Saturday was bittersweet for some greenhouse growers at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, as some of them struggled to grasp the devastation caused by two days without natural gas.

Natural-gas pressures declined across the state Thursday as a cold front moved through three southwestern states that depended on the same interstate pipeline. By Thursday afternoon, natural gas was off in towns up and down the Rio Grande as Gov. Susana Martinez declared a statewide emergency. Crews have to turn off thousands of meters one at a time before they can repressurize the lines, a process that could take through Monday.

Santa Fe Farmers Market regular supplier Gurujiwan S. Khalsa, his 6-foot-plus frame topped by a blue turban, had to turn away for a moment, his voice catching, as he described the losses at the greenhouses he manages with his wife near Española. It wasn't just all the frozen tomatoes, cucumbers and $1,000 a month of lost income they now have to deal with. "We have such a connection to our customers here," he said, knowing he'll have little to offer them for two months. "It's pretty intense. When the natural gas went out, we didn't know what to do. I was crushed."

They had a backup generator for electricity, but they weren't prepared for the loss of natural-gas heat, said his wife, Livtar Khalsa.

The Khalsas have 8,000 square feet of heated greenhouse space, growing a variety of tomatoes, cucumbers and greens — Oska mustard, delicate Asian, mizuna, arugula and more. They supply La Montanita Cooperative and the Farmers Market. They lost all the tomatoes and cucumbers, and all the greens except the 150 pounds they were able to salvage in five hours of desperate harvesting Thursday.

Khalsa knew Wednesday night there was some kind of problem, as the air coming out of the greenhouse heaters seemed cool. By Thursday morning, temperatures inside the greenhouse had plummeted to below zero. "It froze so hard in there the plants became brittle," Khalsa said. "They shattered in your hand."

Volunteers showed up after he called friends for help and harvested what they could before nightfall. "They dropped everything to come help," Khalsa said. "Some drove 20-30 miles to help. That opened my heart back up."

The Santa Fe Farmers Market and La Montanita Cooperative offered all the refrigerator space they had. Some regular customers even came to the greenhouse, took some of the frozen plants, and made a cash donation to the Khalsas.

No one notified them of potential natural-gas supply disruptions. "Had I known what was going to happen, I could have harvested earlier and covered differently," he said. "I deal with the field staff of New Mexico Gas. None of them called me. Seems like there is a disconnect between management and the staff in the field."

Kim and Steve Martin, owners of the 11-year-old hydroponic farm Growing Opportunities in Alcalde, were on a call list. "New Mexico Gas was supposed to notify us if there was going to be a disruption in natural-gas supplies," said Martin.

The company didn't call, she said. The first they knew of the problem was early Thursday morning, when she realized cold air was blowing out of the natural-gas-fired heaters at their house. When she and her husband entered the greenhouses, it was much colder than the usual 70 degrees needed to grow their heirloom tomatoes.

They are full-time, year-round, no-vacation growers. The couple supply 60,000 pounds of tomatoes a year to La Montanita, Whole Foods, Cid's Health Food Market in Taos and several restaurants. They have never had to apply for disaster relief, she said.

The couple had a backup electric generating system because power goes out regularly in Alcalde, she said. But it was a natural-gas-fired generator.

Her husband rushed to a hardware store, purchased pellet stoves and installed them in the two greenhouses that total 7,000 square feet. They were able to save many of the tomatoes in one, but lost all the English cucumbers, tomatoes and other vegetables in the other. "We were up all night feeding the pellet stoves," she said.

Kim Martin called New Mexico Gas twice to find out what was happening, and received two different answers. On the second, she was told rolling power blackouts in West Texas were causing problems pressurizing the gas lines. "My question is why don't they have backup generators to handle compression for this kind of situation?" she said.

It takes four months from planting to harvesting, so even if they replant immediately once the gas is back on (it was still out Saturday), it will be many weeks before they see their cash revenues back where they were.

"All I can say is thank goodness for credit cards," she said. "We live paycheck to paycheck, so any added expense puts us under.

"What's frustrating is if we had known earlier what was happening, we might have saved the other greenhouse," she said.

The couple had spent time and money planning to double the size of their operation, but those plans are now on hold.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.