Community Supported Agriculture Day is an opportunity to meet local farmers, learn about their unique offerings and farming practices today, Feb. 22, in Hamilton.
Organized by Samantha O’Byrne, of the The O’Hara Commons & Sustainability Center, local farmers will host tables of information and talk about their creative offerings, unique growing methods or crops and their programs to get food to community consumers.
“These farmers are some of the hardest working and upbeat people that I know,” O’Byrne said.
Participating farm include SweetRoot Farm (Mary Bricker and Noah Jackson), Yourganic Farm (Pam Watts and Leon Stengle), Missoula Grain and Vegetable Company (Kate Madden), Great Bear Native Plants (Aimee Kelley), and Loyal to Local with their multiple farmers and new manager MacKenzie Brosious.
SweetRoot Farm is busy with infrastructure upgrades and organizing the season from compost to seed orders “which is about the same expense as a well-running used Subaru,” Jackson said.
“We are unique because we grow over 100 different varieties of 50 different crops in the short growing season of 90 frost-free days.”
SweetRoot Farm offers a “feedbag” program with two sizes of bags, where customers come to the self-serve farm store or farmers market and fill up. The store is always open but on Tuesdays they provide recipes, visit with customers and encourage them to take a break to view the farm.
Their “Eatership Fund” helps lower-income families able to afford a membership.
“Part of our mission is to make feed bags accessible and affordable to everyone, we see it as the heart of our program,” Jackson said.
Yourganic Farm owned by Pam Watts and Leon Stengle will have information about their CSA plan.
“It’s an opportunity to see where the freshest vegetables can be obtained throughout the growing season,” Stengle said. “All of these vegetables are picked the day before people get their boxes. Realistically, your vegetables shouldn’t have more vacation miles than you do.”
Missoula Grain and Vegetable Company Owner Kate Madden said her farm has a unique growing season of 42-weeks thanks to their five greenhouses and smaller movable spaces.
“We do it all unheated,” she said. “We chose not to heat with propane because we don’t think it is a sustainable and environmental option, but have some tricks up our sleeves to make it work in the winter.”
MGVC has spring, summer and winter CSA options.
“It is a market-sale style pick up where you come in and go through the list of vegetables on the table so we can talk to you about what the vegetables are and give recipes. It is a nice time to connect with the people we are feeding.”
They offer several options of every week, every other week, free choice and a market share.
“With that you buy credit that you can use at any of our farmers market stands throughout the season,” Madden said. “It is great for people going on vacation or who can’t commit to a weekly pick up, they can use the credit when they want.”
Madden said CSA Day is a good way to see what each farm is doing for their practices and “a good way to support a farm that is meeting their environmental ideals.”
“The niche we serve is local food for people, nearly year-round,” she said. “We do more specialty products and provide consistency. We use organic methods and use solar power.”
Great Bear Native Plants Owner Aimee Kelley said they offer a CSA with native plants that feed native pollinators to improve the local food supply.
“We grow native plants for restoration, everything from coal mines to rivers to housing developments and for retail/landscaping,” she said,
Great Bear Native Plants is offering two shares this year, the Native Plant Explorer and the Native Plant Enthusiast.
“Joining a CSA helps ‘spice things up’ by delivering things you may not know about or are comfortable with,” Kelley said. “Come to the CSA Day, meet your local farmers, business owners and community members. Learn about the diversity of products grown and made in the Bitterroot.”
Manager MacKenzie Brosious defined Loyal to Local as a multi-producer CSA.
“We are offering 14 different shares this year from 17 producers,” Brosious said.
Producers include: Lifeline Farm, Homestead Organics, Mill Crick Farms, KT-Farms, Cultivating Connections, Piney Mountain Herbals, Deer Haven Farm, Tucker Family Farm, Western Agriculture Research Center, House of Ferments, Great Bear Native Plants, Alpenstueble Bakery, Sapphire Apiaries, Wildwood Brewery, Backroads Cider, Moose Springs Farm and Jacobs Garlic Farm.
O’Byrne said that CSA members benefit by eating healthful foods, supporting local farmers and being kind to our planet.
“Every CSA program of which I have been a member offers recipe ideas, the farmers answer questions about storage and food preservation,” O’Byrne said. “They help us to appreciate and cook food to which we may not otherwise be exposed, like watermelon radishes, celeriac and fennel root to name a few. These farmers love their work, they love to grow food and they weather crazy climatic challenges in the Bitterroot Valley.”
The free CSA Day will be held from 4 to 6 p.m., at The Historic Oliver Blood House, 524 S. 1st St., in Hamilton with plenty of parking in the alley lot.
“I am very excited for the farmers, this is the time of year that they have the greatest financial outlay and they need to plan their planting schedules,” O’Byrne said. “It really does help them get a jump start on their season, fine-tune their seeding schedules and build relationships that lead to a stronger community.”