ABOUT MONTANA BOWL OF CHERRIES
Get Our Thursday Newsletter
Our Thursday newsletter, With Love, Rhonda, is free and contains our latest garden inspiration and ideas, along with updates and every once in a while, a printable to encourage your Homestead Harmony journey. How do you get With Love, Rhonda coming to your inbox? Just leave us your name and email to receive the Gardening Adventure Guide.
Homestead Harmony
I love the word synergy; a business term that means when all parts work together, they create a force more than the sum of all parts. That same definition applies to the concept behind Homestead Harmony. Montana Bowl of Cherries is about creating products and inspiration for those who want to create a place where all parts of their homestead create a more sustainable living, adding to an already full and busy lifestyle. Scroll down and let me show you how you can easily build your own Homestead Harmony.
Hi! I’m Rhonda
I live in Eastern Montana (USA) on an acre homestead with Cameron, my amazing husband and our Golden Retriever, Libby. Together, we raise laying hens, vegetables, herbs and flowers, and have been family caregivers for many years. There is a lot going on in this small space and I love that! This has become a wonderful way of life that has become known as Montana Bowl of Cherries..
It all started with a chicken, sort of…
Cameron is a Navy Veteran, and we have lived and gardened in a lot of places. We have lived and gardened here for over 20 years and hauled in all kinds of amendments to our clay soil. Our gardens have always done well at feeding us all but then in 2010 things changed.
Cameron’s dad was diagnosed with Dementia so we built a new garage with an apartment attached at our place and moved Grandpa and Grandma to our house. All that foundation work made piles of clay that had to go somewhere so we spread them out in our back yard. Nothing grew there except tall nasty weeds.
We got rid of our 10 chickens and turned their little coop back into a shed when we started our construction project. I really wanted chickens again but things were really busy with our jobs, taking care of Grandpa, our children and trying to figure out what to do with all this back yard mess. Some research gave us an idea to build a new coop and exchange garden space with the chickens. The rest of the story is Montana Bowl of Cherries.
Well-fed Family
In the Homestead Harmony wheel, the Well-fed Family uses the fruits (and vegetables, herbs, flowers, and eggs) of their labor to add whole foods to their diet and to improve their well-being. This Well-fed Family doesn’t allow life to slip by them and the Goal Warrior Planner helps them enjoy life and set goals for improvement.
Contented Chickens
Adding the chickens to our homestead was a game-changer! Our soil is better than it ever was, even before the construction project. We don’t haul in anything to amend our soil anymore and our current vegetable garden produces twice as much as our Before Construction garden did. In fact, the chickens do so much garden work that the eggs are an added bonus.
Chickens don’t require as much care as you might think, just a few minutes a day, on average. We chose breeds that forage well so that they scratch up the dirt a lot. Hardy breeds that can handle both the extreme heat and the cold are necessary in the Frozen North. Stop being afraid to add chickens to your Homestead Harmony! We have so much information and products to get you started on your adventure, you’ll be ready in no time.
Amended Soil + Drip Irrigation
The combination of getting organic matter into our soil and how we water, turns clay soil into a beautiful, productive home for all of our plants. How does this happen without adding hours of work to an already full week? Let me show you…
Bountiful Garden
From planning your landscaping. through starting seeds in an indoor greenhouse, to how to harvest basil, our Gardening section of the blog has you covered. If you like video, we have you covered there too, with Montana_Bowl_of_Cherries YouTube channel. How about jumping right into an edible landscape in your own space? We have a course that not only teaches you to plan that landscaping (with a lot of helpful edible plant ideas) but also teaches you how to build microclimates so you can grow just about anything!
So Much More
There is so much more available on Montana Bowl of Cherries. Try out the menu found at the bottom of the page on your phone or the top of the page on your desktop. Thank you for joining us!