Garden manager Greg Price gathers chicken eggs at the River Road Neighborhood Farm and Community Garden on Tuesday. Price recently won a “Garden Crusader” award for “Feeding the Hungry,” one of 21 awarded from some 800 nominations. The farm donates food to the Poverello Center. Photo by TOM BAUER/Missoulian Garden City Harvest is tying the ribbon on a banner year for its local food and farmers.
For the first time, the Montana Wildlife Federation honored an agriculturalist with its Don Aldrich Conservationist of the Year award. It went to Josh Slotnick, a Garden City Harvest founder.
Slotnick started the PEAS Farm in the Rattlesnake with the University of Montana Environmental Studies program, and also operates Clark Fork Organics with his family.
Federation board president Tim Aldrich, son of Don Aldrich, said Tuesday more and more people are seeing the importance of conserving agricultural land for all kinds of reasons, not just for food. Farmland also is critical for things like air quality and water quality.
"I think it's one of the most important types of open space, personally," Aldrich said.
Garden City Harvest aims to build a community that produces its own food. To revive what it describes as a regional tradition, the organization runs a variety of programs including the PEAS Farm and community gardens.
In another milestone - this one worth a $750 shopping spree - Garden City Harvest's Greg Price was named a 2010 "Garden Crusader" by the Gardener's Supply Co. Price, garden manager for the River Road Neighborhood Farm and Community Garden, earned the national second-place award for "Feeding the Hungry."
Out of some 800 nominations from across the country, the employee-owned Vermont company selects 21 "Garden Crusaders" for their work in education, urban renewal, restoration and feeding people who are hungry.
Price could have been awarded in all categories, said Garden City Harvest board member Jodi Allison-Bunnell. She nominated Price in part for his "exemplary" work with the Poverello Center.
Other farmers are constantly impressed by the yield Price gets from the River Road land, Allison-Bunnell said. That farm and the PEAS Farm produced more than 20,000 pounds of food in 2010 for the Poverello and the Missoula Food Bank.
One reason he's successful is Price does a lot of work by hand, and he enlists volunteers to do a lot of weeding by hand, too.
"That tractor doesn't go out very many times a year," Allison-Bunnell said.
Price also knows how to use every last inch of kale. Allison-Bunnell said the farmer used to cook in a restaurant, so he knows how to cook tasty soup out of "tomato butts," and he's a font of information for others.
"He really knows how to stretch food, so he knows food from planting to eating and everything in between," she said.
Price said a Gardener's Supply Co. catalog is being passed among farm folks to figure out the best way to spend the $750 award. Come January, when farmers start ordering seed, Garden City Harvest will put in an order for supplies, too.
The local food movement has flourished in recent years, but Price said work remains to strengthen small farms. Supporters will keep chipping away at larger barriers, such as the cost of land.
In the winter, Price works as a substitute teacher, and lessons from the farm make their way into the classroom. When students complain about math problems, he talks to them about planting even rows of vegetables spaced just so.
"I tell them all the math that a farmer does," Price said.
For the first time, the Montana Wildlife Federation honored an agriculturalist with its Don Aldrich Conservationist of the Year award. It went to Josh Slotnick, a Garden City Harvest founder.
Slotnick started the PEAS Farm in the Rattlesnake with the University of Montana Environmental Studies program, and also operates Clark Fork Organics with his family.
Federation board president Tim Aldrich, son of Don Aldrich, said Tuesday more and more people are seeing the importance of conserving agricultural land for all kinds of reasons, not just for food. Farmland also is critical for things like air quality and water quality.
"I think it's one of the most important types of open space, personally," Aldrich said.
Garden City Harvest aims to build a community that produces its own food. To revive what it describes as a regional tradition, the organization runs a variety of programs including the PEAS Farm and community gardens.
In another milestone - this one worth a $750 shopping spree - Garden City Harvest's Greg Price was named a 2010 "Garden Crusader" by the Gardener's Supply Co. Price, garden manager for the River Road Neighborhood Farm and Community Garden, earned the national second-place award for "Feeding the Hungry."
Out of some 800 nominations from across the country, the employee-owned Vermont company selects 21 "Garden Crusaders" for their work in education, urban renewal, restoration and feeding people who are hungry.
Price could have been awarded in all categories, said Garden City Harvest board member Jodi Allison-Bunnell. She nominated Price in part for his "exemplary" work with the Poverello Center.
Other farmers are constantly impressed by the yield Price gets from the River Road land, Allison-Bunnell said. That farm and the PEAS Farm produced more than 20,000 pounds of food in 2010 for the Poverello and the Missoula Food Bank.
One reason he's successful is Price does a lot of work by hand, and he enlists volunteers to do a lot of weeding by hand, too.
"That tractor doesn't go out very many times a year," Allison-Bunnell said.
Price also knows how to use every last inch of kale. Allison-Bunnell said the farmer used to cook in a restaurant, so he knows how to cook tasty soup out of "tomato butts," and he's a font of information for others.
"He really knows how to stretch food, so he knows food from planting to eating and everything in between," she said.
Price said a Gardener's Supply Co. catalog is being passed among farm folks to figure out the best way to spend the $750 award. Come January, when farmers start ordering seed, Garden City Harvest will put in an order for supplies, too.
The local food movement has flourished in recent years, but Price said work remains to strengthen small farms. Supporters will keep chipping away at larger barriers, such as the cost of land.
In the winter, Price works as a substitute teacher, and lessons from the farm make their way into the classroom. When students complain about math problems, he talks to them about planting even rows of vegetables spaced just so.
"I tell them all the math that a farmer does," Price said.
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