One New Mexico family is happy to have chile for sale this fall, one of the few crops that survived a water-starved year.
Anthony Wagner and his family lost dozens of trees and other crops because of a broken siphon. The break occurred last fall just north of Corrales under the Rio Grande, cutting Wagner’s water source in half.
Now, where there were once lush apples and endless rows of corn, the land is practically barren. Only the chile and pumpkins have survived. “You’ve had apples here forever and I hate seeing this,” Wagner said told KOB. “With watering once a month it’s not going do it for our orchard. You hate to lose all this in Corrales it’s always been nice and green. We’re making do with what we have.”
The visitors aren’t complaining. “The smell of green chile, I just– that is fall to me,” Lisa Upplegger, a Wagner Farms visitor told KOB. “It’s not fall until you’re smelling the chile.”