Montana fruit growers are coming to the end of a difficult season, and the reasons aren't hard to trace: an unforgiving stretch of drought, hard freezes, and erratic spring temperatures that hit orchards and berry farms at exactly the wrong times. Christie Walsh, who operates Township Road Farm in Worden, told MTN that the combination of summer drought and winter-to-spring temperature swings killed a significant portion of her fruit crop — including haskap berries and raspberries that didn't survive the stress.
Walsh's description of the season was blunt: "Just rough." It's the kind of assessment that carries weight from someone who has watched weather patterns shift over years of farming in Montana. Haskap berries, a cold-hardy crop that many Montana growers have leaned into precisely because of their resilience, were among the casualties — a sign of how severe the conditions were.
The broader pattern Walsh describes isn't isolated to Worden or to one farm. Montana's agricultural producers, including those growing specialty fruits that have found markets at farmers' markets and local retailers across the state, are navigating a new normal of weather volatility that makes crop planning increasingly difficult. For consumers who shop for Montana-grown fruit at markets in Helena and elsewhere, a thinner harvest this fall is the downstream effect of a year the growers themselves would rather not repeat.