Winter Farming in Southwest Montana
By Matt Rothschiller
Matt and Jacy Rothschiller own Gallatin Valley Botanical which is located 3 miles east of Bozeman, Montana on the fertile bottomlands of Rocky Creek. They have been growing produce since 2003. They cultivate a diverse array of vegetables, herbs, and small fruits on 12 acres. They live on their farm with their two young children.
At Gallatin Valley Botanical in Bozeman, Montana, Jacy and I cultivate 12 diverse acres of certified organic vegetables and market to two summer farmers markets, one winter farmers market, one online farmers market, a 115 member summer CSA, a 50 member winter CSA, a dozen enlightened restaurants, and the Community Food Coop. It’s complicated, but as we farm in a relatively sparsely populated corner of the world, we find that our production levels demand a diverse mix of marketing.
Creating Year-Round Farming Opportunities
With an average last frost date of June 1 (and sometimes another one a month later) and last frost date of Sept 5, we are in the business of season extension and storage crops. With the 2008 addition of cold, cool, and dry storage facilities; more greenhouse and cold frame space; and a mortgage, we decided to offer weekly winter CSA shares. We now offer CSA shares from mid-fall to mid-January to round out the cash flow. Just like the up-front investment that comes before our summer CSA starts, the income bump in the fall is much appreciated and necessary. Central to that offering, in our opinion, was the ability to include winter salad greens along with the array of tubers, roots, alliums, and winter squash we had put into storage. We currently have:
- 2500 ft2 under 1 mobile tunnel planted in spinach
- A 2160 ft2 mobile tunnel under construction
- 3000 ft2 of minimally heated greenhouse space dedicated to table-top micro greens production and in-ground lettuce mix, baby kale, and arugula.
- Wholesale Accounts: We continue our summer schedule of twice weekly restaurant and co-op deliveries throughout the winter.
- The Bozeman Winter Farmers’ Market schedule includes bi-monthly markets from October to April. With little competition from other growers, we have a devout return clientele that eagerly snaps up any greens we bring and helps to whittle away at our storage crop excess. In the late winter to spring months, this venue affords us a great marketing opportunity for our summer CSA shares. The every other week format is often enough to bring in meaningful monthly income, but not so much as to burn us out during our “off-season”.
- Winter CSA: The salad greens by and large are dedicated to winter CSA customers and winter farmers markets where we receive retail dollar for season-extended production. We love the direct connection to consumers that CSA offers us as farmers. We are their farmers, and because we are not focused on production like we are in the summer, we can enjoy closer ties to our members in the winter. Winter CSA also lets us plan better use of our inventories and when they will be sold.
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