Janie Locker, the new owner of Lower Valley Farm, smiles and waves to me as I pull into the driveway, and then immediately disappears into a high tunnel. I walk through the maze of farm equipment and poke my head into the door I think she has slipped into.“HI!...
The Art of Farming Mushrooms We all understand the general idea of fruit and vegetable farming: you take a seed, you plant it into the ground, a plant grows from that seed and produces something edible. But how do you grow mushrooms, which produce microscopic spores...
Spunky Goats Nourish the Local Food System “Food is better when it’s loved and respected in its life.” Joe, the emotionally sensitive guard donkey who watches over the goat herd at Farm 51, receives a spritz of insect repellent to the legs while his owner...
Trellising Tomatoes On a sunny June day Dylan Brady was in Clark Fork Organic’s humid hoop house in Missoula, trellising young tomato plants. He carefully chose the most promising stalks of each plant, chopped off the others, and attached the remaining spindly stems...
Regenerative Agriculture in NW Montana I received a text on the Sunday morning I was scheduled to visit Blarney Heights Farm. It had rained all night and was supposed to rain all day, and Brian wanted to make sure I was still up for the trip out there. I pulled...