The Gardener: Clarence ‘Bud’ Anderberg has been growing a fabulous garden for 47 years and yes, the corn is ready

By CHRIS PETERSON

Hungry Horse News

The couple asks Clarence “Bud” Anderberg if the corn is ready yet.

“No,” he shakes his head. “It should be next week.”

But Thor, Anderberg’s yellow lab of 15 years or so didn’t get the memo. Thor goes out into the patch in front of Anderberg’s Middle Road home, finds himself an ear, takes it off the stalk, then brings it back to a shady spot in the grass and eats it.

For 47 years Anderberg has been growing this garden. He used to grow 1,200 dozen ears of corn a season. Today, at 84, he’s dropped the number to 500 dozen. According to an interview in 2002, his late wife, Noreeta started the garden in 1972 on an acre of fertile Flathead Valley soil. Including the corn, they grew a host of vegetables (and still do today), including Walla, Walla sweet onions, potatoes, pumpkins, squash, carrots and cucumbers to name a few.

Noreeta passed away in November of 2022. They were active in a host of other organizations, most notably the Flathead County Band, where they played together for 45 years. They also sang together in the Columbia Falls Community Choir.

Anderberg has an addition to his house that has memorabilia of their marriage and family through the years, including a picture of Noreeta in a bikini posing on the deck of a boat on the Hungry Horse Reservoir.

“We enjoyed life,” he said, looking up at the picture during a recent interview.

Noreeta penned a host of “Love is...” sayings.

One of most poignant: “Love is growing vegetables together.”

The couple had three children, Mark, Carl and Paul and have two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Anderberg was recently selected as Citizen of the Year by the Columbia Falls Lions Club.

He grew up in Helena. His father died when he was four, killed in an explosion while working at the shipyards in Bremerton, Washington.

Clarence and Noreeta met in the high school band and he went on to study wildlife technology at the University of Montana, which led to a career with the Forest Service and a permanent job with the Flathead National Forest in 1971.

Over the decades as a sale administrator on the Flathead, he oversaw the sale of more than 987 million board feet of timber. At the time, the timber averaged about $600 a thousand board feet and the schools received 25% of the proceeds, he said.

He also fought a host of wildfires over the years­ — 239 total, of which about 75% were at night.

“Sure it has its hazards,” he said. “You have to know what you’re doing.”

He retired in 1988. 

Today Middle Road has many homes, but Anderberg recalled when there weren’t any between his home and Kelly Road. One farmer owned most of it and raised red angus cattle.

Anderberg is a man of many talents. He even baked and built his own wedding cake.

The corn should be at its prime this week. As we were leaving, Thor was going out to the patch to get himself another ear.