Our Farm

KD Farms is nestled in the Flathead Valley in Northwest Montana.  Our name is new, but our farm isn't.   I am a fourth generation farmer in Montana.  My father's grandfather started out homesteading in Malta, and after several drought years, packed up (didn't sell anything; they just left) and moved to the Flathead Valley.  We are a family owned and operated farm that is very diverse in what we raise.   

Over the years, we have raised peppermint, alfalfa, winter and spring wheat, barley, malt barley, dill weed, peas, lentils, canola, oats, forage mixes, cover crops, pigs, sheep, cattle, etc.  Farming is a life of trying to figure out what you might make money raising and then doing it while praying for good weather, good prices, trying to manage the crop the best you can, and praying that your machinery doesn't break down during harvest.  

In 2017, my father and I decided to shift farming practices.  We farm ground that is almost entirely sand and always struggle with large irrigation bills, moisture loss, and significant inputs due to poor soil fertility.  We stumbled upon a farming practice that is common in other areas of the country, but not so common up here in Northwest Montana.   It's called "no-till" farming.  

Basically, the idea is that you try to limit soil disturbance as much as possible to allow the soil microbes to survive and begin to more effectively cycle nutrients.  Cycling nutrients is what happens when a plant dies, rots, and then is "eaten" by bacteria, insects, and fungus present in the soil.  The things that eat the dead plant deposit the nutrients from the dead plant back into the soil, allowing the next plant that grows in the area to utilize those nutrients.  The idea is kind of like composting, but your compost "pile" is the entire field.

So, we bought a drill (or implement that plants seeds) that is heavy enough, strong enough, and has leading coulters (sharp discs for cutting through plants on the soil surface) that enables us to plant a field without tilling it up first.   So our first change: stop tilling unless absolutely necessary.  I call this part of our farming "Save the Worms!" Or STW, for short.  

The second practice we recently adopted (2017) is using cover crops to build our soil health.  Cover crops compliment no-till well in that they can provide a jump start to the following cash crop via fixing nitrogen, feed the soil microbes via more organic material, provide shade to otherwise bare ground to mitigate evaporation and topsoil erosion, and, if chosen wisely, cover crops can even help reduce weed and pest pressures for subsequent crops.  

The third practice we have adopted, my personal favorite, is we now have a small herd of cows that is employed to manage the cover crops and do some fertilization on the side.  When you grow a large/tall cover crop, you have to do something to manage the foliage on top of the soil so you can plant again.  We can't till the organic material from the cover crop into the soil because of STW, thus, enter the bovines.  Cows, though sometimes not the best at motor skills and/or machinery repair, are most excellent at managing organic material and speeding up plant breakdown!

When we can, we intensive graze the cows during the summer so they evenly spread the recycled organic material and maximize the forage utilization.  Also, there are additional soil microbe benefits by having slobbery cows tearing the tops of plants off and treading plants into the ground where the soil dwellers can reach them.  Cows are also excellent at knocking down a stand of mature grass into a mat that protects the soil from direct sunlight and inhibits evaporation.

And, last but certainly not least, a pasture-raised steer is tasty.  Unfortunately, I have a bad habit of naming some of my cows.   If you are buying meat from us, I may be able to tell you a story or two about the animal that gave up it's life for your nourishment.  But don't feel bad!   I treat my cows really well and they have a good life while on our farm.    

Cows aside, our goal at KD Farms is to build our soil health to the point that we don't need to use synthetic fertilizers and can reduce the use of herbicides in raising the crops as well. 

You can see how our recent changes all go hand in hand. They "make sense" to us and we feel a whole lot better about how we are taking care of the soil we have the responsibility of tending. Unfortunately, being recent adopters of these practices, it's gonna take a few years to get our soil to the level of nutrient cycling required to eliminate fertilizer altogether.  But, we feel that we're on the right path, both financially and environmentally.