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August 31 – There's an abundance of fruit in Orlando Romero's backyard in Nambi, and the feast has reached Santa Fe.
In order to harvest the fruit of the fruitful apricot tree, Romero invited eight people carrying buckets to harvest the fruit.
Still, apricot hulls were strewn across the ground on Wednesday — and Romero said he couldn't keep up with production.
“We had to carry them in a wheelbarrow… and we're still not done,” Romero said.
Romero said the 100-year-old cherry trees, planted from seeds dating back to his grandfather and great-grandfather, were plentiful, and his family was “eating like crazy.”
Romero walks through the rows of grapevines, tasting each variety. The garden is shared by France and Spain, two countries that are represented by fruit. Some grapes turn sweet faster than expected, he said.
But Romero doesn't aim to produce a dessert wine, so he monitors the flavor daily to make sure it doesn't get too sugary.
A wet winter, mild spring and rainy summer have contributed to Romero's bountiful backyard harvest, which has been both a blessing and a burden. And Romero is not alone—other fruit growers have had good to good harvests.
For homeowners with fruit problems in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, help is just a phone call away.
Erin Garrison, executive director and co-founder of Free Food Albuquerque, said the organization will help harvest and donate produce to increase access to food.
Backyard farmers can contact the group and a team of volunteers will schedule a harvest, arrive on the property and leave with baskets, bags or parcels of fresh produce. That food is then distributed to community groups to reduce hunger — and food waste, Garrison said.
So far, the group has harvested nearly 11,000 pounds of produce, mainly lettuce, apples and apricots. And in Albuquerque, volunteers have been booked in all summer.
This year, the group began harvesting fruit regularly in Santa Fe. On Saturdays, Garrison travels to Santa Fe to help any interested homeowners—and by August 19, Garrison alone had harvested more than 900 pounds of fruit from Santa Fe and northern New Mexico.
“We did very well in Santa Fe, we harvested a lot of fruit,” Garrison said.
For three weekends in a row, Garrison visited the same apricot tree in Glorieta, which produced nearly 600 pounds of fruit.
Garrison pointed to the “tree cycle” as the reason. One year, a tree might not produce any fruit at all. The next two years, it might produce little—and then a bumper crop of “huge amounts of fruit in three- to seven-year cycles.”
Parts of the state are now experiencing a bumper crop cycle, Garrison said.
“We had a lot of rain, no late frost, the sun, moon and stars were at their best, and we just had an excellent harvest of all the fruit this year,” Garrison said.
Eddie Velarde, whose family has grown fruit in Velarde for 15 generations, said the quality and quantity of fruit was better this year than last, despite spring frosts and higher-than-normal temperatures, in an email to The New Mexican.
For Fruit Basket, stone fruits like peaches, plums and apricots — the farm grows a wide variety of them — have been the most productive this year. A bigger harvest means more labor, but Velarde said that hasn’t been a problem, and each year Fruit Basket adds more trees and space.
Other fruit growers are also thinking about growing; this year's harvest has left Juliana Schiano optimistic about next year.
Since 5000 B.C., when the Tewa people settled what is now Agua Fria, the land at San Isidro Pass has been used for farming. It later became the “breadbasket” of Spanish colonists, says Reunity Resources program director Siano, before falling into the hands of World War II veteran John Stevenson, who turned the site into a community farm in “a testament to having a purpose bigger than yourself and spending a lot of time with your hands in the soil.”
The farm now grows apricot, peach, pear, apple and plum trees, which continue to benefit the community.
“We had a great harvest of fruit this year,” said Chiano. “The rains we received bode well, even for future seasons. The trees have a long lifespan, and one season can also affect the next.”
The site didn’t have a late frost this year, which helped with the harvest, Siano said. That means that during field trips to the farm, students have plenty to pick and taste “on site.” It also means the organization always has food to donate to the community fridge and give to food access partner organizations. Later, the group can save excess fruit for jam or applesauce.
As with Reunity Resources, agriculture is in the water and soil at the Los Luceros Historic Site. Each apple season, the site hosts a harvest festival.
Michelle Zupan, Los Luceros' site manager, said the apples are growing better than last year, but she wouldn't call it a “bumper crop.” Zupan said some of the trees are in a “rest period” — the orchard had a bumper crop two years ago, when the branches were so heavy with apples that they were starting to break.
Last year’s late frost and extreme summer heat stunted the crop, Zupan said. This year’s summer has been milder, allowing for a good apricot harvest. Despite the resting period for some trees, Zupan has high hopes for this apple season.
“It will be good,” Zupan said.
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