Aquarius Farms focused on Ag innovation
<p>Third graders from Ronan Boys and Girls Club visited Aquarius Farms and took produce home to their families.</p>
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PABLO – At the end of a long road and back beyond the grasp of anyone’s attention, Tom West, his family and friends are slowly creating a 30-acre produce farm focused on providing area communities plenty of fresh food without taxing the soil.
In its second year, Aquarius Farms is a tiny one-and-a-half-acre fenced garden planted strategically to take advantage of the natural topography, cross pollination, organic pest control and extended growth seasons, said farm worker Troy Ricciardi.
Each bite of life-sustaining food is an explosion of flavor.
West, Ricciardi and the rest of the Aquarius staff use the Hugulkulture method of farming, which translated is “Scandinavian hill farming” that allows for small man-made hills of earth to act as a platform that raises plants closer to the sun and simultaneously keeps them from the harsh conditions of the earth below.
“This means warmer soil temperatures earlier. Warmer soil, earlier germination and a slightly longer season,” Ricciardi said. “Understand that the hugels are an experiment. There is a lot of speculation in the permaculture world, but not a lot of hard data. We aim to rectify that.”
In addition hugul farming means there is little or no tilling, because of the bed’s steepness. There is more manual labor, but less petrol. Hugul farming also takes advantage of the seasons, as the winter-frost heave helps decompact the soil of the hugul bed, he said.
The Aquarius 30-acre parcel sits against a foothill that provides regular irrigation from the mountainside.
Hill farming also creates multiple “micro-climates,” enabling the farmer to grow multiple varieties of warm/dry and cool/moist crops on the same bed, maximizing productivity, Ricciardi said.
On its slopes the farmers grow a variety of popular vegetable and fruit varieties, but there is little about Aquarius Farms that is traditional, and Ricciardi and West’s ideas about farming may just break new ground in the field of agriculture.
Aquarius Farms is also a University of Montana intern site.
Christopher Preston, a Montana University student teacher and trained organic farmer spent last summer at the farm. Preston will return this summer to manage 30 additional UM interns, Ricciardi said.
Aquarius Farms will also host interns from Missouri, Missoula and Louisiana, he said.
Aquarius Farms may appear strange to traditional farmers, but its innovative approach is attractive to agriculture industry innovators.
“A member of Notre Dame’s foreign exchange program studied our pollinators,” Ricciardi said. “We had SKC out to the garden for a tour and they helped us plant some flower beds to stimulate pollinator activity. Wustner apiary sent a bee hive to the farm and we held a small workshop on bee placement and care.”
Even locals are interested in the farm’s new ideas.
“(The Ronan) Boys and Girls club came out with 20 third graders for a tour and we sent them home with veggies for their families,” he said. Last year Aquarius Farms produced about 40 tons of tomatoes and harvested nearly as much zucchini.
“Much of it was donated to the Montana food bank, Loaves and Fishes, and some local churches,” Ricciardi said.
“Plans for next year include more perennials in the hugel garden, more high tunnels, and some animals to add to the permaculture mix. We are planning to provide herbs and medicinals (as well.)”