Greetings! My name is Matt Croghan and I am the owner/operator of a new market garden farm in Poncha Springs, just outside of Salida, CO. My wife and I moved here 3 years ago with our first born daughter only a few months old. While on maternity leave at her job, Ann decided to take a new job in Salida so we could raise our children in a small Colorado rural community. After all we love to ski, hike, bike and camp, and spent nearly every weekend in the mountains as an escape from our hectic jobs in the front range.
So here we are in Salida. I am now a stay at home dad to an amazing little baby girl. We are renting for the first time in years. I have been renovating our homes that we live in for years and operate a small renovation contracting business so we were extereemly eager to get a new place and get started on the next flip. Little did we know that we were waiting for our dream property to come along. After months of waiting loan approval and working on our patience, we were finally able to start our house search. The first house we walked into was a log home on 1.5 acres with a creek and a pond on the property overlooking the collegiate peaks! It was perfect! Our offer was accepted and after a crazy closing we moved in!
We got to work immediately and started on the house renovation. We also started a 4 season dome greenhouse so we could feed our own family. About halfway though the construction of the dome, I was inspired by Curtis Stone, The Urban Farmer, to take it a step further and start a small market garden. While 8 months pregnant with our second child, we went to our first farmers market in 2016. With that I was no longer in the construction industry and I was a farmer.
Fast forward to today and I am a stay at home dad to a 3 year old girl and a 9 month old boy. We are going into our first full farmers market season and are developing our farm every moment we get. We have a successful microgreen operation that has started a year round cash flow and got us in the door with some amazing restaurants and grocery stores in our area. Life is moving at the speed of light! It hasn’t been easy getting here, but I am starting to see that many paths in my life have been leading to this very spot.
Poncha Creek Gardens 