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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