Container plots for Agency on Aging

A new projected has sprouted up in the Flathead Lake area for senior citizens who don’t have a lot of space or time for growing their own food. The Montana Conservation Corps (MCC), Agency on Aging and Nourish the Flathead, are working together for their second year of an initiative that helps seniors obtain container plots using locally sourced materials so that they can do “square foot gardening.”
The Flathead has a fairly high elderly population. “There are quite a few folks who have the interest in gardening but who aren’t physically able to go about that task easily or they just don’t have the space at their home to make a huge garden plot,” says MCC leader Kate Mower. “They might also not be able to get to a community garden.”
MCC worked with the Agency on Aging to identify seniors who were interested in the container gardening. And the agency provided a budget. The MCC workers volunteered their time, working with Nourish the Flathead—an organization aiming to get more interest in local food consumption and food production sustainability in the area. (One initiative they’ve worked on is creating a new community garden in conjunction with the Flathead Valley Community College). With the container gardens, Nourish the Flathead provided sheet mulching lessons to MCC leaders.
The permaculture gardening technique involves actually creating your own soil taking into consideration the ratios of nitrogen and carbon. They used a process of layering (“like lasagna,” says Mower) composted manure (which they got from a local dairy) and leaves (you can use grass clippings or hay, too) that are already broken down a little. Over time the material decompose into a rich soil.
“It took a little bit of convincing [to the consumers] that it was going to break down and be a good choice for their plants,” says Mower. “But as we found last year it was a great choice and last year folks got a lot of food out of their boxes.”
The container boxes are 3 feet wide by 5 feet long, and 2 feet deep. This year, the MCC crew took diseased trees from downtown Kalispell that the city was going to remove, milled them (with the help of a local woodsman) and used the boards to make the container boxes, which they delivered all over the Flathead Valley along with seeds and starters.
Despite such small containers, Mower says the amount of food harvested from each box was amazing.
“You split the box off into foot by foot sections and you can plant pretty densely because there’s so much room for the roots to grow downward,” says Mower. “The box looks super crowded but the plants are actually thriving.”