Brovold Orchard: Who We Are, How We Got Here, and What We Do. Part 3 - Youth and Adult Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources

Part 3 - Youth and Adult Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources

There’s a well-known adage that says, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” That’s the philosophy we choose to follow for the second pillar of our mission statement at Brovold Community Orchard. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to give fruit to people who need it. It’s even better to be able to teach adults how to support themselves and their families by growing fruit and other food products. It’s even better still to teach kids about the natural world they live in, how living things grow, where their food comes from, and give them the lifelong knowledge and skills needed to grow food for themselves and their future loved ones.

Teaching these things is a lofty goal, but how do we accomplish that goal? Let’s break it down first with adults, and then with children. We can talk about what we’ve done so far, but admittedly there is far more to do. In that sense, this goal is aspirational, and we’ll talk about some things we hope to accomplish going forward.

Adults

Learning about the orchard at an Open House.

Soon after Brovold Orchard became a nonprofit organization in 2021, we held an open house, inviting community members to take an orchard tour. We gave presentations on the orchard’s origin and history, our management practices, and what we hoped to accomplish in the future. This was our initial step into the education field that set the stage for future educational activities. In multiple years following, we’ve taught public classes on pruning your own fruit trees, an essential step in fruit growing that most people ignore simply because they don’t know how. Whenever we have visitors at the orchard, whether they’re there to pick fruit or to participate in one of our volunteer work days, we’re usually talking to them about a wide range of topics such as fruit tree varieties and genetics, fruit tree grafting, fruit pests and diseases, harvest seasons and techniques, and many other topics. This may not be formal education, but it is learning nonetheless, and many times they may not even realize they’ve taken new knowledge home with them. Our written communications also reflect an element of education. This includes our website (www.brovoldorchard.org), our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/brovoldorchard/), our orchard brochure, and a small book we’ve written on the history of the orchard property.

Pruning class at Brovold Orchard.

We would like to expand our adult education opportunities, perhaps even to scheduled monthly classes. We’re fortunate that among our board members we have expert skills not only in orchard management, but in forestry, wildlife management, manufacturing, mechanics, and construction, all of which are important to growing an orchard. There are subject matter experts in many agricultural and natural resource fields in western Montana who we could call on to present classes in their specialty areas. Montana is blessed with an abundance of natural resources and opportunities for growing things and making things to enhance the daily lives of the fortunate people who live here. Providing the knowledge and skills needed to use Montana’s abundance of resources to make lives better fits right in with Brovold Community Orchard’s mission.

Children

Norman Brovold and kids making cider.

When Norman Brovold’s newly planted orchard began producing fruit in the 1980s, it wasn’t long before he built a cider press. Once that press began squeezing out sweet apple juice, school kids began flocking to the orchard each fall to see what he was doing and sample the apple sweetness he made. That began a decades long relationship between Brovold Orchard and Alberton School that continues in expanded form today. In recent years we’ve had regular visits from not only Alberton School, but also the now closed Alberton Early Learning Center and Missoula’s DeSmett School. Other schools as far as 100 miles away have inquired about visiting Brovold Orchard.

When school kids visit the orchard, it’s more than a day’s escape from the classroom and a fun time playing outdoors. It’s an educational experience. On cider pressing days, the kids first pick the apples to be processed. We use this as an opportunity to teach them cooperation with one another and respect for the trees and the orchard environment. They begin to understand that apple trees are a gift of nature and a source of food. For some kids, this is the first time they’ve thought about food coming from any place other than the grocery store. When we make the apples into cider, we teach them the whole process and require that they pay attention. Through this they learn it takes patience and the ability to follow sequential steps in the process of manufacturing something. Their reward is a cup of fresh apple juice, which they quickly realize tastes much different than what mom brings home from the store.

School kids picking apples.

Some school classes participate in special science projects in the orchard. In one example, the Alberton second grade class studied the life cycle of apple trees, including adopting and naming two the orchard’s McIntosh apple trees. In another example, students received a classroom lesson on orchard pests on one day and then participated in putting up cardboard traps for codling moth larvae, the “worms” in apples, on the next day.

Brovold Community Orchard maintains a written cooperative agreement with Alberton School District to help one another as needed. This provides an opportunity to expand our educational programs for children, and through the continuing education program, for adults. For one summer, the orchard hosted four special needs high school students who helped perform orchard maintenance. This provided the students with an income source, but perhaps just as importantly, life experience in responsibility and working at a job. We’ve also held luncheons for the graduating senior class in the orchard to honor their educational achievements. Young adults in the Alberton community have told us the days they spent at Brovold Orchard during their school years were some of the best days of their lives. That feedback lets us know we’re having a positive impact on our community.

Brovold Community Orchard is a great resource for contributing to the knowledge and life skills of adults and kids in our western Montana communities. We believe the educational component of our mission is an important one, and we hope to continue developing it over time. In Part 4 of this series, we’ll examine the third pillar of our mission: providing outdoor recreation in an orchard setting. Look for that article soon.

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Brovold Orchard: Who We Are, How We Got Here, and What We Do. Part 2 - Growing and Giving Away Fruit

Part 2: Growing and Giving Away Fruit

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at how Brovold Community Orchard came into existence and what we’ve chosen as our mission. In Parts 2 through 5 we’ll examine in detail our four-part mission statement and what it means.

The first pillar of our mission statement is to provide free nutritious organic fruit to area residents. Brovold Community Orchard currently has 82 fruit trees. Included in that total are 46 apple trees, 16 pears, seven plums, five apricots, three crabapples, two sweet cherries, and one each tart cherry, plumcot, and peach.

Orchard in bloom. Photo Jay Styles.

Many of the apples and pears were planted by Norman Brovold in the 1980s, so they are 40 or more years old now. Apple and pear trees can live to 100 years under ideal conditions, but the older trees in our orchard have at times suffered damage that may have shortened their lives. Norman, particularly in his later years, found it difficult to keep up with all the work the orchard required. Other people sometimes agreed to help him, and though well intended, some of those people lacked skill in orchard care. Many of the older trees in the orchard have been damaged around their bases by mowing machines or weed whackers, and this has led to heart rot in the tree trunks. Other trees were very severely pruned in one unfortunate event years ago, and this led to the death of some trees and permanent damage and decline to others. Some of the remaining trees are infected with fireblight, a common disease of apple trees that can disfigure and eventually kill the trees. 

Fall harvest

As a result of the current orchard conditions, our Board of Directors decided to begin a tree replacement program. In the past two years, we’ve planted 21 new fruit trees in the orchard. The new trees have been chosen specifically for their cold hardiness and disease resistance, as well as for providing more fruit diversity. The apricots, plums, cherries, plumcot, and peach were selected to provide more fruit choices for those who harvest fruit from the orchard. We will continue the tree replacement program until all the damaged, decadent, or diseased trees have been replaced by healthy, young, vigorous ones. Any older, but still healthy, trees will of course be retained.

One question we often get is what varieties of apples we grow. Unfortunately, Norman didn’t keep records on the trees he planted, so many of our trees are of unknown varieties. We’ve been able to figure some of them out by comparison to known pictures and written descriptions, and of course, we know the varieties we’ve recently planted. The list below shows the varieties we know, but there are still many unknowns. 

Apples Arkansas black Enterprise Freedom Golden delicious Jonagold Liberty Macoun McIntosh Red delicious

Pears Bartlet Clapp’s favorite d’Anjou Luscious Nova

Plums Mirabelle de Bitterroot Stanley Superior   Plumcots Tipson

Cherries Danube (tart) Lapins (sweet) Gold (sweet)   Apricots Turkish cowboy   Peaches Contender

As with any agricultural operation, fruit production in Brovold Orchard varies from year to year due to the weather and other factors. In 2023, our best year since we’ve started keeping records, we gave away about 6,700 pounds of fruit. This number could go up as we continue to restore the orchard to healthier conditions.

In any orchard, some fruit drops to the ground early through natural self-thinning, windfall, or other reasons. This fruit is not good for human consumption, but it makes great livestock feed for pigs, chickens, cows, horses, and other animals. We love it when people come and pick the fallen fruit up for their animals because it cleans up the orchard and helps curb diseases and insect pests. We have a few people who do this regularly each year, but we always have a surplus of fallen fruit. If you’d like to help us keep the fruit picked up, let us know and we’ll be happy to accommodate your schedule.

Happy child picking apples.

When it comes to harvesting fruit for people to eat, we welcome everyone to our orchard when the fruit is ripe. We post notices on Facebook and send out emails to let people know when to come and pick. If you’d like to be on our email list to receive notifications, please let us know.

Norman Brovold was passionate about sharing his fruit with the community, and our way of honoring him is to continue inviting everyone to the orchard in picking season, regardless of who they are, where they live, or what they do. All are welcome here. We proudly say, however, that there is a special place in our hearts for those who need just a little bit of extra help in their lives. We are especially pleased when we give away fruit to low-income families, seniors on fixed incomes, single parents, and others who benefit from the enhanced food security our orchard can provide. With all the world’s problems, giving away fruit may seem like a small act. But helping each other is what makes us a community, and if everyone did that, the world would be a much better place.

Volunteers picking up pruned branches.

We will end Part 2 of this series by acknowledging that sharing works best when it goes in both directions. We never ask anyone to pay for fruit from Brovold Community Orchard, but some people choose to make monetary donations to our nonprofit to help keep the orchard operations going. It does take money to operate an orchard, so these donations are always genuinely appreciated. Other people choose to give back with their time by volunteering to help with orchard maintenance. We always have useful work for volunteers, and we appreciate their contributions as much as those who give cash. During the growing season, we hold volunteer work days one Saturday per month. Those who participate have a great time with friends, complete some very worthwhile projects, and get a fabulous lunch. Look for our notifications about when these work days occur, and if you want to take part, just show up.

In Part 3 of this series we’ll look at the second pillar of our mission statement: providing youth and adult education in agriculture and natural resources. Look for that article soon.

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Brovold Orchard: Who We Are, How We Got Here, and What We Do. Part 1 - The Beginning

Part 1: The Beginning 

If you’re new to the area, or if you’ve been here for awhile and never visited Brovold Community Orchard, you may wonder what we’re all about. In this five-part series, we’ll look at Brovold Orchard’s origins, our mission, and our vision for where we hope to go in the future. Look for Parts 2-5 of this series when they are posted here in the coming weeks.

Julius Brovold’s and Emma Sekse’s parents were Norwegian immigrants who came to America in the 1800s looking for greater opportunities. They settled in Trempealeau County, Wisconsin and began their new lives. Julius and Emma were born there, eventually met, and decided to wed. They settled on a 40-acre farm outside of Ettrick where their most fruitful produce was a family of one daughter and nine sons. The humid Wisconsin climate didn’t agree with Julius, though, and he was tired and sickly from struggling through the recent Great Depression years. So, in the mid-1940s he sold the farm and moved his family to the drier climate of eastern Montana where he hoped to begin anew. Julius and Emma managed a hotel in Lavina, Montana for a few years until they purchased a tourist court (a motel with individual cabins) and 100 acres of steep rocky mountainside at Alberton, Montana in 1952. One of their sons, Norman, a newlywed and recently discharged from the US Army, moved there to help his parents manage the property.

Norman picking apples in the late 1950s.

Norman was a kind-hearted jack-of-all-trades with strong beliefs about serving others in his community. In those days you needed multiple skills to earn a living in rural Montana, and Norman was a welder, mechanic, and logger. He plowed snow for the town, and he drove Alberton’s school bus. Norman helped build the town’s 300,000-gallon water tank, the bridge across the Clark Fork River near the mouth of Petty Creek, and the Community Church, among other projects. In short, Norman was a valued member of his community who could be called upon whenever someone needed help. 

Lawyer Nursery was a wholesale plant nursery located between Plains and Thompson Falls, about 80 miles north of Alberton. They were a large nursery with sales on a national and international scale. One day the nursery owner was passing through Alberton when his pickup truck broke down. In trying to find someone to get it running again, everyone in town told him to go see Norman. Norman did get the truck repaired, refusing any payment, and in appreciation, Mr. Lawyer invited him to visit his nursery where he said he had “something” to give him.

Upon visiting the nursery, Mr. Lawyer loaded Norman’s pickup down with fruit trees, far exceeding any expectations. Arriving back home with a big load of trees, Norman needed something to do with them. So, he planted an orchard in an area of the property that was formerly used as a horse pasture.

Once asked why he planted an orchard, Norman replied, “ I grew up during the Great Depression when times were really tough, and many people didn’t have enough to eat. If you were so bold as to pick an apple off someone’s tree, you could go to jail. I never wanted anyone in Alberton to go hungry.”  So, from the orchard’s beginning, it was Norman’s intention to share it with his friends and neighbors in the community. He did so faithfully for decades, letting anyone from the community come and pick fruit whenever they wanted, and never charged anyone for any of it.

Norman Brovold at age 91.

Norman passed away in 2022 at the age of 93. His daughter, Jeanne, and her husband, Bob Summerfield, became the new owners of the orchard. Their desire is to honor Norman’s life and continue his dream of serving his community through the orchard. They made the orchard a charitable nonprofit community orchard managed by a board of directors formed from representatives of Alberton and other nearby communities. Jeanne and Bob’s two sons, Jason and Jordan, are members of the board, have assumed ownership rights to parts of the property, and will ensure that it is managed as a community resource well into the future.

Brovold Community Orchard is not just about giving away fruit. We have a fourfold mission aimed at strengthening the nutritional, educational, recreational, and social aspects of our community. In Parts 2-5 of this series, we’ll cover each of the four pillars of our mission in detail. We’ll talk about what each mission pillar means, what we’re doing now, how we hope to grow in the future, and how you, our community members, fit into that picture. Look for the next parts of this five-part series in the coming weeks.

 

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