Snow Pea Crop Looks Like a Good One

(Crested Bute, CO —October 26, 2014) Crested Butte’s much maligned snow pea crop should break all existing records this harvest season. The crop, currently burgeoning out of control may have to be stored on Elk Avenue until it can be processed and categorized.
According to the FDA, the product cannot be shipped until each pea has a sticker on it that describes origin and destination. That will take time. Until then several backstreets will be shut down and some prime parking spaces will be affected.
Even with the inconveniences there is reason for celebration down on the farm: Food brokers say the snow pea yield will exceed the largest agricultural profits recorded since 1928, when marijuana was reclassified as a narcotic.
The elements of a rich harvest are all here: Lots of snow, sunshine and the coming colder nights. As most of us know, the snow peas cannot handle consistent daytime temperatures above 80 degrees, preferring seasonal highs of 60-65 found in the northern end of the Gunnison Valley.
Often farmers must blow cold air over their fields to prevent pea burnout while pea poachers have become a problem since the Obama Administration began giving all the rich folks’ money to the poor.
“I run a few fans during the high peak but my favorite part is shooting at poachers,” said Earl Sykes, who irrigates 10,000 acres of rocky terrain every morning before breakfast.
Most of the snow peas will find their way to Peabody, Kansas where they will be shipped by rail to waiting markets back east. Refrigerated freight cars are not needed since the peas acclimatize once they are picked.
Area restaurants have embraced the subtleties of the Crested Butte Snow Pea. Already seminars, focused on eating peas with a butter knife and adorning favorite green dishes, have been popping up like April rocks on thinly clad slopes. Special cocktails such as the Vodka Pod have made their way onto many menus while pretty young women prance around town in scanty Green Giant knockoffs.
Many Mount Crested Butte condominiums have been torn down so as to create more agricultural space and free up larger tracts of arable farmland for this lucrative industry. – Suite Pea Malone