Cloud City Farm finishes its first year-round growing season

Original Article By Cameron Barnard for the Leadville Herald Democrat

April 23, 2026

Cloud City Conservation Center’s (C4) Cloud City Farm completed its first full, year-round growing season this month. 

The final Winter Market of the season was April 9. It marked the end to the first ever season where the Cloud City Farm could supply year-round produce. Previously and since its founding in 2018, the farm’s growing period was June to October, according to a C4 news release. 

The Cloud City Farm began in 2018 as a grassroots community project, Sarah Hamilton, Cloud City Farm Director, said. It was created after community food access surveys found that access to fresh, healthy produce was a strong community need. Since it began, their mission has been to provide fresh produce for 12 months out of the year.

“It feels like it would be a shame to have all that infrastructure just sitting empty for six months out of the year when there is such a need for fresh, healthy, affordable food here in Leadville,” Hamilton said.

Cloud City Farm Director Sarah Hamilton sells produce from the farm to Bryanne Busato at the C4 Winter Market Event April 9th (Photo by Ariel Elich)

Three high tunnel structures were built, which allowed the farm to grow hardier crops during the winter months. These tunnels are heat-trapping tarps laid over growing structures, the news release said. They require no energy and are completely solar powered, unlike heaters or grow lights. For extra cold nights, they laid heavy-duty frost cloths over the crops. This new farm infrastructure has allowed them to have more summer crop diversity and quantity, while also growing in the winter.

The tunnels were built using a mix of state, federal and private grant funding from sources like the Colorado Department of Agriculture, National Resources Conservation Service and others, Hamilton said.

“They’re pretty low-tech but effective technology,” she said. “Which is kind of why we like them.”

The farm began doing limited winter crop trials last year to understand what they could and couldn’t grow with the new system in the winter months, Hamilton said.

Cloud City Farm markets accept the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and are one of the only places in Leadville eligible for the Colorado Produce Bonus Program, where people shopping with SNAP can receive $1 back into SNAP for every dollar spent for up to $60 a month.

“We had some good success with those trials, so we decided to fully plant out one of our big high tunnels this winter,” she said. “Obviously it wasn’t necessarily a ‘normal’ winter in terms of the unseasonably warm and dry weather we had, but we were able to have a lot of success with the hardier crops like spinach, swiss chard, kale, carrots, scallions, arugula and some herbs.”

The crops grown at the farm were sold at monthly Winter Markets, where people could come and pay what they can for the fresh produce.

Cloud City Farm markets accept the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and are one of the only places in Leadville eligible for the Colorado Produce Bonus Program, where people shopping with SNAP can receive $1 back into SNAP for every dollar spent for up to $60 a month.

Extra or leftover produce is then donated to the St. George Episcopal Mission Community Meals and Pantry.

“The cool thing about the Winter Markets is that people are so excited to have anything fresh and green that maybe things they wouldn’t choose in the summer are actually really enticing,” Hamilton said. “It’s more flavorful and fresh than what you see on the shelf at Safeway throughout the winter.”

Hamilton said there is a core group of about 30 to 40 people who frequent the monthly produce markets throughout the year.

“It’s been really great to have the initial support of a core group of people,” she said. “Hopefully we can expand it and reach more people in the future.”

Currently the farm is on hiatus, cleaning out the tunnels from the winter and planting the summer crops. The first Summer Market will be June 4 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. From then on, every Thursday at the farm, there will be a Summer Market stand. On Fridays, any leftover produce will be put in a self-serve farm stand from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., where people can help themselves.

There will also be future details on weekly off-site pop-up markets throughout the summer to try and get produce to people who might not have transportation to come to the farm, Hamilton said.

“We were really happy with how everything grew and turned out,” she said. “We’re just looking forward to expanding on these successes next year and hopefully being able to offer an even more regular market throughout the winter season.”