Community grows together through Cultivating Connections MT events

by Sarah Glass

Thousands of vegetable, herb and flower starts went home with Bitterroot Valley gardeners, free of charge or by donation, thanks to another successful Mayday! Gardens plant giveaway hosted by Cultivating Connections Montana (CCM) on May 21. Located at the Homestead Organics “farm classroom” just south of Hamilton at 175 Skalkaho Hwy., the nonprofit offers a variety of programs focused on bringing the community together through food.

“I think we are up to over 100,000 plants at this point, since 2020, that we’ve given away free or by donation to the community,” said CCM Founder and Farm Director Laura Garber. “That means hundreds of thousands of food plants that people in the Bitterroot Valley have planted and grown and eaten.”

Visitors who RSVPed to the Mayday! Gardens event this spring through the organization’s website (cultivatingconnectionsmt.org) were met with a scene of bounty that embodied a promising step towards Montana food independence. Tables and racks were full of Montana-adapted plant starts grown right at Homestead Organics. Varieties available included Northern Ruby paste tomatoes, Padrón hot peppers, black Hungarian jalapeños, ashwagandha, giant marigolds and garden staples such as lettuce, kale and broccoli.

Plants were labeled by name and, where necessary, growth support requirements. Egg cartons were provided for easy selection and transportation. One attendee, Leslie Karst, shared that she was at the event to bolster her starter garden. A local baker who homeschools her five sons, Karst said she enjoys making salsa and that cooking is an enjoyable activity she shares with her children.

A lot of families attend Mayday! Gardens, said Garber, “And this is the point. Now they can garden together.” For her and Executive Administrator Jennifer Johnson, the event is a celebratory occasion that shows just how much Ravalli County residents are embracing food resiliency.

“I think being able to grow your own food, knowing where it has been sourced, knowing how it has been treated, there is just nothing like it as far as a health benefit because you know everything about it…,” said Johnson. “That’s kind of an important thing to do when you are trying to improve the health of not only yourself and your family, but also your community. One of the things we are focused on is the appreciation of local food.”

CCM involves community members of all ages and abilities in the gardening process; it doesn’t matter their age or whether they have a window box or an entire backyard dedicated to gardening. Young teens have been applying to CCM for paid summer internships for the last decade; “kinder-gardeners” from local kindergarten and elementary schools receive tours of Homestead Organics to introduce them to the sensations of a farm, and even the plants distributed at the Mayday! Gardens this year were in part seeded by volunteers who received gardening instruction from Garber while contributing their time.

Starting in 2025, as part of CCM’s “give back initiative,” the nonprofit introduced a new program called Ladles of Love. Where CCM members and interns used to make salads for Meals on Wheels, Ladles of Love is an outgrowth of the same concept, this time providing meals that can be heated up and stored longer. CCM endeavors to expand the program this year, the goal being to get more people involved in making food and to make more food from Montana-based ingredients to donate.

Johnson explained, saying “[Ladles of Love] involves bringing volunteers from the community into our commercial kitchen along with our youth interns, and they create soups and other ready-to-eat food for donation to our local food bank here in Hamilton, which is the Haven House food bank, as well as other partners that we have, too.”

Starting in July, people can sign up for Ladles of Love events as individuals or as teams. CCM hopes book clubs or church groups will consider it a team-building experience that empowers participants while benefiting people experiencing food insecurity in the valley.

Garber and Johnson invite the public to RSVP for CCM’s first Mayday! Gardens that will focus on storable, fall food varieties. The event will be taking place on Friday, July 17. The Heritage Skills Workshop Series is also available to those interested in learning age-old skills through hands-on learning. Subjects range from making sourdough bread and butchering a pig to making baskets from cattails.

Said Garber, “Around the idea of building community through food, there’s so much we disagree about, but we can all agree about food. Everyone can get behind growing food and feeding each other, as opposed to any other issue that is going on. Our motto is ‘change your food, change the world.’ I think we really believe that we are changing the Bitterroot Valley by changing the access to food, changing people’s perceptions of food, changing what people get to eat and changing youth into food growers and community advocates.”