Orion Farmstead

07/23/2026

We are excited to announce ORION FARM MARKET & NURSERY!

This building and our nursery is a labor of love and we are happy to say it’s open to the public.

We have stocked our shelves with local MT vendors, ranging from chicken, pork, eggs, and beef to seasonally grown produce. We also have fresh mozzarella cheese, honey, kombucha, and ice cream!

The nursery is stocked with fruit and nut trees. Decorate your back yard with your own fruit garden.
We have multiple varieties of apple, pear, cherry, apricot, and walnuts.

Interested in eating more seasonally?

We will also be stocking the Orion Farm Market with seasonal vegetables and fungi grown on Orion Farmstead.

The Farm Market is located on Orion farmstead:

40740 MT-200
Ovando, MT

Stop by any day from
8am-8pm
And support rural MT access to farm fresh foods!

07/17/2026

Hey MONTANA peoples 📣

Orion will be in MISSOULA
Sat. July 18th
at the Missoula Farmers’ Market- the ###Xs on Higgins
From 8a-12:30p!!

We will have multiple trees with us and a whole lot of information on what we have been up to on Orion Farmstead!

If you’re interested in starting your own fruit tree garden, we have some wonderful options for you:

Apples
Apricots
Cherries
Pears
And even walnut trees

Stop by and say hi, see you all tomorrow!

06/24/2026

We are so excited for THIS COMING WEEKENDS Festival!

We have partnered with Montana Herbal Festival, we will be hosting the 4th annual Festival at Orion!

We have 3 outdoor classroom spaces (don’t worry we have plans for potential weather changes), a welcome and vendor space, a 6 foot bonfire, river access, catered lunch, camping opportunities, and not to mention the amazing line up of teachers and classes!

We have raffle items and a special vendor opportunity- if you are a participant in this year’s festival you can set up a booth or simply vend from a basket at the festival!

Check out the vendor information on the Montana Herbal Festival’s website.

Orion’s Farmstand is up and ready to go- grab some local goodies in between classes.

Please think about the weather and bring what you need, we recommend a blanket or camp chair to enjoy the scenery, comfortable walking shoes, and cash to support your vendors and grab a raffle ticket!

Forgot something important at home, no problem we are just minutes away from the town of Ovando! Missed your chance for a catered meal ticket? That’s okay too, bring a sack lunch or grab a meal from a restaurant in Ovando.

Our Last chance tickets are open through tomorrow, June 25th until Midnight.

Go to Mtherbalfest.org to get yours, see you there!

06/23/2026

We had a great turn out last weekend with our Big on Biochar hands on class here at Orion Farmstead!

A big thank you to Kelpie Wilson and David Atkins for teaching about the best methods for making Biochar.

It’s not magic, it’s Biochar!

Biochar is a porous charcoal made by heating organic matter in low oxygen environments. BUT it’s so much more than that- Biochar is used as a soil amendment, reduces emissions like methane, improves soil aeration and increases water retention, is an environmental mitigation tool, and really so much more!

We loved hosting Big on Biochar and thank all those who participated!

06/09/2026

06/08/2026

Orion Farmstead is looking for someone to help out for the 2026 season!

We live near Ovando, MT, right on Monture Creek.

Three to four people live on the farm, along with one dog and a cat. 🐈

We’re dedicated to reawakening in our visitors a sense of broader community — humankind’s relationship with the rest of the natural world and the origins of our food.

By offering stays on our regenerative farm and farm-to-table experiences, we celebrate a local agricultural tradition built on neighborliness and resilience, and we work to foster healthy, holistic lifestyles along the way.

This is a big, hands-on season.

We have 1,081 grafted heritage apple trees — scionwood off 100+ year-old local trees — heading to market this summer, plus around 1,050 specialty seedlings (apricot, pear, apple, hazelnut, and black walnut) coming along behind them.

We grow garlic, potatoes, and culinary and medicinal herbs, cultivate gourmet mushrooms (mostly oyster and wine cap), and keep about 50 dual-purpose chickens in a mobile coop.

Our honor-system farm store opens in mid-June, and the calendar is full of events, including a biochar workshop and the Montana Herbal Festival here at the farm in late June.

We’re building a greenhouse and a wood-fired bread oven this season, so handy folks are a gift — but even if you’re not handy (Alexis isn’t!), we can use the help.

Housing is a 14-ft canvas bell tent with electricity, a comfy mattress, an electric blanket, and clean linens, plus a table and odds and ends to make it your own. Laundry is available, and our kitchen lives in a converted enclosed trailer.

We provide all the staples plus coffee and tea, and Alexis loves to cook — we aim to put out a couple of prepared meals a day and leave the rest to you.

There’s a wood-fired hot tub, sauna, and cold plunge on site, about a mile of river, and plenty of nearby spots for outdoor adventures.

We have availability now through the end of September.

There’s a lot going on here, and a lot to be part of — come learn with us.

If you are interested in working with Orion this season, the link is in the Bio!

05/30/2026

We have been doing BIG things, the summer season is kicking off early and JUNE is packed with fun events.

•Biochar retreat
•Farmstand grand opening
•Montana Herbal Festival

Just to name a few!

Before we give you all the juicy details for these upcoming events- we want to take a minute to slow down and appreciate all the little things.

This Farmstead is beautiful not only for its landscape and well curated Farm Stay spaces, but for all the little things sprinkled in.

We hope you are finding joy in the little things today and as we move into the busy summer season!

We have a lot to share with you in the coming weeks and as always, we hope to see you soon.

05/18/2026

Recently we bud grafted 7 kinds of apple trees!

We took first year growth buds (scions) from the trees we want to replicate apples from and grafted it onto a rootstock from - called Siberian 118. A cold hardy rootstock made for those sometimes cold MT winters.

Although our graft buds came from 1st year growth trees, the orchard has been around for more than 100 years on a MT family farm!

This means our graft trees will be cold hardy and conditioned to grow well in MT.

Grafting can be a fun and experimental process- this 101 post lightly touches on what it is and how we did it!

If you already have one of these trees, ITS TIME TO PRUNE!

See post for instructions and let us know your experience.