118: Building Community through Volunteers | Purple Frog Gardens | Pam Gerwe | Whitefish, MT

I’ve been trying to get this guest on to talk about vegetable production  for quite a while but she’s always so busy and things have finally slowed down, even though she’s probably been in the hoop house/green house today. I know she has an amazing story. I got to meet her and tour her amazing farm so from  Purple Frog Garden’s in Whitefish, MT

Pam Gerwe from  Purple Frog Gardens has over 20 years experience growing vegetables for production in Whitefish, MT. Today she shares her expertise and knowledge of growing for market inspiring others to see how exciting it is to watching things grow when you give them a little bit of help and the right conditions!

PurpleFrogRainbow

Tell us a little about yourself.

Im interested in a lot of different things, I think I’m a family curious person which fits in my life as a market gardener. I am also actively engaged in community organizing around food systems. I am a founding member of a local non-profit called Nourish the Flathead. I’m also on the board for the North Valley Food Bank which is a really exciting food bank and having an exciting time there. I am50 something and am excited about that time in my life, my partner and I, Mike and I have been farming on this land since 1991, so we at this point where were like we certainly are not gonna work as hard as we have the last 25 years. So what are we gonna do?

We have no whole’s bared on potential ideas, yesterday we were talking about raising chickens for meat again, we talk about a pizza oven and agritourism a lot and cooking classes and working with teenagers. So I feel like we’re at a pretty exciting time on our farm.

We have a lot of infrastructure laid down on our farm and have a lot of different angles we could go for in our future.

That does sound exciting. I’m excited to be, I’m just about to turn 50 pretty quick here, I was just writing in my journal the other day, I think I’m the only person who wants to be older then I am, for some reason I always think when I get older, it’s gonna get easier? IDK… So you’re thinking aobu going back into raising chickens? Did you raise them before?

We did. At our peak of chicken mayhem, we probably had about 700 – 750?

No!

We mostly raised them for layers for eggs. We would raise a few meat birds a year, but mostly it was for eggs. We did it for 20 years. A couple of years ago we said “OK, we probably learned about all we’re going to from this experience,” and spent the past couple of winters without chickens. Occasionally we’ll say, “Oh, is it time to go get the eggs?” just kind of joking we don’t have to get up and leave the wood stove and get the eggs!

 

The demand for local is really high. I think the thought that our 50-100 hens that would be raised for meat would be raised by us for a humane, pretty nice life, and that would be 50-100 less that would have to be factory farmed. So we’re just talking about it, IDK if we actually will.  A friend of ours, who originally got us started in chickens, is doing his chick order, and he was just asking if I wanted any meat birds, so that kind of kicked the conversation around in my head. Mike and I were talking about it, who knows if we’ll really do it, we have a new saying, “We’re just talking! We’re not making a list…”

We don’t need to make a list, we don’t need to write down the tools we need and make a plan. We’re just talking! It’s exciting!

700-750 chickens mostly for eggs! That just sounds! You have to tell us about raising 700 chickens? I can’t even imagine raising like 25 chickens! I mean we’ve had at our peak maybe 10 chickens! How long does it take you to collect the eggs from 700? And where do they lay them?

There was really only 750 one summer that we had that many and it was a mix of babies and old girls. AWE would have about maybe, in peak of our production, we had maybe 400 laying hens.  The rest were replacement birds or just old hens that we hadn’t you know, killing birds is hard, it’s sad, they provided us with a service. We often would have hens that weren’t really laying eggs and just kept them around. When we decided we were no longer gonna do it, we just slowly through attrition by not replacing our flock… was how we went down into more reasonable numbers.

How long does it take to collect about 400 eggs? Do you just go out there with baskets. Then what do you have to do take them to market to sell every day? What is that like? Do you get about 400 eggs a day? Do you get that many?

You get about 2/3 of that amount. And then we would, we sold them locally to:

  • restaurants
  • wholesale accounts
  • adopt a chicken – we nourish it, you get eggs and we get money

That was really the beginning of our adventure to CSA marketing. People would pay us in advance for x number of dozen of eggs. That was really a successful way to market to eggs, and people felt engaged and connected to our farm.

One of my favorite things of where we are at. A lot of people have known about us for a long time, sometimes I’ll have young people in their 20s who say, OMG I came to your farm when I was in 3rd grade and this is what happened? They just remember it so clearly and vividly and so it’s just so pretty exciting to have that memory in our community around our farm.

I remember when I was growing up, there was a little farm close to my mom’s house, and going to a farm when I was a kid and we could take the tops of the carrots and go feed the rabbits! Grossman’s Farm on Nassau Blvd. Now how did that work? They would just pick up their eggs with their CSA share?

We were not doing a vegetable CSA, we just had a fridge on the porch and a dry erase board. They would just come get the eggs when they wanted them, and then write their name on the dry erase board and we would keep track of it that way.

I love it and a dry erase board with a fridge where  people would just come help themselves to eggs and keep track of it that way.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

From Virginia, when I was growing up probably in Jr. High, at the house I was going up in we had a bunch of tomatoes. But that was about it. I remember liking to check the tomatoes and thinking that was pretty great.

But probably the most impactful was when we first moved to Whitefish. We lived in town and our neighbor Casey Groman had a really great garden. We would bring her compost and look over her fence, and watch everything growing, and that  is a garden that I feel a connection to, as far as a mentor and really seeing what you could do in a pretty small space!

What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you?

I was thinking about this questions, I think it’s really important to consider your inputs. What happened for me at one point when we had too many chickens, kelp was one of the ingredients we would feed them. 

We made up the feed ourselves, we purchased the whole grains and grew some stuff ourselves and mixed the feed ourselves and and kelp was one of the ingredients. When you buy a pallet of anything. When you try to be mindful of your impact onto planet, you say, “Wow, I’m buying a whole pallet of kelp? What does that mean?”

So I had to begin the whole research train of figuring out, this is what they do with kelp, it’s pretty interesting with kelp, they have these huge barges, like lawnmowers, they cut however many feet of the kelp forest, which is able to replenish itself pretty quickly. So that seemed like a reasonable sustainable method of an input for us. So I guess I think that’s really important for you to continue and to consider and examine, what your impact on the world is as far as the choices that you’re making.

You made your own chicken food? What else goes into chicken food?

We use lentils, because it was something we had access to. The digestive enzyme that chickens need to be able process lentils, they have to get it when they are young so  you need to start mixing it in when they are babies, then as  their intestinal flora they need to help make them strong for to have that be a viable nutrient for them. And then we also used local grains, like wheat and barely and oats. Just depending upon what we were able to access at a given time.

Probably if we had followed a little more scientific model we’d have more egg production, but it was important to us is to use local grain growers, and something that is always a concern and issue in animal feed is the protein. Most organic feed, much animal feed has soy in it, and much soy is genetically engineered, the soy that is organic is mostly grown in Brazil, so then you’re cutting down the rain forest, it’s just this layer after layer of complexity when you are accepting responsibility for so much life, so you just  have to ask the questions. That was about the basic mixture.  We would also sprout grains, and the chickens would really like that and we would sprout them all the way up to grass and give it to the chickens in the winter.

Wow I knew you were gonna be an awesome interview full of tons of great stuff!

PurpleFrogRows

Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques?

I think I’ve always just known that organic was the only way to go. One of the things that I’ve learned as we’ve gone on is resource availability

When we first moved to our farm, it’s very very clay, very clay rock not very good soil, we were looking for biomass to help increase the top soil and  I called the city and said “What do you do with your leaves in the fall.” They said, “ Oh, well, we burn them.” And I said “that’s terrible.”

So I began a relationship with the city of Whitefish and so they have been brining us all the residents leaves for all the past 20 something years. We’ve opened hundreds and thousands of leaf bags. That’s one of our plans for our soil fertility. So anyway, organic is like looking into the resources in your community that are often by-products that will help increase your soil fertility.

I think that’s gonna give people tons of ideas.

One caveat would be grass clippings, early on in our career when we were really struggling with soil fertility. We had, like I said, we had a a couple of lawn maintenance people who would bring us grass clippings. But the reality is that most people really spray a lot of terrible chemicals on their lawn. One of the largest consumers of Roundup is the household yard.

At some point we decided we can’t do this anymore. So pretty early on, we decided that, even though it was this beautiful bountiful supply of nitrogen coming to the farm, we couldn’t do it, we couldn’t  keep up, and follow the train of clean grass clippings vs dirty ones. It really makes a big difference.  There’s quite a few plants that if you put poison grass in your garden you will see the ramifications of that for a couple of years, several years!

You know that’s probably one of the biggest thing I’ve learned since I started my podcast is that’s one of the craziest things we do is put chemicals on our lawns, especially for people who let their toddlers crawl on their lawns, and also for pets who play close to the grass…I had no idea how bad those chemicals were. I think I just haven’t paid attention because we don’t spray our lawn and my mom never sprayed hers. I have had a lot of people talked about how incredibly dangerous those chemicals are.

When your company is called Chem-lawn… you can imagine….

NVFB_Slider_Logo

What’s Expanding at the Food Bank

I meant to ask you when you first started talking about the food bank and what’s exciting that’s gonna happen at the North Valley Food Bank this year?

 

Whitefish is a very generous community. The North Valley Food Bank is just this amazing new building our founder and chief June Munskee had volunteered so long in the community to help with food security issues. She was in her 80s and the community could see that she had devoted her life toward this issue and I think in recogniztino of that, the community built this amazing facility! It’s spacious and light and has a small butcher shop!

It just really has a lot of potential. June was able to serve our clients one time in our new facility and then was not able to help any longer and in a very short time she passed away. I think it was just so great that she got to see all of her hard work and her new facility and go serve clients one time in this new facility.

So we as a board and organization, where we’re grieving our founding member and getting a new building and just figuring out how to handle those two things simultaneously.

We hired our first employee! Everybody has always been volunteers. Our executive director is doing a really good job, she’s getting her footing in the community, and we kind of stabilized from those two huge transitions and now we’re just looking forward at all the potential impact we can have in our community and how to best serve our clients. Skies the limit!

I’m sorry to hear about June but that is still a touching story.

How did you learn how to garden organically?

I think mostly it was just :

  • trial and error
  • practice
  • reading about it
  • having a few mentors

And Casey was  definitely  told me stuff about her garden that we used to peer over the fence. Then we had a mentor who lived next door to us, who was very helpful, Gladys, who  answered a lot of questions, taught me how to slaughter chickens., really was someone who  knew a lot and had a lot of info that I didn’t have.

I grew up in suburban USA, So there were a lot of things I wanted to incorporate into my life but I had no idea how to do them. Mike had a little more experience then I did in that arena. Gladys definitely taught both of us a lot.

MacBlooms

Tell us about something that grew well this year.

Had a really nice apple and pear crop, which was really exciting to us because we had joked for years that our apples and pears trees that we planted were our 401k. That our retirement was invested in them. When we first planted them, we we’re not able to give them the attention that a plant required deserves in the beginning of life.

they struggled in their early years, so now we’re starting to take much better care of them Giving them love, we are learning more about pruning, each year we learn more and more about pruning, which I think is really an art. The trees were very productive, we’ve been waiting a long time for them to start producing like they did this year.

One thing that was really interesting that happened was that we were short staffed this summer and we were pretty tired. Usually we have tons and tons of raspberries and it takes hours to pick them. We had a slight raspberry crop this year, which was such a gift because we wouldn’t have had time  to stay smiling and pick the raspberries. I just think its neat when those things kind of work out like that!

RAspberries

We didn’t have a big raspberry crop this year, maybe because of the weather?

Well 2 things:

One of my most listened to guests is Russ Metge in Episode 26 from Utah who talked about pruning fruit trees. And the difference between pruning a fruit tree and pruning a flowering tree, IDK the difference there. That’s kind of interesting that your trees weren’t doing much and then you gave them some attention? What other things did you do?

I think they like the most important thing is,  what’s the saying? I think it’s like a $3 tree and a $20 hole, or something like that?

Really the early care of the tree matters a lot. One of the things that happens on homesteads is that you always think your gonna get to it. Oh yeah, I’m gonna plant this tree and then I’m gonna hook up the irrigation, and suddenly it’s July and you’re like I still haven’t set it up and then it’s August and your carrying buckets of water to the tree because you can’t get the irrigation set up. So the later trees that we planted, we just stopped planting till we got the irrigation set up.

Because  you  just get so busy, and you can have the world’s best intentions but that’s not enough! I think making sure everything had enough water and then also start fertilizing and then pruning a little more severely was how we started to bring our trees into production!

I was kind of telling you earlier we have always had a shortage of water and I think that helped our production this year made a big difference on our fruit trees too! So water is the key!

Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?

We’re gonna really expand our green onion and radish production. There’s so many beautiful colors of radishes. I just love the visual of a table full of different colors and shapes and size of radishes! Plus I really like radishes!

Then green onions are just really helpful to round out  pretty much any meal. Having access to the Allium family pretty early in the Summer and then consistently throughout is just so nice! Plus they’re easy to eat raw. So I’m planning on expanding those.

Then I’m starting to get really interested in agro-forestry which is a permaculture model when you plant your trees you do multiple canopies, also, you use a lot of the bio-products that fall down from the tree to help make big bed of mulch and add fertility to the soil. And we’re excited to start using the areas between the fruit trees right now they’ve just been planted with cover crop or a lot of weeds and we’re ready to start utilizing the soil around them and create a micro-climate that the trees help create!

Do you have a good recipe for radishes? What what do you like to do with your radishes?

I like to just eat them raw. I’m also a pretty big fermenter. So fermented radishes are really nice.

Purple Frog Gardens Shred

Shred

One of the questions you were gonna ask later is about a favorite recipe. One of the things that we try our hardest, that we try to make sure we always have in the fridge is something that we just call shred

whatever vegetable we have a lot of, a mixture or them. Right now the shred in our refrigerator is:

  • cabbage
  • onions
  • carrots
  • winter rose radishes

If you have a big bag of shredded vegetables in your fridge your gonna eat them! You’re gonna put them into a spring roll, you’re gonna put them in your quesadilla. you’re gonna just eat them as a salad, put them in your soup!

  • spring rolls
  • quesadillas
  • soup
  • salad

So a local food diet is successful with is if we find more ways to make it easy to incorporate it into their eating patterns. People so just busy and don’t think feeding themselves is as important as it might really be. don’t realize it so

Oh my god theres this huge bag of shredded vegetables in my refrigerator of course I can incorporate that easily! Put some on my pizza or on whatever it is that you’re eating.

So by shredding do you mean you are going to put the vegetables though your food processor grater ? How are you shredding them?

It just depends what it is, with the cabbage we  usually use the blade to get thicker pieces, but then with the carrots we’ll  just grate them. Depends on what you do with it, or what you do the most of it. I use a lot of rice wraps and make a lot of spring rolls. A finer textures works better for that. But it’s just today we had salad with the shred, it’s just a really easy way for people to use the food that you add?

Another way we deal with it, we have a lot of frozen produce from the summer. Like I just pulled a quart of sun gold cherry tomatoes and put it in the fridge and you just add 5-10 sun golds to whatever your cooking, just keep utilizing them in whatever dish your making. We try to make sure we eat the effort of our labor, the fruit of our labor.

Mike and I both decided one of our investments next year will be a freezer. Maybe now that we can grow more, and Megan Cain came on and talked about how you can just freeze peppers, and your talking about tomatoes. I eat a lot of vegetables, that’s not one of the things I have a shortage of, for me it’s fruit I struggle with.

 

Tell us about something that didn’t work so well this season.

We historically have grown a lot of kale, our kale this year was not happening. Our Chinese cabbage, also, that same family, it all bolted! It just got hot so fast in the spring, the Chinese cabbage just couldn’t get mature before it went went into stress panic mode and said we better make some seeds.

The kale, was really surprising, we had terrible aphids! We grow rows and rows of kale spread throughout the farm, a  block here and a block there, and each of the blocks was hammered by the aphids, we were very surprised! Especially that’s something we don’t have in the freezer and usually we have gallons and gallons of it in the freezer but that didn’t work out this year.

It was so hot. My spinach seemed like it came out of the ground and then bolted like the same week. We did end up having a good fall crop… sweeter then ever. That was gonna be my thing I was gonna try to grow, I’ve never grown kale, maybe next year.

DinoKale

Dinosaur Kale

Something that you find is easy to grow and is generally successful every-time.

That’s usually kale and Chinese cabbage, those are usually crops I recommend. So part of the reason it was so shocking to us. I had fun with that questions for the interview.

By the end of February it was melted and time to plant, let’s hope it doesn’t melt that fast next year. 

Something you would steer new gardeners away from that you find is typically challenging to grow in your climate

I really would say nothing, nothing you shouldn’t try. I think that the sooner people can get comfortable with being unsuccessful with a few things, the better their garden’s gonna be! The more brave they’re gonna become more

its the way with gardening is

you have to be comfortable with failure

doesn’t mean that I’m gonna come back with a bit more of a vengeance, just because I like it so much and it’s a food people need to start to continue with their familiarity and for people who don’t know about it, for people to start introducing it to their diet.

What do you do with kale because I’m one of those people, up until I started the podcast really the only way I ate it was the green smoothie thing and I’m not really a green smoothie drinker anyway…

we like usually put a lot of it into the shred that we make in the winter

however its’

salad

rice wraps

smoothies

also we dehydrate a lot of kale, we make a good sauce that we put on it before

tamari some kind of oil, olive oil.

whatever lil is close by.

brewer’s yeast maybe sesame seeds

ac couple of years ago we had a ton of leeks so we added leeks

sundried tomatoes

almost a cracker

dehydrating produce, yo can take an apple box full of kale and it ends up being a few gallon zip lock bags, it really concentrates the nutrients and the space that you need.

I just have to ask, so is kale kind of like adding kelp? or is it a different kind of green to your soil?

the kelp is, has been cut down

kale is taking from the soil you sprinkle on the soil.

it’s not something

IDK why I was thinking the kale would crumlble like a powder to put on the garden similar to kelp…

What we do is crumble that on popcorn

Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden.

I like pretty much everything in the garden

it becomes arduous or hard if I feel like I don’t have enough time to do what I need to do, that is probably the most frustrating for me, because I do enjoy it,

i don’t mind kind of meandering my way through it

don’t feel rushed

get in a great groove and going pretty fast, and doing what I need to, if it’s only like that it feels less enjoyable.

What is your favorite activity to do in the garden.

I really like working with other people in the garden

we have a pretty good volunteer day that’s every Wednesday in the summer form 9am -1pm

they come help and we give them free produce, that’s a great interactino with people in our community.

The interesting conversations that happen.

one day there were 2 different sets of people trying to people learning mandarin

counting to 10 in Chinese, it’s so random, why did that happen that day, it was one of our biggest days, I think like 18 volunteers showed up and 3 were from the Netherlands and didn’t know each other and just randomly showed up on the same day and it’s like why did that happen that day?

But also I really enjoy working int he garden by myself, again, I need that balance of having that interacting, engaging time with people, I think is super fun, but then also I have to have time where I’m alone in the garden

Where I’m making a list and enjoying being by myself, having that time to more meander through a project, more then tell someone else what to do, or engage with them or have converstation ever

I like them both

Do you want to tell listeners a little more about what kind of community Whitefish is? Sort of a touristy, ski town close to Glacier National Park. Because they might be like where did 3 people from the netherlands show up from? Where do you advertise? It sounds like your getting more of a diverse crowd?

more the consistent thing is the time, it’s every Wednesday  9-1

Because we are  production farm, we really discourage people from just stopping by

interrupted it can take quite a while to get back to where you were, and its also very important to have people have the opportunity to participate and be in the soil and see what’s happening

So I think because it’s been consistently Wednesday for the past 20 something years, people in the community know about it, one day a woman said to me,

you know I’ve never come to volunteer day, but I just want you to know almost every Wednesday in the summer when I’m at work I think about you guys…. it’s so neat to think about that energy being in the community her thinking of us is so great! And it helps makes purple frog such a special place.

That’s amazing, 20 years!

What is the best gardening advice you have  ever received?

more like a lesson that happened, use what you grow.

the story that I still think about so many years later, when we we’re first getting going with the garden and we were also building our home and greenhouse and barn and put the water lines in and blah blah val

we ended up maybe a half a dozen cabbages  that were big and beautiful and we harvested them and every day we would walk by them and look at them and say we have to do something with them, but we got to do this

this isn’t closed in

it was like weeks later, they were frozen solid, they were just sitting there on the porch kind of mocking us. I think that was the last thing that I was willing let go of as far as food waste

were very

almost everything we produce is used whether it’s people who come through our CSA

do it so you can enjoy the food

not to make your life so chaotic, so that you can’t reap the harvest.

Is there a favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be?

I’m taking two tools!

One would be just soil fork, 4 tines, flat, the whole tool is about 6-8”  apart, the head of the hole tool

teeth are 2-3’ apart and it’s just really good for getting out quack grass or

breaking up dirt clods without ruining soil structure.

And then the cobra

small tool  hand tool that;s semi circle with a hard that looks like a cobra

for hand weeding or getting in tight spaces

both of those tools are valuable

standing up  or working in tight spaces

Do you have any tips for eating or harvesting vegetables or fruit on time? 

I think it’s just a matter of prioritize git that that’s what your gonna do, set it up that you can use it, we don’t’ grow very many eggplants

made some baba gnash

some kind of dip

dehydrating them

maybe just roasting them

we roast a lot of vegetables and then freeze them

when I’m making the commitment to roast

fill it with vegetables

carrots

onions

potato

squash pieces

roast the whole pan

keep some int eh fridge for

glass container

freezer bag just trip into it as I need smaller quantity

learning how to cook with local ingredients

before you plant a huge garden

zucchini

noodles

spiralizer

make noodles

out of zucchini

really a great way to use a lot

grate a lot of the zucchini

maybe put it in chili

Do you have any secrets for preserving food-making it last? 

just the fermentation process

for anyone who’s gonna grow a lot of food

saur kraut

fermented Japanese

horseradish

improve your intestinal flora

salt is a preserviate

important skill

it’s a straight root looks like burdock

size of a carrot with some side shoots off of it

strong horseradish dig in the spring or the fall

plants

volatility in the summer transfers up to the greens

in the spiring it’s just waking up form the ground

pulling it’s life force back into

you got to plant it on the edge of your garden, very prolific

really strong can be invasive if you don’t watch it,

harvest horseradish

put those in pots

let them root

next year plant them in the garden

sell some of it, put some of it in the CSA

not really

A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?

Shred, that I talked about

grated chopped up real small

caramelized roasted vegetables

help round out any meal

onions and tomatoes

sugars in them

A favorite internet resource?

google, I know that you were speaking more specifically

I just think that the internet is such an amazing resource

it was not a resource it didn’t exist how lucky we are now

if you want to learn anything

people share something

put a list of some of the things I was looking up

some of the searches

reforesting the desert

rocket stock pizza oven

people would come to the farm and share dinner

pizza would be a value added product

process them to the next level

be able to charge a little more for our pound of potatoes

how to make a liquor of

flower bouquet

slaughter a pig

appreciate the resource

time with a  wealth of information

we can learn and do whatever we want

speed with which

things are changing on the planet

need to have

capable and conn

people willing to share their mistakes

A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?

I think I really like, it’s hard to narrow it all down

a couple of books

how to have a green thumb

no work garden

ruth stout

the way she would treat the soil is with very think layers of mulch

pre permaculture

feed the soil with lots of biomass to choke out weeds

older woman when she

mulch as wee  suppression and

If you have a business to you have any advice for our listeners about how to sell extra produce or get started in the industry?

I think one of the things that I, we as a society maybe need to think about the idea of a one person CSA so your producing more then you can eat

ask your neighbor

would you be willing

buy one CSA from me

do you have something to trade me

it doesn’t have to be a 30 person or 200 person

what is their commitment to it,

what are their goals are

some people would be happy to make $1000 year

what are the goals

what the potential producers goals are

death not enough value added producers

processors like del monte

local pickles maker who was going to buy x amount of cucumbers from me

showcase what is going in the valley

pickle maker

value added process

a jar not too full enough

bio products get put into the food bank stream

food processing

we used to have cheesemakers

more bakers and flour mills

certainly have more brewers

brewery and distillers

more processors

encourage people who love the food system

One of the stories I was thinking about my friend Jennifer Monique

who became

food procurement overseeing the whole

food corps

a national program

stateside vista

young people spend 1-2 years doing service in school district trying to connect local farmers to connect

food crops

lower valley meats

acquire the proper size valley maker

rules for the size

local butcher paddle maker was a little bigger

butcher got the equipment

lower valley have beef from the flathead valley that was processed in Texas, or Brazil

interactions people can have with their food system can

more and more non-[profits school security or gardens

more employment opportunities

to make a career of a food system

I also think there is a lot of other opportunities

3rd generation butcher

small family operation

infrastructure around the country

very difficult for small processors

certified

to have meat processed to sell it,

more places available

as a consumer have to buy a 1/2

of a lamb, beef, pig

more interested in getting one or two meals

lower valley of flathead

when we look at the history of the

the baker and the bakery things and soup kettle

food more processed

recognized the

getting a government contract and school kitchens because deconstructed

how do

Final question- if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?

Im bullied my way into getting two tools!

2 concepts

first is the idea of food waste

we’re throwing about 50% of

leaving it in the farmers field, all the way to dang, I let it rot in my fridge

50% of the food on our planet is thrown away and

food is hungry

we have the potential right now without f

compromising the seed if we just stop wasting less food

fall along the spectrum

struggling at our food bank

we get an amazing donation from our local stores

really bad food

cakes with huge frostings

donuts

hohos

twinklesTwinkles

certainly don’t want o give to the poorest

health is already in jeopardy

gonna give them these terrible terrible foods

the other thing I have to start saying it

income for all

when peoples lives are compromised

thought jails

emergency visits

criminal activity

so much wealth

62 people that have as much money as half the worlds population

concentrated in those hands

everyone could have their living needs met

capacity to support each other

unleashed

the thing that has the potential

Jenny Monique no longer

working for USDA on a national level working for Farm-to-School

started here fresh out of college

through

Do u have an inspiration tip or quote to help motivate our listeners to reach into that dirt and start their own garden?

a couple

don’t be afraid to kill things

trust that plants want to grow!

measure the richness of your

How do we connect with you?

sure!!

into your search engine

purplefroggardens.com

Wednesday is our volunteer day from 9-1pm mid-late April

farmstead open on Friday nights from 5-7:30

CSA share

product averrable or sale

local cheese from Flathead

Bread from Polebridge bakery

fruit from people we don’t have peaches

here

fruit from Flathead lake

Farm stand in the salad

barn

people come, engage

come to buy or just hang out and have community

spend some time for the farm

don’t lead farm tours on Friday

Farmstand

at farmer’s market

downtown is Tuesday nights

so busy and so big and so many people

don’t have opportunity to have conversations with people who are going to eat our food

farm-stand is more mellow

more heartfelt….

 Purple Frog Gardens

About the author, Jackie Marie

I'm an artist and educator. I live at the "Organic Oasis" with my husband Mike where we practice earth friendly techniques in our garden nestled in the mountains of Montana.

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