Breckenfeld Family Growers

Don and Cris Breckenfeld and Family grow local seasonal produce on a small urban farm south of Irvington on Tucson’s southside and is in the ancestral floodplain of the Santa Cruz River, a back slough where water came in with sediment adding lots of organic carbon. The soil is rich enough that a casually discarded nectarine seed grew into a twelve-foot tree with little attention. A chiltipin seed dropped by a bird has grown six feet high and taken over the grape arbor. Donald Breckenfeld also grows a dozen different kinds of peppers, four different varieties of kale and three kinds of beets including yellow beets. “I want people to see that there are other kinds of vegetables with better taste,” he says. Especially popular are their no-heat jalapeños. Crystina keeps all the planting records, ensures the crops are rotated in the fields, and starts all the tomato and chile plants from seed. The Breckenfelds work with the Community Food Bank Farmers Markets on Thursdays. They sell pesticide and herbicide free produce that are grown on the southwest side of Tucson.