427. Cultivating Connections | Homestead Organics | Laura Garber | Hamilton, MT

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https://www.cultivatingconnectionsmt.org/about-us-1

Where the food is the by-product and the product is the relationship and learning that students get from working on the farm and growing lettuce and you get to eat the lettuce that is grown. So cultivating connections is basically the farm classroom and people can be on the farm and interact with animals through a seasonal way.

Salads for Seniors

High schoolers who are hired as interns to learn how to be engaged in the kitchen by growing the lettuce, harvesting it, bringing it into the kitchen to clean it, make the salads that are delivered to meals on wheels.

Funding?

Tricky for non-profits. If Laura had her way there would be non-profits, for profits and community profits. Now they raise money through grants, weekly CSA shares, and other fundraising projects.

CSA shares support upcoming farmers. $500 goes to help create a future for everyone.

Where do high schoolers come from? Local or are there places to stay?

Youth farm internships are focused on local high schoolers. Also have adult interns who come from all over and stay on farm but wanted to focus more on local students.

First garden experience. Grew up outside of Butte?

Remembers a 2nd grade classmate brought a queen bee and was fascinated with rural life. Mom had a small garden full of tomatoes and raspberries. First thing remembered planting was pine trees around her house in town. Went to UMT and was in first year of PEAS program.

Next summer started managing one of the community gardens and that was her first foray into growing 10 zucchinis instead of 1 and first experience into working with youth. Took 10 plots to grow for Food Bank. How to engage young people in a way that is meaningful for everyone.

Do you want to tell us about social presencing theater and what's social presencing soil?

Ways to engage people. The presencing institute was created by Arawana Hayashi.

What grew well this year?

Community - food and farming are the universal connector. At the farmer's market two people who would usually never talk to each other standing talking about spinach and how they prepared it last week.

What literally grew well last year was the kale. Grows well in all kinds of weather. So good for you. Hope people can grow kale. Also a good community builder and people have their assumptions about kale and so they get people talking to each other.

JackieMarie - 2 things, I got to go to the Missoula market, 2xs last year and it was so peaceful talking to the vendors, standing in line getting coffee, exactly talking talking to compost guy and the pepper guy and the vendors so smiling.

2nd - my kale was awful last year. I actually put row cover and forgot 2xs and it was worse than ever.

Kale is a really good indicator species for us. We had tons of aphids last year and the year before. Kale is a really good indicator of stress in the environment. Row cover is a great way to protect it. A great way to stay ahead of kale is to have multiple crops. Maybe every 3 weeks planting kale in different places. For a family of 4 you could get buy with just 4 plants. If you can transplant a few plants in April and then late May, and June. Pull the bugs off the ones that are infested. Also if you can enjoy on off season. Plant in late summer. 5 leaf stage