Dan Taranto produces heirloom tomatoes with his wife, Linda, through D&D West Greenhouses near Livingston.
Dan and Linda Taranto, of D&D West Greenhouses, accomplish something that few small-scale vegetable farmers can in southwest Montana: They grow juicy heirloom tomatoes that are ready to eat in early May.
The Tarantos’ farm stand is on the outskirts of Livingston, just a few miles south of town on U.S. Highway 89. They opened on May 8 this season and will have products available through Labor Day weekend. They offer a wide variety of heirloom and cherry tomatoes, as well as fresh lettuce, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, zucchini, and summer squash. Additionally, D&D puts up various pickled and preserved products and offers ready-made meals.
All of this is grown and prepared on their Paradise Valley farm, near Emigrant. The Tarantos’ modest home rests some 100 feet away from five linked greenhouses. It’s difficult to miss the shoulders of Emigrant Peak hunched along the southern skyline. Sheltered inside the first greenhouse are hundreds of 8-foot-tall cucumber and eggplant vines, as well as myriad tomato and pepper varieties. This organized jungle maximizes horizontal and vertical space.
The couple is deep into their second harvest of the summer, and Linda is boxing up special orders of zucchini and summer squash for nearby Mountain Sky Guest Ranch and Yellowstone Valley Lodge. “We’re trying to scale back, if you can believe it,” she says, her eyes lighting up.
In the 1990s, while living in Massachusetts, Dan and Linda brought their four kids out to snowmobile, fish, camp, and horseback ride in Paradise Valley and Yellowstone National Park. Dan was keen to elk hunt and hired a local outfitter, who became a close friend. These experiences captivated the Tarantos, and they soon purchased land near Mill Creek.
After struggling to find a palatable fresh tomato in the local stores, they decided to grow the vegetable themselves. Flush with a quintessential farmer can-do mentality, the Tarantos leaned on their experience running a wholesale flower business in central Massachusetts, where Dan and his twin brother, Don, operated D&D Farms.
Linda and Dan realized greenhouse-produced heirloom tomatoes and vegetables could be their next venture in Montana. Since they’d experienced Montana summer thunderstorms, the couple knew greenhouses were requisite.
For quite a few years, they shipped plant starts to Montana while slowly transitioning away from the East Coast business. In 2013, they grew enough produce in Montana to sell, and Linda laughs when she describes their improvised first vegetable stand in the parking lot of Livingston’s Ace Hardware. Soon, they purchased land on Highway 89 and set about planning for a farm stand.
In 2014, their second growing season, D&D sold at area farmers markets and through a farmers cooperative. In August that year, they opened the farm stand.
Five years later, in 2019, they officially retired from the Massachusetts-based nursery and Linda moved to Montana, with Dan following in 2020.
These days, Linda says new customers stop in at the farm stand, lured by the assorted hanging flower baskets waving bright colors in the breeze. Customers are often delighted to discover D&D’s Cowboy Candy, for example—candied then pickled jalapeño slices—or maybe Bruschetta in a Jar. D&D makes 11 kinds of jams and jellies, including peach-plum jam, blueberry-zucchini jam, and habanero-pineapple jelly.
They also jar a wide variety of salsas, including roasted salsa verde, fiery peach, and zucchini salsa. Pickled vegetables include plain pickled serranos, roasted poblanos, and red-wine-pickled squash. Relishes also line their shelves, and straight-up pickle offerings include smoked dills, classic bread-and-butter, and Bloody Mary pickles.
Throughout the season, Linda determines what to preserve based on what particular vegetable is overabundant, coupled with a weekly farm-stand product inventory. They also sell frozen soups—beet and Italian wedding soup are popular—as well as roasted tomatoes great for sauces. They sell green tomato “pie” filling—which they offer as a mincemeat alternative—and frozen, ready-to-eat dinners and sides such as hummus, eggplant “meatballs,” and eggplant burgers.
With access to so many tomatoes, Linda says tomato soup is always in their personal freezer. “We live off it in the winter, as do half our neighbors,” she says.
D&D’s product offerings are quite a feat, and yet the Tarantos remain humble. Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day holidays inspire their own special food items, like a creamy beet salad; stuffed zucchini blossoms; stuffed tomatoes; mini loaves of zucchini bread; and smoked mac and cheese. When Linda finishes describing the abundant variety of products they make, she could have laughed but instead, quite seriously, she says, “That’s pretty much it.”
While tomatoes remain a staple, the Tarantos routinely test the bounds of growing food in Montana. Last season, they experimented with okra, finding it to be a popular item.
Linda says D&D dispels the myth that a fresh locally grown tomato cannot be found after Labor Day weekend. Every tomato they sell begins as a seedling started on site. This season, they are growing Carole, Chef Pink, Cherokee Purple, Indigo Blue, Chef Stripe, and Mountain Rouge tomatoes. Cherry tomato varieties include Favorite and Sungold.
Part of the secret to growing delicious tomatoes rests within the soil. Dan spends time dialing-in their soil recipe, using Epsom salts to produce the sweetest-tasting tomatoes. He strives to grow produce that tastes as good as it possibly can.
In addition to growing good-tasting food, the Tarantos operate with nearly zero waste. They accomplish this by canning and preserving, as well as through weekly donations to the food bank. Last year, D&D donated about a thousand pounds of vegetables to the Livingston Food Resource Center (LFRC) through a weekly supply that supported Park County citizens.
Kaya Patten-Fusselman, executive director of LFRC, says the center’s relationship with D&D has been highly beneficial, and she acknowledges the Tarantos’ commitment to the local community. Not only do the donations allow Park County residents to eat an increased diversity of foods, but this produce has a higher nutrition content, she says. “I thought I understood the limitations of the growing conditions in southwest Montana, but D&D has turned that on its head.”
On a given day in the summer the Tarantos’ property is bustling. On one such day, Rich Wing picks jalapeños and Sarah Melin packs up orders and more inventory to shuttle from the greenhouses to the farm stand. Another indispensable worker is Luscienne Homer, a high school student who runs the farm stand after class and on Saturdays.
“The reason we do so well,” Dan says, “is the people we surround ourselves with.”
