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I know you are going to love her because she was our Crossfit gardener of the year in 2015! And you have taught me so much! I love all that you do and your delicious food and what you do! And she’s gonna share their new http://www.lowervalleyfarm.com/p/welcome.html (LVFarm Academy) Tell us a little about yourself. I am Mandy Gerth! Farmer and co-owner of http://www.lowervalleyfarm.com/p/welcome.html (Lower Valley Farm) in Kalispell, MT my husband Jay and I are are going in our 7th year of full time farming. We run, I think we’re at about  4 acres of production all organic primarily sell through a CSA 2 acres of that is using the intensive model that was kind of  pioneered byhttp://www.themarketgardener.com/ ( JM Fortier!) https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/170-jm-fortier-the-market-gardener/ (I know you had him on your show! ) community supported ag winter squash sweet corn potatoes separate rotation then intensive I think that is new since I last talked to you. We go really hard may through oct we run a 20 week vegetable CSA Kalispell Farmer’s Market do a tiny sizable amount of wholesale food aggregate directly to small grocery store chains overview of the farm! We also have 3 school-age children 7,9,11 they have grown up on the farm very literally co-owners awesome crew really helped make this farm go under all of that is our community, we also couldn’t do this without our awesome customer base! I could talk about the farm forever! OK, I think, what we want to hear about what’s been going on and how does your journey go from gardeners to farmers. Back to the beginning? We started out thinking we would be running livestock vegetable operation would be what would help us make money while we get a livestock operation going. Before the beginning ~ what made us want to do this our family had a life changing experience eating nutrient dense   We volunteered on farms a lot! We loved being a part of our farm community in that way in Indiana We were doing a raw milk share you can do in Indiana but not in Montana super local food grass fed beef lamb backyard chickens But we were buying farm pastured eggs slowly with each investment we made in lifestyle changes in our food Our young children’s health changing dramatically one of our children had some serious sensory issues We got in really deep and we were spending almost all of our money on food why don’t we have a farm? it was like we don’t have a farm because we aren’t farmers because we don’t know how to farm if I could go back to myself First of all I would give her a big hug you have no idea what you are getting into! We have a garden we can do this! what I would go back and tell myself having land is not having a farm access to land that had been in Jay’s family for 3 generations Parents had put it in a conservation easement But we built the farm and all the infrastructure! It was just a conventional hayfield That’s what we want to hear is how did you create this farm, that’s nutrient dense and it melts in your mouth and the table is laden with just an incredible amount of food! it’s been a steep learning curve made that huge dive https://amzn.to/2TLfzwk () https://amzn.to/2TLfzwk (Joel Salitin’s book ) https://amzn.to/2TLfzwk (You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Start a Succeed in a Farming Enterprise) you should farm I was like yeah! we can do this, if people like us don’t do this who does? IDK maybe people with experience in combination http://amzn.to/2kJalPJ (.) http://amzn.to/2kJalPJ (Market Gardener: A successful Grower’s Handbook for Small Scale Organic Farming) IDK if http://amzn.to/2kJalPJ (JM’s book) was out yet? I’ll go back and look and see http://amzn.to/1rlWAKm ()http://amzn.to/1rlWAKm (The Urban Farmer: Growing Food for Profit on Leased... Support this podcast