Native Ideals

Daniel and I have celebrated the 4th and begun our second farm here in Arlee, Montana at Native Ideals, LLC. The farm is still young, in its third year, but already well established and has a growing market. The couple, Bryce and Rebecca, are both interested in native plants, specifically to Western Montana (and the Rockies). As they say on their website, there are many reasons to grow native plants, but for this region in particular, drought resistant plants that don't require extra watering is big. Native Ideals does do retail (mostly for people interested in native plants and wildflower landscaping beds for home), but their real interest is land restoration. They have several contracts with the forestry service and the city of Missoula to produce native seed for the agencies' land restoration projects. 

So far, we've learned additional plant identification skills, accompanied our hosts to the farmers market, and participated in the seed harvesting and cleaning process. Though Daniel and I got into the WWOOFing journey thinking mainly about food production, it has been good for us to think about both the local movement and "being green" in a new way. We often don't think about how our maintenance of a lawn (especially in a place like the Rocky Mountains), or our collection of exotic things (flower, food, furniture, housing materials, trinkets) all require far more resources to produce and transport and maintain than we often see. The company also uses reclaimed wood from the area to make their giftboxes, and they employ a local budding metal worker to create their copper plates for the logo. 

So...what are you growing in your garden? 

Check out their website for now - it'll post pictures soon!