The old saying “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” perfectly encapsulates the significance of teaching someone how to grow their own food. With her business Garden Dreams, Montana Morris offers garden installation as well as education around ecology and sustainability so folks may have as robust a garden as possible. “People should be able to take some things into their own hands when it comes to their health and survival, physically and mentally,” Morris affirms.
For a sliding scale, Morris works with clients in their gardens on caring for and maintaining their land while focusing on edible, medicinal, native and ornamental plants. She notes, “I’m not just the gardener who comes and takes care of everything; I’m trying to share knowledge because it is a dying skillset. I think growing food should be taught in school; it’s one of the most important things we should know how to do.”
Her hope is that clients foster deeper relationships with the plants, flowers and produce they grow, whether by using vegetables in a new recipe, making a tincture out of an herb or planting native pollinators to attract bees and insects in one’s yard. “I focus on bringing all those pieces together and curtail it to each individual’s interests and needs.” Morris also grows, trades and donates seedlings to neighbors or local organizations like Sauce Milwaukee. She recently invested in a truck, which will enable her to expand Garden Dreams.
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Urban Agriculture
Having studied agroecology with an emphasis on urban agriculture in college, Morris started Garden Dreams in 2024 out of a desire to work for herself. “I’ve worked for a number of nonprofits, which I still work with tangentially, but I wanted a little more freedom to do my own thing,” she explains.
Morris previously worked as a manager at Victory Garden Initiative (249 E. Concordia Ave.) in Harambee, where she stewarded the organization’s 1.5-acre food forest, which remains free to the public across the street. She sees the food forest as a perfect example of how urban agriculture run by the community for the community can feed a village. “Harambee is a pretty large neighborhood but doesn’t have any grocery stores in it. Here at the food forest, neighbors can come and pick their food for dinner, or maybe they got some food from the gas station but would really like a tomato with their sandwich.”
Projects like food forests and community gardens help decentralize food systems from being entirely reliant on the grocery stores, which is exactly what Morris aspires to do with Garden Dreams. She reckons, “We can’t be fully sovereign from the grocery stores, but with the price of food and the transportation issues of getting to the food, any little bit can really help to provide a little bit of sovereignty for people.”
To get in touch, contact Garden Dreams on Instagram @gardendreamsmke.
Ben Slowey
Ben Slowey is a Staff Writer for the Shepherd Express whose work focuses on the intersections of community, creativity and social justice.
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Oct. 14, 2026
4:11 p.m.
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