Garden to Table: Cultivating Good Food and Healthy Plants with Extension Agents

Whether you have an established garden or are curious about growing some herbs on your windowsill, Missoula County extension agents can help you! From cooking classes for all ages to introductory gardening courses, you can grow your skills and be supported along the way.

This week, Commissioner Josh Slotnick sat down with Sarah Holden, horticulture extension agent, and Kelly Moore, family and consumer sciences extension agent, to talk about the many programs they offer to residents.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Gardening in Montana series
• Master Gardener volunteer program
• Plant Clinic
• Rocky Mountain Gardens
• Upcoming cooking classes

 
Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!

Transcript

Josh Slotnick: [00:00:10] Welcome back to the agenda, everybody, with your Missoula County Commissioners. But today I am solo. This is Josh Slotnick. My compatriots, Dave and Juan are away. But never fear, we have two wonderful guests today. We have Sarah Holden, who's the horticulture extension agent with us here at Missoula County, and Kelly Moore, who's the family and consumer sciences extension agent. Welcome to you both. Thank you. It's great to have you guys here. Thanks. Thanks. So I want to dive right in. Describe what being an extension agent is. I'm sure people who hear this like, what does this even mean? Yeah, you guys totally look normal sized. You have not been extended. No one is being extended.

Sarah Holden: [00:00:50] Um, we are kind of extenders. Every county has an extension office in Montana and it's a nationwide cooperative extension.

Josh Slotnick: [00:00:58] Uh, the cooperation with.

Sarah Holden: [00:01:01] Um, with the counties.

Josh Slotnick: [00:01:02] And there's another one. You have a name tag on you. Excellent. Yes.

Sarah Holden: [00:01:08] Our land grant University. Awesome. And so we basically take science based information that has been researched at the land grant University, and we extend it into our communities. Extension for me, I'm taking any information around horticulture, growing food, you know, really just creating a resilient community and we help support that process.

Josh Slotnick: [00:01:29] Awesome. Thanks.

Kelly Moore: [00:01:30] Yeah. In fact, it's part of a great partnership that we can have, uh, because I have a different name tag on.

Josh Slotnick: [00:01:37] Okay. You don't, you don't have those foul blue colors on you.

Kelly Moore: [00:01:41] I've been known to wear those too. But yeah, the fact that we are local, we live in this area. We know all the things. And I love what happens here. And so we're happy to share what we find out from our extension trainings and all the backgrounds we have to share. So yeah, it's a very good partnership.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:01] Family and consumer sciences. What does what does that mean?

Kelly Moore: [00:02:05] Well, actually it used to be called something different. A long time ago when I was in school, they used to call it like, uh, home economics, which it is not that that's part of it, but it's so much more now we talk about the whole family. We talk about trying to help fill the needs of everyone in the family, and they're part of being the community.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:24] And what are some of the classes that you teach?

Kelly Moore: [00:02:26] I've kind of started to focus more a little bit on, uh, more cooking nutrition classes because we have amazing kitchen.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:33] That's.

Kelly Moore: [00:02:33] Incredible in the kitchen. Yes.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:35] It's like a world class teaching kitchen.

Kelly Moore: [00:02:37] Yes. We've had the privilege of having you there.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:38] Yeah. I had such fun. I would gladly do that again.

Kelly Moore: [00:02:41] Yeah, we are very happy to have that. So now that we're established, we can kind of we spend a lot of time trying to create programs that meet the needs of the people here. So we have a lot of kids programs. We have a young chefs program. We have a confidence in the kitchen program to work on basic skills to help build that.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:01] For something like the confidence in the kitchen, is that just adults or would you would you let teenagers be part of.

Kelly Moore: [00:03:06] You know, since we've just begun that program, I'm going to accept whomever wants to be there. Great answer, but I think I have probably a 12 year old coming to the next. A lot of them come with their parents or grandparents. Yeah, I think it's important for everybody to have confidence and to start early for sure. For sure. Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:23] And Sarah horticulture. Yeah. Can you explain what that is?

Sarah Holden: [00:03:27] Yeah. People are always like, what is.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:29] What is that? Is that a lab? Do I need a white coat to be involved in horticulture?

Sarah Holden: [00:03:34] Well, it's really about growing. And I think of this kind of umbrella of insects, disease plants in Missoula where the Garden city. Right. And everybody wants to grow vegetables. I just saw somebody coming in today with a truck full of plants and it's like, okay, are we really ready or is this a false spring?

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:53] But my friend Lucy used to say, buy early and buy often. Yes. She sold starts at Farmers Market next to my family. Totally be the first sunny day in May. And people are buying tomatoes. They are. We'll see you next week. Wait, wait.

Sarah Holden: [00:04:05] So, you know, horticulture to me and how I've kind of worked in the county and putting out programing is basic gardening information. We have a plant clinic and we're one of few in the state that actually has an actual like clinic.

Josh Slotnick: [00:04:21] So what does that mean? What does a plant clinic?

Sarah Holden: [00:04:23] So what we identify you can bring in that those leaves on your tree or what's wrong with my rosebush or what is the spider that I keep seeing in the house? You know, we have these different phases through the year of different things that come in those stink bugs. What are those and what are they doing? So we help people identify and then we diagnose what their problem is, work with them on what their goals are for their property, their pasture. Maybe they have weeds. What do they want to grow in their gardens? Maybe they live in an apartment and we can help work with them on container growing. And the thing about that's great about extension is the county utilizes those resources. They're called Mont Guides, and we have those across the board for all of our foci. So it's a great free resource to everyone to be able to read through that and kind of help guide them.

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:13] Well, Kelly, I see a real connection here. If you're teaching about how to cook food. And Sarah, you're teaching about how to grow food. Do you guys ever link up?

Kelly Moore: [00:05:22] Oh, yeah. Every chance we get. I know she's so busy right now. I get to do spring. Yeah. And that's like you talked about the continuity. Yeah. I mean, to go down and see where the garden is right now and to look back in another month or, you know, later in the fall when we get so much produce that we bring into the gardens, we've done some food preservation classes. So last year we made salsa, we made canned tomatoes, just so many things. And people were able to come take a class on how to do each one of those.

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:55] Oh, that's so important. That's I mean, for years I would hear this concern that, oh, you guys are all about growing food, but come on, it's the north. We have winter for half the year. Be realistic. What would your response be to something like that?

Kelly Moore: [00:06:08] Wow. I think anything's possible. I mean, you've got people with the knowledge and the skills.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:14] But what I was leaning on was food preservation, that people have grown vegetables here for years and lived quite successfully before the interstate highway system, and that would all be around food preservation.

Kelly Moore: [00:06:24] Exactly. And there's getting to be more and more interest coming back to that.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:29] Oh, the food is better and it costs a lot less.

Kelly Moore: [00:06:30] Yeah. For sure. And it feels so good to know that something you had a part of growing.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:35] That's so important. That's that's super important. Yeah, yeah. So Sarah, your little world in Missoula is known for years and years around Master Gardener. This is something that's got a lot of cachet. Do you want to describe to people who haven't heard of it? What is the Master Gardener program?

Sarah Holden: [00:06:50] The Master Gardener Program is a volunteer certification program, so it is not a gardening class. It is for folks that want to commit to a ten week program. It's 2.5 hours every week, and they are committing to becoming a volunteer. And we train them and I have various community partners that will do different presentations, but we train them to be an extension of my programing because it's hard for me to do everything on my own. And so you'll see us at the fair in the ag building talking about different things around gardening. You'll see us at the Saturday Clark Fork River market. We have an Ask a Master Gardener booth there. We do outreach and education opportunities. We have a school program we're working on to put native plants and pollinator gardens in every school in Missoula County right now. They also come up with projects on their own that maybe their church group or a nonprofit they're working. We had one master gardener wrote a grant to beautify the Dearborn Luster traffic circle.

Josh Slotnick: [00:07:56] Fantastic.

Sarah Holden: [00:07:57] So they're just like, I mean, all ages. And I do that course twice a year so that we can get Saturday people and evening people. Yeah. And it's been a real benefit, I feel like, especially in our gardens, the Rocky Mountain gardens, if you haven't come out there, come and visit us. We've got a lot of master gardeners working out there.

Josh Slotnick: [00:08:17] So what are some of the things a Master gardener might learn about in this in this course?

Sarah Holden: [00:08:21] So we learn about ornamental trees. We learn about herbaceous ornamental plants like flowers and herbs. We learn vegetables, soil health which is really important. We do botany, plant propagation, weeds, wildlife exclusion. Native plants have got Mary Rose that comes and talks about pollinators. We're moving away from lawns and irrigation and really trying to change with the times and what people want and what kind of questions we get. And we we can gauge that through our plant clinic of what our community's needs are.

Josh Slotnick: [00:08:56] So those are awesome topics. And how about if somebody has never dabbled in this world but really wants to start growing things, but they're a long ways from Master Gardener. What, what do they do?

Sarah Holden: [00:09:07] Yes. So we have a program. This is a statewide program. In 2022, MSU extension did a statewide needs assessment. And the number one need across the state was gardening. Wow.

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:19] In terms of what people wanted to learn about.

Sarah Holden: [00:09:21] What people wanted to learn about. That's so great. And so they're.

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:23] Ai.

Sarah Holden: [00:09:24] Not AI. Yes.

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:26] A victory humanity.

Sarah Holden: [00:09:27] Bank.

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:28] Zero.

Sarah Holden: [00:09:29] Yeah. I think, you know, local food systems is becoming really important for people. So we have a new program called Gardening in Montana, and that is a one hour series, and I'm offering it once a month on the third Wednesday of every month. And it is offered at lunchtime, from noon to one, or in the evening on the same day, from 6 to 7. It's, you know, five bucks and you get to go home with something.

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:55] Oh, way to go. Yes, sir. That's so great. I love the easy access. Those are the right times, the right price.

Sarah Holden: [00:10:01] And it's just real basic information. So it's not, you know, daunting like some people think of master gardeners for sure.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:09] For sure. Kelly why is it important for people to cook their own food?

Kelly Moore: [00:10:13] I think for one thing, you know, you're going to get well fed if you you have that knowledge. Great answer. Yeah. And I think it kind of the basic need is to obviously eat enough to stay alive. But there's so much more to it than that.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:29] Oh man. I saw an ad the other day for the under $3 menu at McDonald's. That's really cheap poison if you look at it.

Kelly Moore: [00:10:36] Yeah, that's that's.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:37] A lot of times you got to pay more for poison.

Kelly Moore: [00:10:38] Exactly. And I feel like we're kind of into that era where people are more concerned about what they're eating and how it affects them. And how it affects their entire bodies, their entire lives. But I think it gives you a lot more control because what you eat is how you feel. Yeah, for the most part. And so that's a great way to.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:58] Say what you eat is how you feel.

Kelly Moore: [00:10:59] Yeah, yeah, that's got to be so.

Josh Slotnick: [00:11:02] Sarah, how come it's important for people to grow some of their own food? Just some. Just a bit. How come that's important?

Sarah Holden: [00:11:08] I mean, I think Kelly and I have talked about this too with like, as we put together programing, like food is medicine, right? And I have two kids and they loved being out in the garden. I think it's important to create those connections with our younger generation of where our food comes from. That is a disconnect that's happening right now. And I think that, you know, if you just start where you are, you don't have to be an expert. You don't have to grow the most amazing varieties of tomatoes, but you need to be a plant detective and you need to be curious and get out there. And you know, some people like, they grow radishes and they hate radishes. And I say, why do you grow radishes? Well, because my mom grew em or grandma grew em. And so it's like, what do you want to put on your plate? And how do you want to use this food? Is it just like a garden or are you really going to harvest from it and utilize it?

Josh Slotnick: [00:12:03] So have you guys heard from people who say things like, I really want my kids to eat more cold cooked food or eat more vegetables, but they just resist. What should I do? What's your what's your response to that?

Kelly Moore: [00:12:17] Well, I think it's kind of important to start cooking with your kids.

Josh Slotnick: [00:12:20] It's great to.

Kelly Moore: [00:12:21] Expect them to do it and take them shopping with you and say, okay.

Josh Slotnick: [00:12:25] Let's.

Kelly Moore: [00:12:25] Try out something new. What would you like that to be? And I think too, trying to do different things because, Sarah, you were saying the radishes pickle the radishes. I mean, if you've got a different flavor, you're going to make it a little more popular. So that's always a great challenge to me. If I take something that's typically disliked and turn it into something. And that's like a superpower. Yeah. Yeah. But it makes a lot more fun for us who love to cook, doesn't it? Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:12:53] Try the same. The same one. How do I get my kids to eat and then fill in the blank? The green thing or the crunchy red thing? Whatever it is. Sarah. My kids only want to eat white food. Like mac and cheese and bread and pasta, and I can't get them to eat anything green. Help me.

Sarah Holden: [00:13:08] Let's do a rainbow garden.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:10] Ooh.

Sarah Holden: [00:13:11] You know, bring them out to the Rocky Mountain Gardens. We have all sorts of different demonstrations out there, but in our little veggie section, we're going to do a square foot garden demonstration.

Josh Slotnick: [00:13:21] What square foot.

Sarah Holden: [00:13:21] Garden? So it's showing people how to grow in one square foot. And so what you can plant to create like a bounty on your table, instead of feeling like you have to have a whole row of carrots, a whole row of cucumbers. Oftentimes people plant too much. Get the kids out there. Come to our free seed library that we have also at our at our office and let those kiddos pick out some of something neat. There's a really cool radish variety. It's called rat tail. And you don't eat the radish. You eat the flower once it's gone to seed. And so you eat like the pod. It's got a little spicy kick, but it's not too much. So engage your children in that way and then give them a little space in the garden, or a little container on the back deck and let them. We had last year three kiddos that entered into our fair. They had a tea garden, a salsa garden, and a pasta garden.

Josh Slotnick: [00:14:14] Wonderful for them.

Sarah Holden: [00:14:15] Yeah, it was really fun to see them do that. Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:14:19] So I've heard people extoll the virtues of eating seasonally when you can not not every meal, but when you can. Why do you think that would be a good thing to do?

Kelly Moore: [00:14:28] Well, I think because it tastes best that nice job. The number one thing for me. Yeah. And usually it's more accessible. You can just do so many things with it at that time. Yeah. The cost is less sometimes, especially if you get it from the farmers market or different local gardens. It's healthier. Yeah. Right.

Josh Slotnick: [00:14:48] So what do you think?

Sarah Holden: [00:14:50] Well, definitely. You know, we have the zucchini season. And so it's like, what can you do with all these zucchini or squash. Get those root vegetable seasons in the spring. We're out there eating a lot of spinach and arugula and fresh greens.

Josh Slotnick: [00:15:06] It's so wonderful.

Sarah Holden: [00:15:07] Yeah. So it's just I think about like, really, like I said, planning out your garden, understanding what's out there and connecting with it instead of I think some people just plan a garden to plant a garden and they don't connect with it. And so staying connected with what that garden is producing for you and then getting creative, maybe attending one of Kelly's cultivation classes where she teaches you what to do with a beet or what to do with a squash.

Josh Slotnick: [00:15:31] So that's so good. That's so good. So Kelly, you described the Honeybear kitchen, really just, I'd say like world class teaching kitchen. Right behind the building is this incredible garden that I'm sure most people hearing this have visited. Now it's an essential piece of Missoula the Rocky Mountain Gardens. How have your jobs changed since that garden has become what it is now?

Kelly Moore: [00:15:55] It's helped me to create more programing and to find out what the needs of people are. We'll get a lot of suggestions. We'll leave lists out for people to fill out. What kind of classes would you like to see? But that collaboration of getting things from the garden, bringing it up to the kitchen, all the tomatoes that we got and the trial gardens last year were unbelievable. Tomatoes like I have never seen before. That's wonderful. It was just a whole new love affair.

Josh Slotnick: [00:16:22] So a whole bunch of different varieties.

Kelly Moore: [00:16:24] Yes, yes.

Josh Slotnick: [00:16:25] So just for a moment, you guys want to describe what I mean by that when I say a bunch of different varieties. People say tomato. You had a tomato.

Sarah Holden: [00:16:31] It's different shapes, sizes, tastes. You know, the flavor is different. We had a very focused trial on paste Tomatoes last year. So good idea. You know, it's a demonstration garden, so we have signage and interpretation out there for people. And it really helps. The trial space is, I think, one of my favorite spaces because we can engage through our programing. I use it for master gardeners, for projects for them to come up with. I think she's ten years old. We have a girl in our community who has designed our Dahlia like layout for this year, and it's going to be all rainbows. Um, so it'll be all the reds first and going down. And it's just like, I think for me, you know, we had a space before, but it was small and we would seek out other areas. And here it keeps the connection to the Department of Ecology and Extension. And people come into our new building because the gardens are great too. But the building is also fabulous. And our great partner with the butterfly House. But people are like, oh, the conservation is upstairs. Oh, I can go up and ask about weeds. Oh, I can go talk to Jed Little about a mapping thing. And it's really helped act as this hub for our community. We have people that will come to our building to see butterflies, and then they go to the bathroom and they say, oh my gosh, now I can go.

Josh Slotnick: [00:17:53] So much more.

Sarah Holden: [00:17:53] And we have people that come for lunch and just sit on a bench out there. And it's just a really beautiful connecting basically raised for the community.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:02] And so do you have a favorite paste tomato variety?

Sarah Holden: [00:18:06] I'm not.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:07] You can't say.

Sarah Holden: [00:18:08] Are.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:08] You not you're not allowed.

Sarah Holden: [00:18:09] To say really into um.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:11] You're not privy.

Sarah Holden: [00:18:12] To I'm not really into.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:14] Helping.

Sarah Holden: [00:18:14] People I really love like cherry tomatoes. The little sun bolts are my favorite.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:20] Sun gold is.

Sarah Holden: [00:18:21] Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:21] The sun gold is the.

Sarah Holden: [00:18:22] Those are my little favorites.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:24] Apricot colored.

Sarah Holden: [00:18:25] Explosion of.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:26] Sweet.

Sarah Holden: [00:18:26] Tart. And it's just like. And those are really great to plant with kids. Yeah, really entry level accessible.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:33] They are. And they're bright colors, easy to see, and they get really tall. And they're so delicious.

Sarah Holden: [00:18:38] Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:38] Yeah. Well, I'm just going to plug for San Marzano.

Sarah Holden: [00:18:41] Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think that was a pretty popular one. Alex did that whole trial last year.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:46] So she knows what she's doing.

Sarah Holden: [00:18:47] She does.

Kelly Moore: [00:18:48] Yeah. Although that one to me was not the most delicious I thought it would be. There was some and I don't remember the name. Sorry, Alex. Giant. The biggest tomato I've ever seen. Very few seeds, but very. Yes. Wow.

Josh Slotnick: [00:19:03] I wonder to the things that you guys teach about, I feel like are so important and often not spoken of in the same hushed tones that we talk about other things that are important. Yet when people visit that incredible kitchen or those beautiful gardens, they see that these things really are important. If it wasn't important, the kitchen wouldn't look like this. If it wasn't important, we wouldn't have this glorious public space. And I wonder to what degree these physical spaces reinforce the value of what you all are teaching.

Sarah Holden: [00:19:34] Yeah, I think it's it's a huge impact.

Kelly Moore: [00:19:38] Definitely.

Sarah Holden: [00:19:39]  [00:19:39]We have people that come with little notebooks and they're like down on hands and knees looking through the dahlias or in our waterwise space, looking for name tags of this plant. And, and they really take these spaces and, and they move to their own space. And it's like, oh, I can envision this happening in my yard. We really want to make everything accessible and, and to show that like gardening and cooking, it's not a scary feat. And it's not something you have to be an expert at. Exactly. [00:20:08]

Josh Slotnick: [00:20:08] You know, there's all these super popular cooking shows out there, and I feel like they've done us a disservice because they make cooking look like the purview of experts and that the stakes are so high. If you screw up, you get chopped. Yeah, you're out of here, right? When actually both these activities are really low stakes. Like there's no there's no lives hanging in the balance and you should just go for it. Dive in.

Kelly Moore: [00:20:29] And I think it's in the process too. And when I can stand back and watch kids who seem to be very shy in the beginning when they start cooking, it's like they're completely different people and how it brings family units together. Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:20:42] That's a perfect segue for the next thing I was thinking, in my little experience of teaching this class, I saw a little miniature community take hold because we were all in it together. It wasn't sit in the chairs and watch the teacher. We all cooked this giant meal together. Have you felt that happen in other classes, or have you felt that happen in the classes you teach? Sarah?

Kelly Moore: [00:21:01] Yeah, definitely.

Sarah Holden: [00:21:02] Yeah. I have really I'm in grad school right now for agriculture, education and.

Josh Slotnick: [00:21:08] Um, where like.

Sarah Holden: [00:21:09] I miss you.

Josh Slotnick: [00:21:10] Oh that's.

Sarah Holden: [00:21:11] Okay.

Josh Slotnick: [00:21:12] You you've chosen to make the right choice.

Sarah Holden: [00:21:14] Um, but I have really tried to focus the programing through our horticulture department to be hands on and interactive and not death by lecture and like Master gardener gardening in Montana and other classes that we do. We just all are on the same page. Even the ecology department. How can we put people in a real life setting with real world barriers and issues that they're dealing with at home, instead of just giving them a piece of paper and saying, here's what you do. Okay, see you later. [00:21:47] I want to see the light bulb going off, or I want them to come back and say, oh my gosh, I made that change in my compost pile and that really worked. Or I did this differently with my soil, and that really helped with my plants this year. And that's kind of the model of extension. [00:22:02]

Kelly Moore: [00:22:02]  [00:22:02]Yeah. Yeah. And I think too, you can make that reinforcement so important there because I could stand up and talk about nutrition. Okay. What you need to eat, what you need to have. But when people are actually making it themselves and I can say, okay, taste that. That's actually better for you to eat than this would be like if we're talking about lettuce varieties, okay, your iceberg lettuce, you're not going to get a lot out of that. But when they taste the difference, then they're convinced and they'll make a change because of that. [00:22:32]

Josh Slotnick: [00:22:32] So Missoula has this real strong tradition around local food, local food growing and local food eating, multiple farmers markets, restaurants that really feature local food. Why do you guys think that is?

Sarah Holden: [00:22:45] I mean, I haven't lived in a lot of other communities, but I feel like Missoula is so connected and everyone cares about helping others. And, you know, we have a lot of non-profits, Farm Connect and Garden City Harvest and these groups that are trying to support our community in a way that is accessible and equitable and everyone has a chance to try. And there's so many things to do in this community as well around, you know, healthy food around community connection. We just had our Phlox Fest.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:22] Yeah, I've heard it was a, I heard it was a raging success.

Sarah Holden: [00:23:25] It was fabulous. And I was.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:26] Like, oh, plus people at Phlox Fest.

Sarah Holden: [00:23:29] Come and see. Come and try our perennial vegetable over here that's called sea kale. And it's so good right now. If you want to come and get it.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:36] Did did you go to Liz Carlisle's chat about perennial vegetables?

Sarah Holden: [00:23:40] I wanted to be there, but I was teaching Master Gardener in the lupine lab down the hall.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:45] Oh my gosh. Well, I realize I'm diverging here, but there were three folks that were here for that. Liz Carlisle, one of Missoula's famous daughters, went to Hellgate High School. And, you know, their life began to slide a little bit. She ended up at Harvard. I mean, yeah, UC Berkeley for a PhD professorship at Santa Barbara, written multiple books. And it was great to have her come back, start her latest book tour right here. But she brought with her Aubrey Street Craig, her coauthor, and Mariah, Mariah Gladstone and oh my gosh, I and I got to moderate this, which I didn't take much. I basically just had to sit there and be quiet. And I guess that's a real challenge for me. But these three women were so insanely brilliant. Each of them just incredible. I think one of the most powerful panels I've ever witnessed, just really incredible. And you could feel the crowd engaged. And that too, in the same building you guys work.

Sarah Holden: [00:24:40] In, right? Yeah, yeah, that's what I think. Fun about our building is it's not just for us.

Josh Slotnick: [00:24:45] Oh, it's such a wonderful.

Sarah Holden: [00:24:46] Public space to come in with the same sort of, like, intention and mission. We welcome you in. MUD is doing a bingo night with plants. And, you know, it's just a great space to continue those connections. And what I love about Missoula is there's so much offered around food and nutrition and agriculture and community connections. It's not just us. It's like we can all collaborate together.

Josh Slotnick: [00:25:11] Oh, it's so good. Kelly, do you have anything to add to that?

Kelly Moore: [00:25:14] Well, I think to yeah, just speaks again of the partnerships that we really valued always through wherever we've gone to do programs. But the fact that we can be all housed in the same building And it's not, hey, we do this better than you do. We're in competition. It's just finding our place and, um, hoping for everybody to come join us in whatever capacity they can.

Josh Slotnick: [00:25:37] Yeah. That's all. That's super good. So I was going off about the Liz Carlisle event. You guys have tons of events. What's coming up in the near term you want to make sure people know about.

Sarah Holden: [00:25:47] I want to just give a plug again for gardening in Montana. Check out our website Missoula eduplace.org. I also wanted to mention that we have pop up plant clinics that are going to be going up in our rural areas of Missoula County that will help support our community members.

Josh Slotnick: [00:26:07] Where.

Sarah Holden: [00:26:07] You meet them, where they are. We have one scheduled May 12th in Lolo. I think the other one is also May 12th in East Missoula. We're looking at Bonner, Clinton, Frenchtown and working on Seeley Lake Condon area. So, you know, there will be opportunities to bring those pesky bugs or those dying leaves in to those pop up plant clinics. And then my last challenge is to enter something that you grow into the fair. This year, we would love to expand our agriculture exhibits, and the fair will be a little longer this year.

Josh Slotnick: [00:26:46] And so given that, would somebody enter something just for a few days and then maybe another thing for a few days, because it's not going to hold up for eight days.

Sarah Holden: [00:26:52] I know that is the one.

Josh Slotnick: [00:26:54] Thing you can do a few days, a.

Sarah Holden: [00:26:55] Few.

Josh Slotnick: [00:26:55] Days of the other.

Sarah Holden: [00:26:57] It will start to look a little peckish. But Kelly and I both are superintendents at the fair, and it's a little bit early, but, you know, bring in your garlic or your onions or what you have. Don't be afraid to enter our open class and help shine and show what you do.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:13] Yeah, yeah.

Kelly Moore: [00:27:14] We have some classes that are pretty much regular or cultivate and cook classes are monthly. All of these classes require registration. Some sell out early, which is great confidence in the kitchen. Monthly Young Chefs in the kitchen is a bimonthly class.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:29] And how old are the young chefs?

Kelly Moore: [00:27:31] I've had three year olds all the way up to 12.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:35] Okay, awesome. So like elementary school kids.

Kelly Moore: [00:27:37] Pretty much preschool. Yeah. Awesome. And so, and that again, the younger kids usually have someone to help them out who will come over. And so there's a lot more than just learning how to cook, which is the fun part to watch. And then occasionally we have guest chefs, amazing guest chefs who come and give up their time. So I know we have a bagel and a pizza class coming up in the near future from a guest chef.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:03] So cool. Those are great. Okay, so before our standard last question, I got to ask you my own, my own last question. Um, do you have favorite things to eat in spring? It's spring right now. It's coming up. It's early spring. Still two. I mean, it's really warm and sunny today, but it's we're still getting quite cold at night.

Sarah Holden: [00:28:20] I mean, I was just nibbling in our gardens. The sea kale, it's a perennial vegetable, and it's really juicy. It's got a little zing to it, but some people think it tastes salty. I just think it tastes yummy and juicy. But I really love just the tender young greens. You know, that's what I get.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:40] Good.

Sarah Holden: [00:28:41] Get out. And I love radishes as well.

Kelly Moore: [00:28:43] Yeah, I'm pretty much the same way too. Anything that's green and watermelon radishes I love those are my favorite. Yes. And, uh, yeah, anything you can put a nice dressing on? I'm good. Yeah. There you go.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:55] Well, great. Okay. Our standard last question. Anything you guys have run into in the recent past in the world of culture. So that could be a book, a movie, a podcast, just an interesting conversation you have with somebody where you thought, wow, there was something in there that I'm going to remember that really stuck with me and it's worth passing on.

Sarah Holden: [00:29:13] I recently read Dirt to Soil.

Josh Slotnick: [00:29:16] Um, great title.

Sarah Holden: [00:29:18] Yeah. And it's about a farming family that kind of was going under, and they changed their practices to regenerative practices and really focused on the soil and and going from dirt to soil, as they said.

Josh Slotnick: [00:29:33] What were they growing?

Sarah Holden: [00:29:34] And they were growing commercial, large commercial crops in Nebraska.

Josh Slotnick: [00:29:38] Vegetables, grains.

Sarah Holden: [00:29:39] Yeah, that really connected with me. I'm from Illinois, originally moved here in 97, but just the way the the change was so scary for so long with this family and the generations. And then the younger son came up and said, this is how we're doing it, or we're going to lose the farm and went to regenerative practices. And now they're a thriving, multi-generational family farm. Yeah. So just stick with it. You know.

Josh Slotnick: [00:30:04] Dirt soil people. Yeah, check that out.

Kelly Moore: [00:30:06] It's great. I recently was kind of really taken in by the blue zone kind of. Yeah, yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:30:12] So describe to folks what those are.

Kelly Moore: [00:30:13] Yeah. Well, how certain areas of the world, certain cultures tend to live longer lives, healthier lives, and what makes the difference? So I'm sorry, I can't remember the person who did that. Yeah. Uh, which was on Netflix to watch, but it was very interesting to see all the aspects of.

Josh Slotnick: [00:30:32] The Mediterranean.

Kelly Moore: [00:30:33] Diet. Yes, exactly.

Josh Slotnick: [00:30:35] And things like it's okay to have your bedroom upstairs because it's good to walk upstairs.

Kelly Moore: [00:30:39] That's right, that's right.

Josh Slotnick: [00:30:40] Have things a little lower and a little higher. So you bend down and reach up. Yeah.

Kelly Moore: [00:30:44] Just it's a lifestyle, not just a. I'll do this for a little while and see how it works. So I'm always fascinated in that and the culturally diverse recipes and foods and again, eating locally. And it's so fun to do so.

Josh Slotnick: [00:30:58] Yeah, yeah. Farmers markets coming up, people. You can go buy all kinds of yummy crunchy green things.

Kelly Moore: [00:31:02] That's going to be exciting.

Josh Slotnick: [00:31:04] Well, thank you guys so much. Not just for coming here today, which I get you could be doing other things, but for the great work that you do for all of us. Thank you so.

Kelly Moore: [00:31:11] Much. Thank you all for your support too.

Josh Slotnick: [00:31:14] You bet. You bet. Thank you. See you all soon. Thanks. Thanks for listening to the agenda. If you enjoy these conversations, it would mean a lot if you would rate and review the show on whichever podcast app you use.

Juanita Vero: [00:31:27] And if you know a friend who would like to keep up with what's happening in local government, be sure to recommend this podcast to them.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:31:33] The agenda with the Missoula County Commissioners is made possible with support from Missoula Community Access Television, better known as MCAT, and our staff in the Missoula County Communications Division.

Josh Slotnick: [00:31:45] If you have a question or a topic you'd like us to discuss on a future episode, email it to Communications@missoulacounty.us.

Juanita Vero: [00:31:52] To find out other ways to stay up to date with what's happening in Missoula County, go to missoula.com/updates.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:32:00] Thanks for listening.