the salad ingredients come right from home. Rusty said Laurie is even affectionately known as the “lettuce queen,” as the crop is fickle to farm.
“I think it’s the design person in me. I like the way it looks,” she said while standing in front of a colorful array of lettuce varieties packed into a row.
After the lettuce is picked and washed, using a giant salad spinner Rusty made, salads are taken to the design room, a small room tucked in a corner of the house the couple built nearly on their own.
Laurie takes orders via e-mail or phone in the morning, packages the salads, and has Rusty deliver containers by noon, Monday through Friday.
The couple’s holistic approach to life is infused into every aspect of their business, down to the salad’s biodegradable and nontoxic packaging made from corn starch.
Compost piles are made from manure and green waste for fertilizing the crops—this “keeps things in a cycle,” Laurie said—and a team of Belgian horses is used as often as time constraints allow to help drag fields and rake hay.
“This sustainable lifestyle is pretty amazing,” Rusty said. “As corny as it sounds, it’s rewarding to feed people.”
“And when we thank our customers, they say, ‘No, thank you,'” Laurie added.
The 70-acre Seven Meadows Farm, located just outside Cortez along County Road 32, was uninhabited when the couple bought it about four years ago, but now has a seemingly endless variety of fruits and vegetables: peach, apple and apricot orchards, strawberry and raspberry gardens, and cold-tolerant crops that all go toward the salad business and farmers’ market.
Laurie was the market manager this year and said they sold both produce and lambs for locals at the Cortez and Durango markets.
“The scale of local farms is realistic, and the health benefits of eating local is great,” Laurie said. “This area has a history of family-owned farms and ranches, and it’s really great to see a resurgence of that.”
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