Matthew Broughton's guest appearances

Matthew Broughton

GREEN Organic Garden Podcast

C21Media

Paul Kita

Erik Ohlsen

Ray Tyler

Richard Wiswall

Ellen Polishuk

Jeff Lowenfels

Tara Austen Weaver

Michael Judd

Ira Wallace

David Thompson

Tess Burzynski

Megan Cain

Andrew Mefferd

Diane Blazek

Kentucky Hemp

OwlTail

Paul Davis

Absinthe Film Entertainment’s Richard Curson Smith and Jeremy Campbell plus writer Matthew Broughton discuss new Sky comedy-drama Orson Welles in Norwich, while Getty Images senior EMEA sales director Paul Davis explains how documentary producers are making use of the company's video archive during lockdown.

Richard Curson Smith, Jeremy Campbell, Matthew Broughton & Paul Davis

sorry everyone about the sound but I felt that Matthew dropped so many valuable golden seeds I couldn’t not share. I’m super excited to introduce my featured guest Matthew Broughton from 3 Fiddles Farm. Tell us a little about yourself. I guess since this is farm related I’ll give you some history of myself and our farm. In our pre interview you asked me how old I was. I am 4 days away from being 44. Being a farmer is a relatively new career for me.  I came to farming 9 years ago. My background, is I am the son of a marine that traveled around the US and Europe for most of my childhood without having a home. When my dad left the marine corps we came to Montana Went to MSU and studied biological sciences and I got a job after graduation as a research associate  studying  organic cropping systems organic pesticides I had never grown a vegetable for food and I had never really had a garden then I met my wife, when we met she was already in 2007 a professional farmer.  We were married in 2008. I promptly became an organic farmer Was your dad from Montana? My family came to Montana in the early 1980s late 1970s on a vacation when he was a young man in the 1960s maybe 50s he came here before he  went into the Marine Corps to become a cowboy. Back then Montana had a lot of Cowboys, instead of trucks and 4 wheelers. Worked in timber and also worked in Jackson hole infected with the west Louis LaMore novels he had this idealized dream of what Montana was when he retired from the Marine Corps he bought a little ranchette in the mountains and that’s how we ended up here. In late ‘80s move I went to university and studied organic ag. I went to grad school at MSU and was considering a PHD program but the majority of the places that were applicable for my field of students which was mechanical pesticides none were in the mountains Kansas State and Purdue and places where the mountains were badly erased by the glaciers. Decided not to go on and pursue a phD and stayed in Bozeman I’m a musician started playing with the Bridger Street boys The band had enough momentum and business  didn’t leave Bozeman  the short version how I came to be in Bozeman and how I started farming. Then is your first experience on your wife’s farm? My first experience was the first season on our farm she worked for a big organic farm when we got married she decided she wanted to be her own boss started our farm in the first year of our marriage. We were skeptical of how wise it was to start a business when you’re starting a marriage but my wife and I we work well together.  We powered through the learning curve of her husband being her intern. I did not know the difference between shell peas, snow peas, snap peas, and beans when we first started. I grew up in a family that did not have a very intense food culture. We were very much average American food consumers. It was a very enlightening experience who grew up in Minnesota with a mom who was an adamant organic gardener. Her family practiced food preservation and year round  garden food consumption My family was a weekly grocery shopper It was a very different experience for me food culture I was the ignorant along for the ride Now 9 years later, I am an extremely ardent and passionate organic farmer.  Practice homestead arts year round food consumption from our farm enlightening experience and stuff gain a land connection You have this degree in biology? I went to graduate school for etymology but studying big ag not small organic organic wheat storage and also worked in sugar beet production Trying to develop organic pesticides in those industries. When I worked at the University we grew plants in a greenhouse but we were growing  pesticidal plants. Do you think about going back and becoming a teacher? You know my wife and I have long term plans of taking our farming technique and transitioning it into education. W’ere practicing I guess its own little discipline stick landscape and soil management Native cover cropping nutrient cycle management that is very much not inline what contemporary organic industry is practicing. You seem to have a knowledge base, a very scientific background, and you know what it’s like to teach and you’ve been a student of those practices and then you’ve gone out on your own and done this other project with your wife and you seem uniquely positioned to teach this well. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about going to school and learning what is very different then best practices especially wanting to get your PhD at some point to stay in Montana Tell us about something that grew well this year. We’re just in the start of the growing season, just transitioning from spring into our cool season. It could be from last season or something that grew well this spring like peas… things that grow well for us on our farm focus of our production system lettuces head lettuce we also grow lots of crops in our greenhouse tomatoes and peppers the tomatoes and peppers are the mean stay of our year round diet vitamin c consumption for our family and something we put a lot of focus. You grow those year round in the rocky mountains in Bozeman. not getting food from out garden but we are eating it all year round. grow in a short intense season here in the rocking mountains drying, canning, fermenting and  freezing we are able to eat, my family consumes a year round diet of vegetables and meat off of our farm. The property is 13 acres we have a little over 2 acres for vegetables the raining property  graze 2 beef cows extensive shelter various berry service berry and choke cherry about 6 acres of grass for grazing 3 acres of trees and brush and berry bushes Awesome, that sounds lovely but 2 acres sounds like a lot of work for 2 people. We used to have interns and volunteers and it was too complex of an issue did some business analysis of effort and reward and decided to change our business model  no outside  we don’t live at our farm live 12 miles away from our farm commuting to and from the farm weather events coordinating schedules unsustainable for us to have people work for us we didn’t change our production scale we changed our techniques it is challenging we’re tillable 15,000 lbs of fresh produce per year You sell your produce at the farmer’s market 85% of our production is sold across the table at farmer’s market remaining 15% is for sale is to Red Tractor Pizza sell a bunch of vegetables meatball or steak pizza gamut of vegetables… I had a farm man pizza! It was so good. What’s the biggest challenge to the two of you doing it by yourselves? At this point in farming 9th season my wife’s 11th season the biggest challenge  really  financially and psychologically is marketing To growing food the challenges of farming in Montana while difficult  it’s pretty predictable your gonna have   bad weather bugs weeds  that’s to be expected when you harvest a bountiful amount of food and needs to be sold immediately and your beholden to the whim of the customer and the whim of the market If you harvest 200 heads of lettuce and there are only 100 people buying lettuces I know that seems to be the problem with us either like I was thinking I should take the swiss chard to the market but I didn’t go. You seem to be making it,you show up at the farmer’s market. So I think what one of the ways we address that challenge of marketing  So over the last nine market seasons there have been lots and lots of opportunities to interact with customers. When I first started farming and selling I didn’t have this aggressive eco warrior attitude about things. most people’s that are shoppers are not militant leftists it became an important part or our marketing key to make the  happy healthy client. food is great and makes you happy to eat it and it’s so healthy for you Stop with the message why it’s important to grow  break out of the corporate food system…. My take on things, I have many people who consider environmental and health problems deeply it’s very easy to become passionate and a zealot of what’s going on as a business owner and as a marketing director for our little business rapidly became obvious marketing can’t be intertwined with the activist aspect of what we’re doing because it’s very easy to turn customers away from you by being overly passionate about the activist thing. I run into that all the time… getting myself in trouble and running my mouth off, especially thinking everyone thinks like I do, and I think this is great for people to know That’s the extent of our listening online pretty low-key tells people where we are and what we grow basic biographical facts about the farm considered trying to take the modern approach extra effort Facebook saw that as the exposure for a challenge in business when we considering it with the friends of planet natural organic gardening stores He told me a tale of woe because people were trolling him kinds of time to manage his Facebook employees help him sounded like a rabbit hole we didn’t want to go down as business owners since we were doing direct marketing didn’t see the digital thing as an important step so we consciously chose not to embrace the digital media. I think people will be excited to hear that too that don’t want to be digital and that there are other options out there Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? We’ve been doing varietal trials the whole time at our garden source our seeds from fabulous  seed purveyors primarily taste evaluation sometimes we value our crop on productivity but since we are the primary consumers of our food flavor is of upmost concern to us We trial probably 100 varieties of tomatoes Every kind of pea and bean that’s available. all kinds of carrots and beets and cabbage seeds only have a couple new trials this year we’re not really trying too many varieties. One thing we are doing is attempting to grow sweet potatoes You are I love sweet potatoes. They are vining nicely right now I just just acquired a fabulous digging fork industrial grade 2 handled digging fork challenge of digging we won’t know till we get close to the fall frost yield  cold cycles at the start of the spring our spring crops  our early turnips and spinach the things we fill the table with at the start of the market season all bolted. who get seeds? most of our seeds are sourced from Baker Creek Heirloom Fine mowing nickel seeds most of them mainly the smaller  Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden. Even things that make us uncomfortable we enjoy We use thistles to mine those minerals. There’s a deep layer of soil and minterals below your crops.. thistles very important for our nutrient cycle system one of the things that’s unique about our farm the soil is extremely deep beaver meadow parts of our landscape. when you get into mountain valleys in Montana there are areas that are very flat every time a beaver makes a dam mountain builds up the silt when the water stops flowering the beaver moves continues to block the water  those ponds and collections of silt the top soil somebody dug a pond IDK dug a 20foot deep hole

sorry everyone about the sound but I felt that Matthew dropped so many valuable golden seeds I couldn’t not share. I’m super excited to introduce my featured guest Matthew Broughton from 3 Fiddles Farm. Tell us a little about yourself. I guess since this is farm related I’ll give you some history of myself and our farm. In our pre interview you asked me how old I was. I am 4 days away from being 44. Being a farmer is a relatively new career for me. I came to farming 9 years ago. My background, is I am the son of a marine that traveled around the US and Europe for most of my childhood without having a home. When my dad left the marine corps we came to Montana Went to MSU and studied biological sciences and I got a job after graduation as a research associate  studying organic cropping systems organic pesticides I had never grown a vegetable for food and I had never really had a garden then I met my wife, when we met she was already in 2007 a professional farmer. We were married in 2008. I promptly became an organic farmer Was your dad from Montana? My family came to Montana in the early 1980s late 1970s on a vacation when he was a young man in the 1960s maybe 50s he came here before he  went into the Marine Corps to become a cowboy. Back then Montana had a lot of Cowboys, instead of trucks and 4 wheelers. Worked in timber and also worked in Jackson hole infected with the west Louis LaMore novels he had this idealized dream of what Montana was when he retired from the Marine Corps he bought a little ranchette in the mountains and that’s how we ended up here. In late ‘80s move I went to university and studied organic ag. I went to grad school at MSU and was considering a PHD program but the majority of the places that were applicable for my field of students which was mechanical pesticides none were in the mountains Kansas State and Purdue and places where the mountains were badly erased by the glaciers. Decided not to go on and pursue a phD and stayed in Bozeman I’m a musician started playing with the Bridger Street boys The band had enough momentum and business didn’t leave Bozeman the short version how I came to be in Bozeman and how I started farming. Then is your first experience on your wife’s farm? My first experience was the first season on our farm she worked for a big organic farm when we got married she decided she wanted to be her own boss started our farm in the first year of our marriage. We were skeptical of how wise it was to start a business when you’re starting a marriage but my wife and I we work well together.  We powered through the learning curve of her husband being her intern. I did not know the difference between shell peas, snow peas, snap peas, and beans when we first started. I grew up in a family that did not have a very intense food culture. We were very much average American food consumers. It was a very enlightening experience who grew up in Minnesota with a mom who was an adamant organic gardener. Her family practiced food preservation and year round  garden food consumption My family was a weekly grocery shopper It was a very different experience for me food culture I was the ignorant along for the ride Now 9 years later, I am an extremely ardent and passionate organic farmer. Practice homestead arts year round food consumption from our farm enlightening experience and stuff gain a land connection You have this degree in biology? I went to graduate school for etymology but studying big ag not small organic organic wheat storage and also worked in sugar beet production Trying to develop organic pesticides in those industries. When I worked at the University we grew plants in a greenhouse but we were growing pesticidal plants. Do you think about going back and becoming a teacher? You know my wife and I have long term plans of taking our farming technique and transitioning it into education. W’ere practicing I guess its own little discipline stick landscape and soil management Native cover cropping nutrient cycle management that is very much not inline what contemporary organic industry is practicing. You seem to have a knowledge base, a very scientific background, and you know what it’s like to teach and you’ve been a student of those practices and then you’ve gone out on your own and done this other project with your wife and you seem uniquely positioned to teach this well. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about going to school and learning what is very different then best practices especially wanting to get your PhD at some point to stay in Montana Tell us about something that grew well this year. We’re just in the start of the growing season, just transitioning from spring into our cool season. It could be from last season or something that grew well this spring like peas… things that grow well for us on our farm focus of our production system lettuces head lettuce we also grow lots of crops in our greenhouse tomatoes and peppers the tomatoes and peppers are the mean stay of our year round diet vitamin c consumption for our family and something we put a lot of focus. You grow those year round in the rocky mountains in Bozeman. not getting food from out garden but we are eating it all year round. grow in a short intense season here in the rocking mountains drying, canning, fermenting and freezing we are able to eat, my family consumes a year round diet of vegetables and meat off of our farm. The property is 13 acres we have a little over 2 acres for vegetables the raining property graze 2 beef cows extensive shelter various berry service berry and choke cherry about 6 acres of grass for grazing 3 acres of trees and brush and berry bushes Awesome, that sounds lovely but 2 acres sounds like a lot of work for 2 people. We used to have interns and volunteers and it was too complex of an issue did some business analysis of effort and reward and decided to change our business model no outside we don’t live at our farm live 12 miles away from our farm commuting to and from the farm weather events coordinating schedules unsustainable for us to have people work for us we didn’t change our production scale we changed our techniques it is challenging we’re tillable 15,000 lbs of fresh produce per year You sell your produce at the farmer’s market 85% of our production is sold across the table at farmer’s market remaining 15% is for sale is to Red Tractor Pizza sell a bunch of vegetables meatball or steak pizza gamut of vegetables… I had a farm man pizza! It was so good. What’s the biggest challenge to the two of you doing it by yourselves? At this point in farming 9th season my wife’s 11th season the biggest challenge really financially and psychologically is marketing To growing food the challenges of farming in Montana while difficult it’s pretty predictable your gonna have <ul> <li>bad weather</li> <li>bugs</li> <li>weeds</li> </ul> that’s to be expected when you harvest a bountiful amount of food and needs to be sold immediately and your beholden to the whim of the customer and the whim of the market If you harvest 200 heads of lettuce and there are only 100 people buying lettuces I know that seems to be the problem with us either like I was thinking I should take the swiss chard to the market but I didn’t go. You seem to be making it,you show up at the farmer’s market. So I think what one of the ways we address that challenge of marketing So over the last nine market seasons there have been lots and lots of opportunities to interact with customers. When I first started farming and selling I didn’t have this aggressive eco warrior attitude about things. most people’s that are shoppers are not militant leftists it became an important part or our marketing key to make the happy healthy client. food is great and makes you happy to eat it and it’s so healthy for you Stop with the message why it’s important to grow break out of the corporate food system…. My take on things, I have many people who consider environmental and health problems deeply it’s very easy to become passionate and a zealot of what’s going on as a business owner and as a marketing director for our little business rapidly became obvious marketing can’t be intertwined with the activist aspect of what we’re doing because it’s very easy to turn customers away from you by being overly passionate about the activist thing. I run into that all the time… getting myself in trouble and running my mouth off, especially thinking everyone thinks like I do, and I think this is great for people to know That’s the extent of our listening online pretty low-key tells people where we are and what we grow basic biographical facts about the farm considered trying to take the modern approach extra effort Facebook saw that as the exposure for a challenge in business when we considering it with the friends of planet natural organic gardening stores He told me a tale of woe because people were trolling him kinds of time to manage his Facebook employees help him sounded like a rabbit hole we didn’t want to go down as business owners since we were doing direct marketing didn’t see the digital thing as an important step so we consciously chose not to embrace the digital media. I think people will be excited to hear that too that don’t want to be digital and that there are other options out there Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? We’ve been doing varietal trials the whole time at our garden source our seeds from fabulous seed purveyors primarily taste evaluation sometimes we value our crop on productivity but since we are the primary consumers of our food flavor is of upmost concern to us We trial probably 100 varieties of tomatoes Every kind of pea and bean that’s available. all kinds of carrots and beets and cabbage seeds only have a couple new trials this year we’re not really trying too many varieties. One thing we are doing is attempting to grow sweet potatoes You are I love sweet potatoes. They are vining nicely right now I just just acquired a fabulous digging fork industrial grade 2 handled digging fork challenge of digging we won’t know till we get close to the fall frost yield cold cycles at the start of the spring our spring crops our early turnips and spinach the things we fill the table with at the start of the market season all bolted. who get seeds? most of our seeds are sourced from Baker Creek Heirloom Fine mowing nickel seeds most of them mainly the smaller Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden. Even things that make us uncomfortable we enjoy We use thistles to mine those minerals. There’s a deep layer of soil and minterals below your crops.. thistles very important for our nutrient cycle system one of the things that’s unique about our farm the soil is extremely deep beaver meadow parts of our landscape. when you get into mountain valleys in Montana there are areas that are very flat every time a beaver makes a dam mountain builds up the silt when the water stops flowering the beaver moves continues to block the water those ponds and collections of silt the top soil somebody dug a pond IDK dug a 20foot deep hole

198. Three Fiddles Farm | Bozeman Farmer’s Market | Matthew Broughton