14 OCTOBER 24-30, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Growing Up THE PLANT GENIUS BEHIND ESOTERRA CULINARY GARDEN IS MAKING LOCAL RESTAURANTS MORE DELICIOUS YEAR-ROUND. BY M.G. MARINI “Every day, every week, every moment is so exciting — it’s like the Thanksgiving Day Parade here,” Mark DeRespinis says as he walks through rows of Mokum carrots, ice lettuce and cucamelons at Esoterra Culinary Garden, a small, 1.5-acre farm in Boulder that grows both classic and exotic produce for many of the metro area’s best restaurants. DeRespinis, the eccentric, charismatic, Wonka-like genius behind the garden, is giving a tour to me and a group of about forty other lucky lottery winners who scored the chance to attend an event hosted by Meadow Lark Farm Dinners. I’m visiting the farm for the second time, and as much as I’m excited about the food be- ing served by former Tavernetta pasta maker Jessica Essen, it’s DeRespinis I’m most excited to talk with, and his passion for his garden is enthralling. As he shouts out names of veg- etables I’ve never heard of, offering them in every color of the rainbow, I’m captivated by his enthusiasm for all things vegetal. “We are on the farm at such a magical time, the transitional night between summer and fall. These tunnels are the intersections between summer, fall and winter,” DeRespinis explains as we navigate through the 300 or so garden beds at Esoterra. The farm isn’t open to the public, but its team of approximately fourteen people provides produce for top spots such as Tav- ernetta, Bar Dough, A5, Somebody People, Mi- chelin Bib Gourmand pick Hop Alley, Stellar Jay and Pasque at the new Populus Hotel, and three of Colo- rado’s Michelin-starred eateries: Brutø, the Wolf’s Tailor and Frasca. “It has taken a long time to build these relationships,” DeRespinis admits. “They are very important to us. ... It’s all about having relationships based on trust with these chefs.” “Mark and his produce have become the lifeblood for menus around Denver,” says Hop Alley executive chef Geoff Cox. “I’ve seen a seismic shift in quality over my years of cooking and dining in Denver, and Mark’s nutrient-rich soil is at the forefront of so much of that change. Denver’s recent prominence on the national dining scene owes itself to Esoterra Farms as much as any single entity I can think of. A chef is only as good as the ingredients they use, and Mark and his team have armed restaurants with the fi repower to wow every diner in attendance.” Planting the seed DeRespinis started his journey into ag- riculture in New Mexico, where he worked on a farm at the Mineral Springs Resort in Ojo Caliente. In 2018, he moved to Colorado with his wife, Tara Lanich-LaBrie, who is the author of Foraged & Grown and runs the popular herbal-centric Instagram account @themedicinecircle. They leased land from the McCauley Fam- ily Farm in Longmont and stayed there for two years until the City of Boulder offered DeRespinis the chance to farm the land on the old Hartnagle Farm through its stewardship program — a move that was important to him. “It’s all about bringing it home and rebuilding a local economy,” he notes. For the next year, he slowly transitioned his garden to the new land, and Esoterra Culinary Garden was born. Establishing roots The land on the Hartnagle Farm was far from perfect when DeRespinis showed up. Most of the historic farm structures still stand today, including the famed folk-Vic- torian-style house built in 1898 by preacher Frank DaMetz, who sold the property during the Great Depression to Jacob Hartnagle. At the time, it included ninety acres of farmland. For the next sixty-plus years, DaMetz and his wife, Bertha, farmed mostly sugar beets on the property and housed dairy cows. (Fun fact: One of their sons, Ernest Hartnagle, is credited as the pioneer behind Australian Shepherd dog breeding in America as the founder of Las Rocosa Australian Shepherds.) The family continued operations on the farm until the early ’80’s, then sold the land to the City of Boulder after Bertha died in 1996. The farm was leased to others before DeRespinis took it on, but the land hadn’t been well maintained. “It took a lot of love and attention,” he notes. “We had to heal our relationship with the land.” That included working with the city to retrofi t all the buildings on the property with support and pouring concrete in certain areas, as well as making the structures compliant for food safety. The Esoterra team also built a greenhouse, planted apple and plum trees, and introduced thirty beehives. “We don’t take any- thing from the land; we give,” DeRespinis says. A blossoming business Over the last few years, Esoterra has be- come an integral part of Denver’s fi ne-dining scene because of its ability to offer consistent produce in fairly large quantities, meaning chefs are able to keep certain dishes on the menu for months at a time. DeRespinis accomplishes that by using modern techniques such as succession farm- ing — planting new plants in the same holes the same day you pull out the old ones. “It’s important to leave photosynthesis plants in the ground and to always have something in the soil,” he explains. “The future is always being planted.” Esoterra is also a no-till farm. Contrary to the popular belief that tilling soil brings more nutrients, DeRespinis believes it is important to leave the roots in the ground. By dialing in this process, Esoterra is creat- ing mineral content and nutrient-dense soil containing probiotics and phytochemicals given off from the plants. This results in a fertile foundation for repetitive planting. The farm grows up to seventy varieties of vegetables and fruits at a time, with the more popular produce yielding up to 200 pounds each harvest. Since many of the greens start out in individual pods, the team at Esoterra ad- opted a Japanese method to save time during transplanting in which they sow their rows us- ing paper pods that are connected in a string- like fashion. Using a hand-powered machine, the seedlings are distributed throughout the row and carefully placed in old holes. Sprouting success With reverence for all parts of the plant — “roots, shoots, leaves and fl owers,” as De- Respinis says — he and his team have carefully curated a selection of fl owers, vegetables and fruits that top local chefs love to use. Operating as a culinary garden means that Esoterra has the option to grow plants such as exotic fl owers just for garnishes. DeRespinis knows that ev- ery dish is art to the chefs he works with, but the garden’s bounty is more than just beautiful. “My wife and I like to use the hashtag #eat- color because all of these different colors have differ- ent antioxidants,” he notes. Even as winter ap- proaches, there is a wide variety of colorful produce growing at Esoterra, including red spinach, purple Napa cabbage, golden rasp- berries, pink celery and green daikon. “The Kyoto red carrots taste like red grapefruit, the deep purples give you almost a blueberry fl avor, and the green daikon is like green apples,” DeRespinis says. Seasonal depression “There is no break between the end of one year and the beginning of the other. Diversity in the garden can happen during any month,” DeRespinis explains. CAFE continued on page 15 FIND MORE FOOD & DRINK COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/RESTAURANTS Mark DeRespinis has carefully cultivated relationships with local chefs. ESOTERRA CULINARY GARDEN Puntarelle, purple sprouting caulifl ower and sweet red carrots are some of the veggies grown at Esoterra. ESOTERRA CULINARY GARDEN
