Photo: Kochia. © 2020 Delena Norris-Tull
Organic farming: Montana Interviews
Interviews and commentary by Dr. Delena Norris-Tull, Professor Emerita of Science Education, University of Montana Western, August 2020.
In summer 2019, I joined a young friend of mine, Rose Jennings, who studies the impact of organic farms on community development. Together, we visited two organic farms in and near Bozeman, Montana, one small farm and one large farm. Organic farming is challenging in Montana, due to the short growing season and heavy snowfall.
Three Hearts Farm
http://www.threeheartsfarm.com/
[Interview notes approved by Rachael Hicks, Dec. 8, 2020.]
Three Hearts Farm is a small organic vegetable farm. The Hicks family bought the farm in 2015. In the first five years, the farm sold vegetables to 30-80 CSA members, food cooperatives, and local groceries.
[Note: CSA stands for “Community Supported Agriculture. A “CSA” is a cooperative relationship between community members and a local farm or group of farms. In some CSAs, the community members that join the CSA assist the farmers by helping out with projects on the farm (such as planting seeds, pulling weeds, picking produce), and in return, the community members go home with produce or other farm products. In other CSAs, the community members purchase a subscription to the farm products, typically receiving a certain amount of produce, or eggs, milk, or meat, weekly, directly from the farmer.]
We visited with the farm manager, Rachael Hicks. Their two most abundant weeds are quack grass and Canada thistle. She said that you can’t effectively mow them and you can’t use a tine weeder. So she has been trying to kill them using tarps. She has to tarp the weed area an entire season in order to kill off the weedy perennials. The farm has had success with mowing Canada thistle, when mowed before it goes to seed. Then it makes a good mulch for the gardens. The farm does have to deal with yellow sweet clover, but their cows will eat the clover, so that is easy to manage.
The farm uses a ripper on a tractor to level the soil, hand weeding, and a stirrup hoe. Early in the year, they can plant seeds for radishes, salad turnips, and kale, to help prevent weeds from growing. It’s hard to get consistent volunteers to help in harvesting and weeding. Volunteers all have to be trained, and the turnover of volunteers is rather high.
The NRCS helps them surround the farmed areas with hedges, after the farmers have put in a fence. Hedges encourage birds that help control insects.
Avoiding pesticide-drift from nearby non-organic farms is a concern, but manageable. Another challenge is the fact that the local irrigation canals are too high in bacteria, so they have to minimize the use of irrigation water on leafy vegetables. And they water early in the day so that leaves have time to dry fully.
The farm has to grow a surplus of crops, to compensate for the amount of crops destroyed by Columbian ground squirrels.
Gallatin Valley Botanical at Rocky Creek Farm
https://www.gallatinvalleybotanical.com/
[Interview notes reviewed & approved by Matt Rothschiller, August 2020]
Gallatin Valley Botanicals Farm and Rocky Creek Farm is a joint farm that grows about 50 to 60 different crops. They have 60 acres in organic farming. The farms have been in existence since 2003. The owners have 400 families in their CSAs. Their CSA members buy meat as well as produce. The farms sell produce to many groceries and restaurants in the Bozeman area.
The farm uses animals for manure and, to some extent, to help combat weeds. They rotate chickens and sheep through the vegetable grounds. And they use sheep to for managed grazing in their pastures, which does help with some weed control. The farm uses pigs to some extent, but pigs are not as good as sheep for weeding. Weeds are the farm’s most challenging problem. Removing weeds is the number one cost for organic farming. The owners use tractor cultivation and hand pulling for removing weeds.
The farm is engaged in wetlands restoration on part of the land. They restored some river banks to stabilize the erosion that was encroaching on the fields. And they restored a parking lot to its original use as a riparian zone.
Many crops are annuals. Both annuals and perennials are challenging for weed management. The weeds keep pushing the farms to grow more perennials.
They found that the plastic mulch fabric left over from previous owners added pollutants to the fields, so they removed the old mulch. The plastic fabric they use now as mulch for a few crops has to be replaced yearly. It deteriorates and starts to become part of the soil, so it has to be removed and replaced, an expensive process that results in the removal of quite a bit of soil annually. They use 500 pounds of fiber mulch annually.
The owners will use more cover crops and manure in the coming year to inhibit weed growth, and to reduce the use of the fabric mulch. About 30% of the farm will be covered in cover crops. Red clover and crimson clover are important cover crops, as are buckwheat, rye, and hairy vetch. Other cover crops they use include winter wheat (on land used for growing potatoes), peas, oats, and barley.
Links to more interviews:
Links to more information on Organic Farming:
Organic farming: Montana Interviews
Interviews and commentary by Dr. Delena Norris-Tull, Professor Emerita of Science Education, University of Montana Western, August 2020.
In summer 2019, I joined a young friend of mine, Rose Jennings, who studies the impact of organic farms on community development. Together, we visited two organic farms in and near Bozeman, Montana, one small farm and one large farm. Organic farming is challenging in Montana, due to the short growing season and heavy snowfall.
Three Hearts Farm
http://www.threeheartsfarm.com/
[Interview notes approved by Rachael Hicks, Dec. 8, 2020.]
Three Hearts Farm is a small organic vegetable farm. The Hicks family bought the farm in 2015. In the first five years, the farm sold vegetables to 30-80 CSA members, food cooperatives, and local groceries.
[Note: CSA stands for “Community Supported Agriculture. A “CSA” is a cooperative relationship between community members and a local farm or group of farms. In some CSAs, the community members that join the CSA assist the farmers by helping out with projects on the farm (such as planting seeds, pulling weeds, picking produce), and in return, the community members go home with produce or other farm products. In other CSAs, the community members purchase a subscription to the farm products, typically receiving a certain amount of produce, or eggs, milk, or meat, weekly, directly from the farmer.]
We visited with the farm manager, Rachael Hicks. Their two most abundant weeds are quack grass and Canada thistle. She said that you can’t effectively mow them and you can’t use a tine weeder. So she has been trying to kill them using tarps. She has to tarp the weed area an entire season in order to kill off the weedy perennials. The farm has had success with mowing Canada thistle, when mowed before it goes to seed. Then it makes a good mulch for the gardens. The farm does have to deal with yellow sweet clover, but their cows will eat the clover, so that is easy to manage.
The farm uses a ripper on a tractor to level the soil, hand weeding, and a stirrup hoe. Early in the year, they can plant seeds for radishes, salad turnips, and kale, to help prevent weeds from growing. It’s hard to get consistent volunteers to help in harvesting and weeding. Volunteers all have to be trained, and the turnover of volunteers is rather high.
The NRCS helps them surround the farmed areas with hedges, after the farmers have put in a fence. Hedges encourage birds that help control insects.
Avoiding pesticide-drift from nearby non-organic farms is a concern, but manageable. Another challenge is the fact that the local irrigation canals are too high in bacteria, so they have to minimize the use of irrigation water on leafy vegetables. And they water early in the day so that leaves have time to dry fully.
The farm has to grow a surplus of crops, to compensate for the amount of crops destroyed by Columbian ground squirrels.
Gallatin Valley Botanical at Rocky Creek Farm
https://www.gallatinvalleybotanical.com/
[Interview notes reviewed & approved by Matt Rothschiller, August 2020]
Gallatin Valley Botanicals Farm and Rocky Creek Farm is a joint farm that grows about 50 to 60 different crops. They have 60 acres in organic farming. The farms have been in existence since 2003. The owners have 400 families in their CSAs. Their CSA members buy meat as well as produce. The farms sell produce to many groceries and restaurants in the Bozeman area.
The farm uses animals for manure and, to some extent, to help combat weeds. They rotate chickens and sheep through the vegetable grounds. And they use sheep to for managed grazing in their pastures, which does help with some weed control. The farm uses pigs to some extent, but pigs are not as good as sheep for weeding. Weeds are the farm’s most challenging problem. Removing weeds is the number one cost for organic farming. The owners use tractor cultivation and hand pulling for removing weeds.
The farm is engaged in wetlands restoration on part of the land. They restored some river banks to stabilize the erosion that was encroaching on the fields. And they restored a parking lot to its original use as a riparian zone.
Many crops are annuals. Both annuals and perennials are challenging for weed management. The weeds keep pushing the farms to grow more perennials.
They found that the plastic mulch fabric left over from previous owners added pollutants to the fields, so they removed the old mulch. The plastic fabric they use now as mulch for a few crops has to be replaced yearly. It deteriorates and starts to become part of the soil, so it has to be removed and replaced, an expensive process that results in the removal of quite a bit of soil annually. They use 500 pounds of fiber mulch annually.
The owners will use more cover crops and manure in the coming year to inhibit weed growth, and to reduce the use of the fabric mulch. About 30% of the farm will be covered in cover crops. Red clover and crimson clover are important cover crops, as are buckwheat, rye, and hairy vetch. Other cover crops they use include winter wheat (on land used for growing potatoes), peas, oats, and barley.
Links to more interviews:
Links to more information on Organic Farming: