A Bountiful Garden

The 2009 High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival was a huge success.  The festival earned a record-setting amount for the Wet Mountain Valley Health Clinic and Montana’s unparalleled salesmanship at our sponsor booth generated a lot of serious interest in our first crop of USDA certified organic cattle.  At the MMR booth we sold raffle tickets for a quarter of our grass-finished beef at $1 a chance; this year we collected over $230 to donate to the clinic.  Our winner was actually clinic director John Wallestad, pictured with cattle manager Montana Canterbury,  who will receive his

beef this August.  We did get some rain during the festival, but the weather could not take away from the spectacular scenery of the Sangres or the beautiful sunsets each evening. Even the performers, who have been traveling all over the U.S. this summer playing at various events, couldn’t help but comment on how the site for this event is truly a piece of heaven on Earth. 

Back on the ranch summer has reached full swing.  The daily temperature has been in the 80s-90s with those perfect cool evenings just perfect for sleeping.  Our first cutting of alfalfa is baled and stacked and the grass hay is already mowed and raked.  The cookhouse has been re-stained and looks beautiful; if the rain continues to just move through we will be able to complete the manager’s homes as well.

The garden is having its most productive year to date.  The annual bed is bursting with lettuce, radishes, spinach, potatoes, zucchini and more while the herb bed has crossed over its borders and filled itself and most of the paths with an incredible variety of cooking and medicinal herbs.  The hollyhocks are just now blooming, and their huge blossoms add a goregeous splash of color to the garden.  The strawberries have finished producing but have been replaced by the cherry trees.  We have three tart cherry trees that are producing gallons upon gallons of cherries ripe for the picking, and the numerous currant and goosberries bushes are doing their best to out-produce each other.   The grape arbor has turned into a dark green tunnel, a perfect entrance into the garden, and the neighboring raspberry bushes are already putting out their first few sun-ripened fruits.  It is a beautiful and tasty time to visit the MMR permaculture garden and take home some produce to share with friends and neighbors.