PEAS Farm
In 2001 the Garden City Harvest - Program in Ecological Agriculture
and Society (PEAS) Farm moved from Fort Missoula to it's current
location at 3010 Duncan Drive, up in the Rattlesnake Valley. The
first year a greenhouse and some outbuildings were built.
The second year we built the barn, put up a fence and paved
the parking lot. The third year we finished a kitchen and
bathroom in the barn. Last year we built a hoop house to extend
our growing season and this year we plan to build a structure
to house a cooler donated by the Good Food Store. All this
would not have been possible without the large donations we
received from the City of Missoula, the University
of Montana Environmental Studies Program (EVST),
Plum Creek, US Bank, Cotswald Foundation, Missoula Rotary,
MT Conservation Corp, Missoula Parks and Recreation and many
family foundations and trusts. We appreciate all the community
support of labor and materials we received in the actual building
of the barn as well.
The farm is now known as the GCH/EVST PEAS Farm.
What is PEAS?
Since its inception in 1997, the Program in Ecological Agriculture
and Society has combined traditional academics with hands-on
work at an urban, organic farm, which produces tens of thousands
of pounds of fruits and vegetables each season for low-income
Missoulians. The internship - available for both undergraduate
and graduate credit - is offered fall, summer, and spring.
Although the course number remains the same, the internship
changes with the seasons. Consequently, the internship is
repeatable up to 10 credits. See the below for more information
on the seasonal variations of the program.
PEAS works closely with two Missoula non-profits who specialize
in, respectively, hunger prevention and food security: The
Missoula Food Bank
and Garden City Harvest. In the 2001 growing season the PEAS
farm grew more than 52,000 pounds of produce for distribution
to low-income families. We used University land at Fort Missoula
for five years. In the summer of 2002 we moved and grew our
first crop at the new Rattlesnake site on Duncan Drive.
The PEAS Internship
Growing Healthy Food for the Community
PEAS Farm Instructor: Josh Slotnick
joshua.slotnick@mso.umt.edu
 Earning
Credit, While Nourishing People and the Land.
Students can work for credit on the farm, located
on 10 acres just two miles from campus. But their work earns
them much more than credit hours. It is a classic internship,
in that students learn by doing; yet, there are also frequent
breaks in the action for demonstration and explanation. Moreover,
the farm has real production obligations to emergency food
shelters and to a Community
Supported Agriculture program.
Students are involved in all phases of the farm, from greenhouse
work in February to selling pumpkins in October. Most students
report that the summer season at the Rattlesnake Farm is the
most enriching experience they have ever had. After a summer
of spending 20 hours a week together working and learning
on the farm, PEAS students are bonded to each other and to
the place. Farm work is humble hand labor, and this kind of
shared experience in a beautiful place melts the barriers
that typically separate people. Students feel strongly about
the importance of the work they do for the community: they
grow food for low-income people, and do it in a way they respects
the integrity of the land. The tangible results create a feeling
of personal effectiveness many students have never before
experienced. The knowledge that their efforts have made a
real difference in others' lives and the rich sense of community
they experience often sets students on a new path. Many change
their goals, and alter the course of their lives.
Spring Semester
Work on the farm begins in late February. We work in the greenhouse
until the ground thaws and the soil is tillable. In the greenhouse
we make potting mixes, sow seeds, transplant and learn about
greenhouse plant maintenance. We will also be building more
planting flats and more greenhouse benches as well as taking
care of general spring upkeep on the farm. As the weather
warms and we work outside, we will learn about springtime
biological and horticultural issues pertinent to raising produce,
herbs and flowers. We will consider fertility and soil health,
weed management, preventative as well as curative pest control,
and farm planning. We will share weekend watering responsibilities
for the field and the greenhouse.
Summer Session
The summer program is the heart of PEAS. It is a combination
of four days of work on the farm from 8:00 - 12:00, with one
hour of formal class and a field trip on the fifth day. Each
day two students make lunch for the rest of class from the
food we have been growing. The lunch portion of the class
is optional (but you won't want to miss it!).
The formal portion of Summer PEAS focuses on Agro-ecology.
Agro-ecology means considering a production oriented system
from the vantage point of ecology. Students will examine crucial
biological production issues (i.e., soil fertility, weed management,
crop physiology, and pest management in light of the health
of the whole system). Each week a different subject will be
addressed in lecture. We will attempt to consider the long-term
ecological effects of common agricultural practices as they
come up within different subject areas.
Monday though Thursday 8:00-12:00 students do the work necessary
to run a diverse and productive four acre vegetable farm.
Learning in this situation is akin to learning a foreign language
through immersion. Instead of learning Portuguese by living
with a non-English speaking family in Portugal for 6 weeks,
students are dropped into the middle of the farm and put to
work. They are shown what to do and why, but an understanding
of the big picture will come as the summer rolls on. Work
on the farm with your eyes open, ask lots of questions, and
by August you will "get it".
As the season progresses students assume more of the decision-making
responsibility at the farm. Throughout the season students
will manage the irrigation on the weekends. By the end of
the season students will be well acquainted with some of the
technical issues growers face. The educational aim here is
not to provide universal and definitive answers to those issues,
rather to gain an understanding of the issues themselves.
By August students will know the major vegetable crop families
and understand their culture. They will be familiar with common
techniques for building soil, managing weeds and dealing with
the pest populations we have here. Students will also gain
an appreciation for the tight western Montana growing season
and learn some strategies to work within those limits.
 Fall
Semester
Work on the farm will begin immediately after school starts
and continues through Halloween. Until the first frost, much
of the student work will focus on harvesting and setting up
the food for pick-up by the public at our barn. These harvests
supply our Community Supported Agriculture cooperative as
well as the Missoula Food Bank. We will share weekend watering
responsibilities for the field and the greenhouse (where we
are growing tomatoes).
Amazing Community Partnerships
Through the PEAS program, the Environmental Studies Program
has created valuable and unique partnerships with the community.
A major partner is Garden City Harvest (GCH). GCH works with
PEAS to manage the farm and a community supported agriculture
program. CSA members buy seasonal shares of the farm's produce,
which helps to fund some basic farm operating costs.
Another major partner is the Missoula
Food Bank, where most of the farm's production goes to
provide high quality food to low-income people. Local government also plays a role because the farm is sub-leased
from the City, which leases the land from the County School District. Other partners include the Poverello Center (a
homeless shelter and soup kitchen), the Salvation Army, the
UM Noxious Weed Program, several community youth programs,
and some area schools. |
