Photo: Josh and Sasha Gentry of Honyock Farms Limited at the 2021 Pagosa Springs Farmers Market
Healthy Archuleta, a local non-profit in Archuleta County also known as the FSFE – Food Coalition, continues to celebrate the local food heroes that make up the food system in Archuleta County and the surrounding southwest region. These individuals uniquely contribute to the community’s vision for a sustainable, health promoting, and equitable local food system so that everyone has access to affordable nutritious foods. The effort to capture the profiles of these integral community members was initiated as part of the Archuleta Food System Summit that took place April 9, 2022.
Today we would like to feature Josh and Sasha Gentry. The following is a narrative they shared with us:
“At Honyock Farms Limited, we do our best to provide local customers with the freshest salad mixes, microgreens, and leafy greens (such as spinach, kale, and mustard). We also grow seasonal veggies like tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and more. Some of our options are available live and uncut, which ensures the most nutrition possible available to the customer.”
“We believe that everyone should get the most nutrients from all their food. That’s why our goal is to provide live uncut greens, or to cut and deliver our produce within 24 hours of harvesting or cutting. This ensures the freshest veggies with the most nutritional content and flavor available. I believe that with the proper support from locals, one day Pagsa can provide 100% of the produce we consume, and we can all receive the freshest produce available.”
“This dream of feeding people originated when I had a wild idea to become an old fashioned homesteader. You know, provide all your own food, water, energy, livestock, livestock feed, etc. I found a beautiful piece of mountain property in Pagosa Springs. Undeterred by the challenges of high-mountain gardening, like extreme temperature swings, poor soil, and intense sun rays, I decided to challenge myself even further. We were going to do it all off grid as well! After trying to grow everything you can think of, and a miserable first year harvest, we decided to focus on growing the things that grew best in our climate and that our friends and family truly enjoyed eating. After our first trip to the farmers’ market, we quickly realized others liked it and wanted more as well.”
“As we ventured on in feeding our community, we have found that being self-sufficient is a daunting task. We have not given up though, and we feel every year will get easier in some way or another. We are currently looking into a larger solar system and the possibility of a water well. With these improvements, we’ll be able to provide more of our community with the freshest produce available.
“We hope to see you this 2022 season. And thank you to all our valued customers for your support in this adventure. If you would like to help build our vision, please be in touch! Contact Honyock Farms at honyockfarms@gmail.com or call or text 970-560-5976.”
For questions please contact us at fsfearchuleta@gmail.org or 401-371-3227.
To donate to support the work of Healthy Archuleta dba FSFE-Food Coalition https://www.foodcoalition4archuleta.org/donate.html” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>please visit our website.
Rose Chavez is Executive Director for Archuleta Seniors, Inc. and Public Health Consultant at Archuleta Food System/Food Equity Coalition.