The festival is an accumulation of various venders lining the sidewalks and streets. Colorful clothing and scarves hang from cubicles. Wind chimes and carved, rustic pine furniture can be purchased also. There is an occasional Elvis impersonator singing on the corner. Strollers with balloons tided to them and families who promenade the aroma filled streets. The horsedrawn carriage will take you on a tour of the Union Avenue District. The cowboy in the faded Wranglers and white ribbed t-shirt who sings by the amplifier is the carriage driver. He is also an evangelist, he told me.
If you want to obtain your chile peppers in another traditional method, no need to drive out on Sante Fe Drive to scope out the farms any more or wait until September for the festival. Many of the farmers bring the peppers to roadside stands closer to the city limits and right off the main stretch of Santa Fe Drive. This is the easy way to get your peppers. They're already picked and can be roasted on site. But you are still going to have to peel them and it is okay to freeze them with the skins on and peel them as you use them.
Cheri Pullara says her store, Peppers, 2115 Sante Fe Dr., has seen huge changes in the past three to five years. "I just can't seem to get "em hot enough!" she says. And she said she just can't convince people that the pepper looses its flavor as the season goes by. They all turn red by the end of the growing season. The first chile of the season is the hottest.
"We start our season by planting seeds, half and half; the green house and outdoors," she says. The outdoor plants, if they survive possible harsh weather conditions at times, will produce a larger, meatier chile. She plants several different varieties each season. However, this planting procedure conflicts with the African-American legend from the Ozarks and deep South of the United States. In legend it is believed that lunatics plant the best peppers. In order for the peppers to be hot you have to be very angry when you plant then. Pullara doesn't sound angry or like a lunatic.
The most popular are the Pueblo chile, the Anaheim chile and the jalapeno pepper. New this year will be the Fresno chile. Pullara says it is a smaller and hotter chile but with a different flavor. "Out here [among the other county growers], we kind of have a contest as to who is going to be first. Everyone wants that edge," she says with camaraderie, and a good-sportsmanship-like tone. You can sense some pride and compassion in her voice.
"We really don't have a spring anymore, and the winters are harsher, but we can still produce chile, almost to Halloween," says Pullara. "The heat (flavor wise) of the chile decreases with temperature." Year to year the growing season changes because of weather conditions. This year water will be an issue.
Of the land she and her family currently farm is a family-owned business in which Pullara says, "My grandparents farmed this land, and they got it from my great-grandparents 60 years ago, who also farmed the land. It has been in the family for a long time now. And let's give some credit to Phil: he's the guy who does all the work." Phil Prutch, a member of the family, prepares the fields, does the planting and the harvesting.
They can produce and wholesale enough chile to make a decent living off about 40 acres. "If you farm 300 to 400 acres, that's a lot of vegetables, you'd have to be a really big company, she says. "Musso Farms use 100 acres at its farm, but that is set aside for sweet corn, which requires more room to produce.
The chile's popularity has increased and so has the demand for the peppers. She credits this to the growth in Pueblo West. "Newcomers who aren't from around here take pictures of my roasters," she says. "It's like a whole new world to them, the ones who are not from Colorado," she says. She mentioned several individuals who have taken picnic coolers full of roasted peppers as carry-on luggage in airplanes. They take them to Florida, Hawaii, Georgia and Louisiana. They have come back to let her know the whole plane smelled of chile.
