Meet the Owners of the Old Town Farm, Linda and Lanny, as they dive into the story behind their farm and the farm's community impact.

Do you have a favorite spot on your farm and why is it important to you?

"We love Bike In Coffee because we meet so many interesting people. On the weekends, we serve between 200 and 300 people a day on Saturday and Sunday. People can drive in, but we built this for cyclists. We do have a lot of cyclists, but we also get many cars, so we started charging for parking again. One hundred percent of the parking proceeds go to a local school down the street, and we’ve given them over $10,000 in the last two and a half years. The school is over 100 years old, and supporting it has worked out really well for us. Even after charging $5 for parking, it didn’t reduce the number of cars, but it allowed us to keep contributing to the school. I’ve lived here for about 50 years and never more than half a mile from this spot. I love this part of town and everything about this farm. We talk every day about how lucky we are to be here, because we could never afford to buy this farm now. Fifty years ago, it was possible, but not anymore. When we bought this, there were about 150 acres of small farms in this area between the freeway and Central, and between Rio Grande and the river. Now they’re almost all gone, we’re the only farm left. It’s hard to see that happen, but it’s also special to still be here, right in the middle of the city. That’s why it’s important to show people that farms can exist in cities and that they can access fresh, good food locally. We’re not certified organic, but we farm organically. Certification is complicated, and we know how to farm naturally without needing that label. This area stayed the way it is because, when Albuquerque expanded after the railroad came in, development moved east and this part of town was largely ignored. Because of that, these small farms survived. The neighborhood is made up of dead-end streets, so people don’t just pass through, you have to be coming here intentionally. That helped preserve it. We were lucky to buy the property when it was affordable, but since then, we’ve had constant pressure from developers who want to build here. We’ve chosen not to be annexed into the city, which helps us maintain the farm. In New Mexico, annexation can’t be forced, which has allowed us to stay independent. In the past, the county made things difficult. They saw this land as lost property tax revenue and pushed for development. We faced challenges like fees and regulations that made it hard to operate. But over time, leadership changed, and the county shifted its approach. Now, instead of saying no, they try to find ways to make things work. When we wanted to start Bike In Coffee and host events, they helped us figure out how to do it within the rules. At one point, they suggested using a food truck to make things possible, and that helped us get started. Later, when we expanded, they continued to support us. The county went from being very difficult to work with to being one of the most supportive entities we deal with. They now recognize that places like this farm contribute to the character of the city. Albuquerque has always been a mix, farms next to homes, next to parks, next to different types of communities. That’s part of what makes it unique. Over time, both the city and county have come to see that preserving that mix is more valuable than replacing it with development. They’ve recognized that maintaining the history and character of the area matters, and that’s made a big difference for us."

Can you share what motivated you to start your farm and the story behind it?

"We were a horse park for 35 years and had 35 horses here before all that time. When our daughter went away to school, we finally decided to back out of the horse business, because it's a major time sink and money pit, even though we loved it. Anyways, we've always had a garden here, and we had a CSA for many years that the whole neighborhood took part in. You can see by looking around, these were all horse pens. We have two big hoop houses back there. This whole first garden is a cut flower garden, which is more of a recent thing that we do. This just evolved, I had a sister who lived in China for 20 years and she would bring me seeds from China. They had thousands of greens and vegetables we'd never even heard of, she'd bring me seeds and I'd grow them. If they grew well here, I could get them. There was a company in Washington State, where I could get the seeds, and I'd grow those. I couldn't get people to buy them, because nobody knew what they were. Even my CSA people, who are kind of adventurous people, were like, ‘Oh, that's great. I'll just have spinach and tomatoes and white onions.’ After what we called our ‘Afternoon Tea Party,’ all our customers would come and they would have cooked something from the garden. I would always cook those Chinese vegetables and once they had them, they loved them. The afternoon tea party evolved into us getting a food truck, which was parked right on the side of the house. On the other end of I-40, there's a bike path that runs right along that part, it can go straight back, and it was a busy bike path. We were selling produce at the farmer's market, and my husband, Lanny, was saying, ‘Wow, all of these people are on bikes.’ He made little business cards that had a map on how to buy it. He just would say, ‘If you want this produce really fresh, just come into the park.’ And they did. We couldn't believe it. We couldn't handle all the people who were showing up so we decided we either need to take this seriously and build a restaurant or we just need to bag this, because we had a line of cyclists that went forever. We decided we were going to take it seriously, and we built Bike In Coffee. Bike In Coffee is 14 years old this year. The reason I’m explaining all this is because this has been a farm for 500 years that we can document, and probably 500 years before that. Early on, we decided our job was to keep this a farm no matter what. When we first moved here, all of this was agricultural land. None of the houses were here. Year after year, we watched it get subdivided and built on, so we made a conscious decision many decades ago that we had to figure out how to preserve it. We know this land was being farmed in 1540, when the Spaniards came in and took over the Pueblo areas. This was part of Old Town, with multiple settlements along the river. When we put in the fence line on the far side, we dug up pottery shards in every hole, so this was clearly a Native American farm long before that. This is an amazing neighborhood. There are families who have lived here for at least 400–500 years, which you don’t really find anywhere else in the country. Across the street, there’s an adobe house that’s about 300 years old, still lived in by the same family who built it. The street itself is over 300 years old and started as a wagon trail connecting early villages along the river. I was fortunate, about 50 years ago when I first got here, to learn from a neighbor named Max Sanchez. His family had been here since the time of the conquistadors, and he was an amateur historian. He taught me everything about growing on this property. The soil here is very different from other parts of Albuquerque. Just across the river, it’s sandy, but here it’s hard-packed river-bottom clay. In some places you can drill two feet and hit sand, and in others you can go nine feet down and still be in pure clay. It reflects millions of years of the river shifting through this area. That means growing here is completely different than growing in other parts of the city. Max taught me what works, and it probably saved me 20 years of trial and error. Anytime I thought his methods were old-fashioned and tried something different, I was wrong—he was always right. The point is, it’s very hard to make a living from farming alone, whether you’re selling produce, flowers, or even running a horse farm. We’ve talked with young farmer groups about how important it is to find additional ways for a farm to support itself. That’s why we host events here and why Bike In Coffee exists. Those parts of the operation help subsidize the farm so we can continue doing what we love. We’re also fortunate that our daughter moved back from California about three years ago and bought a house nearby, so this continues to stay a family-centered place."

What are key practices you use to farm this land?

"We’re all natural, we don’t use pesticides or chemicals. In the 50 years I’ve been doing this, it’s been a lot of trial and error. Our biggest challenge on this farm is squash bugs. We’ve been dealing with them for so long that they’re everywhere. Early on, I tried everything. I tried spraying, but that only killed the ones you could see, while thousands of eggs would hatch right after. I realized pretty quickly that wasn’t the way to handle it. I tried companion planting, delaying when we planted squash, even putting shingles around the garden so they’d hide underneath and we could flip them over and kill them. Some of those methods worked a little, but there were always more coming. What actually works is giving in to the squash bugs. Every year, we plant an entire row of squash just for them. We plant the kind they like most, summer squash, because if it’s there, they’ll stay on it. If it’s not, they’ll move on to everything else we’re trying to protect, like heirlooms, winter squash, and melons. We still get a good harvest before the bugs take over. Then, almost overnight, the plants will be covered, and we’ll go in and clear as many as we can, even using a blowtorch on that row. But by then, we already have another row coming up. It’s an ongoing cycle, but it allows us to grow everything else successfully. We also make our own compost. With over 200 trees on the property, we get a huge amount of leaves. Instead of throwing them away, we collect them, mix them with horse manure, and compost everything. Every January, we spread that compost across the fields to keep the soil healthy. Companion planting is another thing we rely on. We plant flowers like nasturtiums and other plants that insects don’t like. It doesn’t solve pest problems completely, but it helps reduce them. That’s really the key, we’re not trying to eliminate pests entirely, but manage them in a way that works with nature. That’s one of the biggest differences from large-scale agriculture. A lot of people try to completely eliminate pests by spraying constantly, but that’s not sustainable. It also affects the quality of the food. Instead, we try to find ways to coexist and manage the balance. We don’t even allow mosquito spraying here because we’re growing food. Everything we do is about keeping the system as natural as possible. Water is also a huge part of what we do. We still use an ancient irrigation ditch called the Madre de Duranes. It’s the oldest known irrigation ditch in the United States, and it’s been in continuous use for centuries. The Spanish documented it when they arrived, describing how Indigenous people had developed a system to bring water from the river over long distances. Keeping that ditch in use is important. Once something like that stops being used, it can disappear entirely. A lot of historic irrigation ditches have already been lost as farms were replaced by development. Maintaining systems like this is not just about farming, it’s about preserving history."

What perspective do you want the next generation of farmers to gain from your farm?

"There’s so much value in keeping things as they are. Once something is gone, it’s gone. It’s about preserving what’s here and learning to live with it instead of trying to turn it into something else. It might sound a little out there, but it feels like this land is thanking us every day for letting it be what it’s supposed to be. We always say we’re the two luckiest people in the world, and we don’t fully understand why things work out the way they do here, but they do. The thousands of people who come here for Bike In Coffee and events say the same thing. There’s something about this place. People seem to be their best selves when they’re here. Part of it is the environment. It’s wide open, so people feel comfortable. There’s a sensory experience, the smell of things like wisteria, the colors. We’re all natural, we don’t use pesticides or chemicals. In the 50 years I’ve been doing this, it’s been a lot of trial and error. Our biggest challenge on this farm is squash bugs. We’ve been dealing with them for so long that they’re everywhere. Early on, I tried everything. I tried spraying, but that only killed the ones you could see, while thousands of eggs would hatch right after. I realized pretty quickly that wasn’t the way to handle it. I tried companion planting, delaying when we planted squash, even putting shingles around the garden so they’d hide underneath and we could flip them over and kill them. Some of those methods worked a little, but there were always more coming. What actually works is giving in to the squash bugs. Every year, we plant an entire row of squash just for them. We plant the kind they like most, summer squash, because if it’s there, they’ll stay on it. If it’s not, they’ll move on to everything else we’re trying to protect, like heirlooms, winter squash, and melons. We still get a good harvest before the bugs take over. Then, almost overnight, the plants will be covered, and we’ll go in and clear as many as we can, even using a blowtorch on that row. But by then, we already have another row coming up. It’s an ongoing cycle, but it allows us to grow everything else successfully. We also make our own compost. With over 200 trees on the property, we get a huge number of leaves. Instead of throwing them away, we collect them, mix them with horse manure, and compost everything. Every January, we spread that compost across the fields to keep the soil healthy. Companion planting is another thing we rely on. We plant flowers like nasturtiums and other plants that insects don’t like. It doesn’t solve pest problems completely, but it helps reduce them. That’s really the key, we’re not trying to eliminate pests entirely, but manage them in a way that works with nature. That’s one of the biggest differences from large-scale agriculture. A lot of people try to completely eliminate pests by spraying constantly, but that’s not sustainable. It also affects the quality of the food. Instead, we try to find ways to coexist and manage the balance. We don’t even allow mosquito spraying here because we’re growing food. Everything we do is about keeping the system as natural as possible. Water is also a huge part of what we do. We still use an ancient irrigation ditch called the Madre de Duranes. It’s the oldest known irrigation ditch in the United States, and it’s been in continuous use for centuries. The Spanish documented it when they arrived, describing how Indigenous people had developed a system to bring water from the river over long distances. Keeping that ditch in use is important. Once something like that stops being used, it can disappear entirely. A lot of historic irrigation ditches have already been lost as farms were replaced by development. Maintaining systems like this is not just about farming, it’s about preserving history. from the flowers, the sounds of birds. It’s not like a park that’s maintained occasionally; it’s lived in and cared for every day. People notice the birds so much that we’ve even put up signs to help identify them, including which ones are migratory. We’re planning to turn one of the corrals into a space for kids, an educational area where they can learn about the birds, hear their calls, and then go out and try to find them. A lot of what we’ve built here has happened naturally. We pay attention to what people are drawn to and let that guide us. People can explore the property however they want, and we observe where they go and what they enjoy. Even Bike In Coffee started organically. We didn’t know much about running a coffee operation, but two people came here through a volunteer program and ended up building it from the ground up. They created the menu, the drinks, and trained the next group of people, who then trained the next. It just kept evolving. Families love having their kids work here because it’s a positive environment. We never struggle to find people who want to be here, people are always reaching out, hoping to get involved. One of those early volunteers even went on to become a world-class cyclist, breaking records and traveling the world by bike. Stories like that are part of what makes this place special. The people who work here are incredible, and that’s a big part of why it feels the way it does. It creates an environment where everyone, visitors and staff, feels good being here."

In what ways is the community involved in your farm? If not, what would that community involvement look like to you?