The Maine
Summer 2020 June – August
Organic
$5.00
Farmer & Gardener
MAINE ORGANIC FARMERS AND GARDENERS ASSOC. P.O. Box 170 Unity, Maine 04988
Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit #454 Portland, Maine
Page 2 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 3
Apprentice and Journeyperson Programs Pay Off for Wise Acres Farm BY SONJA HEYCK-MERLIN
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aine has an abundance of land that has been retired from productive farming. As farming has become concentrated on large-scale operations sited on the best soils, smaller parcels are left behind. Forests encroach on the field edges, reclaiming cleared land. Most of these abandoned fields are undernourished and underproductive, but many are kept open by hay operations.
Landing in Kenduskeag In the fall of 2011, Brittany Hopkins and her wife, Joy Trueworthy, purchased 40 such acres in the central Maine town of Kenduskeag. With 15 acres of open land bordered on three sides by forest, Hopkins, the principal farmer, began the process of regenerating the land, and in less than a decade has transformed it into a productive part of Penobscot County’s rural economy. Trueworthy, a self-employed lawyer, is also the self-proclaimed farmers’ market “weekend warrior.” “Joy and I met in high school in Portland, Maine, and then both attended Smith College. After graduation we moved to New Jersey so that Joy could attend law school,” Hopkins says. During their years in New Jersey, Hopkins pursued a career in economic development and urban planning but concluded that she “didn’t like working in an office.” These experiences, combined with the imprinting of her rural Maine childhood participating in 4-H dairy goat shows, drew
Hopkins and Trueworthy (also a Maine native) back to Maine after Trueworthy completed law school. The name of their Wise Acres Farm originates from Hopkins’ parents’ farm and homestead in southwestern Maine. Before purchasing their land in Kenduskeag, Hopkins spent three growing seasons honing her skills as an apprentice and worker on three organic vegetable farms in central Maine: Peacemeal Farm in Dixmont, Fisher Farm in Winterport and Parker Family Farm in Newport. Committed to continuing her agricultural education, Hopkins enrolled in MOFGA’s two-year Journeyperson Program as she began breaking ground in Kenduskeag and establishing a business.
Recording and Crunching As part of the Journeyperson Program, Trueworthy and Hopkins participated in the Farm Beginnings course – a series of intensive workshops designed to help beginning farmers develop a whole farm plan and to provide business planning tools necessary to implement the plan. “In Farm Beginnings, I was introduced to Richard Wiswall’s method of enterprise budgeting and continue to use a modified version of the plan advocated by Wiswall,” Hopkins says. In Wiswall’s seminal work “The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook,” he emphasizes the importance of tracking all estimated income and expenses associated with a specific enterprise to provide an estimate of its profitability.
Hopkins uses a Williams Tool for stale seedbedding (pictured here), cleaning up paths and for some blind cultivation of growing crops.
Joy Trueworthy (left) and Brittany Hopkins raise MOFGA-certified organic vegetables on their Wise Acres Farm in Kenduskeag. Photo by Nicholas Navarre via the Maine Federation of Farmers’ Markets
After spending her first winters analyzing her records by sifting through stacks of paper and handwritten notes, Hopkins learned to use technology for enterprise budgeting. Between tablets, smartphones and software, she has developed a simple on-the-go record-keeping system that consolidates her seeding and planting history, field prep, inputs, harvest, labor demand and sales for their 2 acres of mixed vegetables. Hopkins uses two software programs, Square and Airtable, to record this information. Airtable is a mobile-friendly app, part spreadsheet and part database, that helps her track crops from seeding to harvest. Each field and succession planting is entered into Airtable along with details such as dates seeded, row footage planted, amendments added and crop harvested. Hopkins prefers Airtable to a spreadsheet because it’s more compatible with her smartphone, easier for her crew to collaborate on, and she appreciates its ability to extract specific crop data. For example she can filter Airtable to show only July 2019 carrot plantings along with the information relevant to those carrots. A Continued on page 24
Vegetables grow in 150-foot rows in 42-inch-wide unraised beds.
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The Maine
Tip
Organic
Farmer & Gardener Published by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association P.O. Box 170 • Unity, Maine 04988 / 207-568-4142 mofga@mofga.org • mofga.org • mofgacertification.org June – August 2020
Contents
Volume 48 / Number 2
TIPS: Tea Time 4
3 Apprentice and Journeyperson Programs Pay Off for Wise Acres Farm
Broccolini 35 Using Lath in the Garden 40 LETTER: The Pandemic and Our Meat Supply 36
by Sonja Heyck-Merlin
5
EDITORIALS
The Food System We Want and Deserve
9 Calendula – Beautiful and Useful
by Sarah Alexander
Every Seed Counts
by Joyce White
by Jean English
6 17 31
10 Cranberries – Don’t Assume You Can’t Grow Them
ORGANIC MATTER: News GARDENS TO VISIT: Daytripping HARVEST KITCHEN:
What to Do With That Bounty of Food You Grew
by Will Bonsall
12 EarthLooms Weave Community at MOFGA’s Common Ground Country Fair by Sonja Heyck-Merlin
by Roberta Bailey
32
MOFGA CERTIFICATION SERVICES
Steelbow Farm: A Loss for Maine, a Gain for Texas by Jaco Schravesande-Gardei
33
MAINE HERITAGE ORCHARD
The Pandemic and the Ancient Apple Tree
14 Gleaning: Healthy Eating for Everyone
by John Bunker
34
CROPS AND GARDENS:
Animal Pests in the Garden
by Tim King
by Caleb Goossen, Ph.D.
18 The Roots of Organic Movement
36
Meat, Know Your Farmer
Building in Post-Colonial Guyana by John Bliss
21 Aroostook Update by Jean English and John Chartier
26 Why Grow Cannabis At Home?
by Jacki M. Perkins
37
by John Jemison EDITOR: Jean English, Lincolnville • DESIGN & PRODUCTION: Tim Nason, Dresden • COVER & INSIDE ART: Toki Oshima, Belfast The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener is published 4 times per year (March, June, September, December) by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association as part of its educational mission. MOFGA, formed in 1971, is the oldest and largest state organic organization in the country. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association is a broad-based community that educates about and advocates for organic agriculture, illuminating its interdependence with a healthy environment, local food production, and thriving communities. MOFGA is a 501(c)(3) organization that welcomes your tax deductible financial contributions and volunteer participation. Volunteer leadership, the dedication and idealism of our members, and a grass-roots approach to carrying out education and change underlie the success of our programs: • Organic certification • Farm apprenticeship • Technical assistance (phone, mail, on-site visits, publications) • Common Ground Country Fair • Farmer to Farmer Conference, farm and garden tours, other outreach events • Local chapters • Public policy (initiatives in food safety and environmentally sound agriculture) MOFGA staff, board of directors and chapters are listed on page 44.
LOW IMPACT FORESTRY
American Beech by Noah Gleason-Hart
38 41 42
RESOURCES AND BOOK REVIEWS COMMON GROUND COUNTRY FAIR MOFGA NOTES MOFGA BUSINESS MEMBERS 43 VOLUNTEER: Rose Whitehead 44
by John Jemison
28 Using Cured Cannabis Flower
LIVESTOCK: When Sourcing
45 46
CALENDAR OF EVENTS MAINE EXCHANGE
MOFGA members receive The MOF&G as part of their membership. See page 46 for information about dues. Subscriptions to The MOF&G can be purchased. See page 46 for details about donating to MOFGA. Editorial correspondence should be sent to: Jean English, 662 Slab City Road, Lincolnville, ME 04849; jenglish@mofga.org. Advertising rate: Contact Katy Green (207-568-4142; kgreen@ mofga.org) or download rates on MOFGA.org. MOFGA reserves the right to refuse any ads. Classified ads (Maine Exchange): Send ads and payment (payable to MOFGA) to P.O. Box 170, Unity, ME 04988 or email to lcayard@mofga.org. Disclaimer: The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener cannot investigate the claims of advertisers, and does not endorse any product or service advertised. However, if a product claims to meet MOFGA certification standards, it does! Certified growers are encouraged to use the MOFGA label. Readers are expected to exercise due caution when considering any product or service that claims to be organic but does not refer to certification. Remember, however, that advertisers are helping to support the paper, so, when appropriate, please support them. Opinions expressed in The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the officers, directors or membership of MOFGA or the staff of The MOF&G. Contents copyright © 2020 by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. All rights reserved.
mofga.org and mofgacertification.org
Tea-Time
A
mid the harvest of tomatoes, green beans, broccoli and other veggies this summer, take some time to harvest the makings for tea. An hour or two spent harvesting the leaves of raspberry, mint and other plants, then drying them, can save several dollars in herbal tea bills throughout the year, can provide a good haul for gift giving, and can produce a healthful beverage. Raspberry leaves, for example, make a good tea. Harvest them from wild raspberry plants; leave the leaves on your cultivated plants to nourish the roots that will send up shoots for later raspberry harvests. Wild plants that aren’t growing along a roadside will have cleaner leaves. Herbalists recommend this tea for the high vitamin and mineral content of raspberry leaves. Spread fresh leaves on a screen in a well-ventilated place that is out of direct sunlight to dry. If the weather turns humid, finish drying the leaves in the oven after you’ve baked something and the oven is cooling. Store dried leaves in a glass jar. Other plants that are useful for teas include catnip, bee balm, lemon balm, spearmint, peppermint, dandelion leaves, oat straw, chamomile flowers, stinging nettle leaves, rosemary leaves, lemongrass and more. Experiment with mixtures of herbs flavored with orange or lemon peel (organic, to avoid pesticide residues), cloves, cinnamon or other spices; or try combining an herb or two with black tea.
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 5
The Food System We Want and Deserve Grows from Necessity BY SARAH ALEXANDER MOFGA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
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s I write this we’re six weeks into everything being shut down from the COVID-19 pandemic. Maine’s economy was just reported to be the most impacted by the pandemic in the nation due to the age of our state’s population, and our reliance on tourism and the service industry. Nationally, weaknesses in the food system, which many of us have been warning about for years, are causing fields to be plowed under, milk to be dumped, and animals to be “disposed of” on farms because multinational meatpacking plants are closed. Will Maine and New England farmers weather the storm? Yes, I think our farmers will, because they’re innovative and resilient, and our community values healthy local food, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy. We’re thankful for all that our farmers are doing right now to ensure that their food can get to us. We all have a right to food. Healthy food and clean water are our essential human rights, and while the global food system creaks and shifts under the weight of its subsidized and overextended supply chain, we’re showing in New England that the true food system we’re building can sustain us. We have nutrient-dense local food year-round, and it is possible to feed ourselves with what we have. Now is the time to remake our economy and our food system into an ecologically and place-based engine. We can start with what we can do personally to make this shift happen. We can look around us, in our homes, our neighborhoods, our communities, and we can see where we can grow food, how we can collaborate and share with neighbors, and how we can make local and organic food accessible to all. We must grow
food that feeds the soil, and feeds ourselves, that leaves natural systems and our bodies replenished for another season. We must put up the harvest and save seeds for the future. We must eat seasonally, and get adventurous with new foods that we might not be used to cooking. MOFGA has an abundance of information to help you navigate each of these things. Please don’t hesitate to reach out; we’re here to help. Making individual shifts won’t be enough; we must also push to make the structural changes that are going to fix our food system for everyone. Our current system is rigged, and the $20 billion in coronavirus federal aid through the USDA will likely help the biggest corporate players, propping up cheap, factoryfarmed food, while local farms are left to fend for themselves. We need policies at the local, state and federal levels that will support our right to grow food, our right to feed ourselves and our neighbors, and support local producers getting a fair price for what they produce. This is how we can help grow a new food system: 1. Increase the amount of organic food that’s grown in Maine, 2. Add value to those crops with in-state processing so that they are shelf stable, 3. Support growers’ access to markets by eliminating barriers, putting price floors and supply management in place, and building cooperative and locally owned outlets, and 4. Ensure dignity and fairness for farmworkers and create a Farm Corps program to train and partner with those who are interested in farming with host farms. These changes could happen this year if we can muster enough political will. In addition to tending to our gardens, it will be critical to tend to our democracy this summer, and make sure that we’re all communicating with our representatives at every level to enact these changes. MOFGA started nearly 50 years ago with back-to-
Every Seed Counts BY JEAN ENGLISH EDITOR, THE MAINE ORGANIC FARMER & GARDENER
L
ittle did I know what was to come when my spring MOF&G editorial about resilience quoted UMaine’s John Jemison about the importance of locally produced food for driving the local economy and for feeding ourselves “if the wheels come off the energy truck.” Well, surprise: Instead of the energy truck, the worldwide health truck popped its wheels. Maine farmers responded impressively quickly, setting up online ordering, establishing new CSAs, creating safe pickup and delivery methods. Weekly encounters with our wonderful farmers are brief but so welcome. The smiles under those masks show in their eyes. We are so fortunate to have so many local farms; so fortunate that Maine has supported them over the years. Every farm, every farmer, every farmworker counts. Gardeners ramped up their game, too. In early March seed companies seemed to have few shortages. That changed over a couple of weeks as most vegetable seed types listed in catalogs sold out. I was glad I had ordered early, and glad I had saved seed of a few
LETTERS: The MOF&G welcomes letters from readers. Letters intended for publication should be typed and double spaced; 500 words (two pages) or shorter. Include your full name, address and telephone number. All letters may be edited. Address letters to: Letters to the Editor, 662 Slab City Road, Lincolnville, Maine 04849.
favorite varieties. I sowed the small amount of ‘Chateau Rose’ tomato seed – small because the weather last year wasn’t great for its production and seed saving. I watched with hope as each seed germinated, counting every little tomato plant each day. If the weather cooperates this summer, my stash – my gardening stimulus package – will be refreshed and even amplified. I always start sweet corn indoors and transplant it out two to three weeks after germination, thus using the fewest seeds possible, having no skips in the plot and gaining a few weeks on the harvest. Even some commercial growers do this now, and the practice seems important as we learn anew that every seed counts. Given the long, cool, wet, even snowy spring, I also started pea seedlings in plug flats. At a MOFGA Farmer to Farmer Conference years ago, New York farmer Paul Arnold said he started pea seedlings in flats in the greenhouse after finding that earthworms were eating direct-seeded pea seeds. Every bit of wisdom gained from MOFGA’s workshops counts, especially now. Knowledge and connections gained over the years are like those regular, valuable additions to soil health. Every seed, every garden, every farm, every cover crop and every compost pile counts.
the-landers looking to become self-sufficient, free themselves from fossil fuels and pesticides, and live as sustainably as possible. We were founded on the principles of sharing knowledge among peers, lending a helping hand to neighbors, and creating resiliency in a local, organic, diversified food system. Even though our community hasn’t faced a pandemic in our lifetimes, we know how to support and take care of each other, and advocate for change. Together we will come out stronger on the other side, with the food system we want and deserve.
Common Ground Country Fair to be Virtual Event This Year
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he Common Ground Country Fair, MOFGA’s signature event, will be offered in a virtual format for 2020. Governor Mills’ plan to gradually restart Maine’s economy has provided information and clarity about the months ahead as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. The guidance we received from the Mills administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in tandem with information from our fellow organizers of Maine Agricultural Fairs, led us to pursue a virtual Fair instead of an on-site event this year. This decision takes into account the safety and need for advanced planning for our community and allows us to begin planning a marquee virtual event. Our MOFGA community is what makes the Common Ground Country Fair a vibrant and engaging celebration of rural living. As a member of that community, you are in the forefront of our minds as we monitor the pandemic and as we arrived at this conclusion. Our decision about the Fair was not taken lightly and was the product of feedback from our community, including input over several weeks from the Fair Steering Committee, MOFGA board of directors and members of the MOFGA staff. We recognize that this is a sad day for many who put so much into the Fair each year, and we hope that we can all come out of this stronger together. We also recognize the important role the Fair plays in connecting with each other, sharing knowledge, supporting our local economy, creating access to organic food and extending MOFGA’s year-round work. These important roles will not be lost, and we hope we can put our efforts into innovative ways to support our community through a virtual fair. The Common Ground Country Fair started in 1977 and relies on the work of 2,500 dedicated volunteers each year, including 300 volunteers who work on the event year-round. The Fair offers more than 775 educational talks and experiences and features vendors from Maine and a unique all-organic farmers’ market. We look forward to working with the Fair Planning Team, volunteers, exhibitors and staff to keep the spirit and goals of the Common Ground Country Fair alive and to provide an engaging virtual event for our community. We look forward to seeing you in person once again in 2021 as we celebrate MOFGA’s 50th anniversary.
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A COMPENDIUM OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL NEWS
Organic Matter The Good News A review of more than 150 studies worldwide by the University of Maryland in collaboration with The Organic Center identifies the four organic techniques that most impact soil health and contribute to countering climate change: planting cover crops, applying combinations of organic inputs rather than a single type of organic fertilizer, increasing crop rotation diversity and length, and conservation tillage. (“Identifying the best of the best in organic agriculture,” The Organic Center, March 17, 2020; https://www.organic-center.org/pressrelease-soil-health-in-organic/; “Organic Farming Practices for Improving Soil Health Jessica Shade, Ph.D., and Kate Tully, Ph.D., March 2020; https://www.organic-center. org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/SoilHealth-Review_ShadeTully.pdf; “Promoting soil health in organically managed systems: a review,” by Katherine L. Tully and Cullen McAskill, Organic Agriculture, 2019; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s1 3165-019-00275-1) Researchers from the University of Illinois analyzing results of 60 studies on cover cropping effects on soil microbial properties found that overall, cover cropping significantly increased soil microbial abundance by 27%, activity by 22% and diversity by 2.5% compared with bare fallow soils. Cover cropping effects were less pronounced under conditions
such as continental climate, chemical cover crop termination and conservation tillage. Using herbicides to kill cover crops consistently reduced the microbial community. (“Do cover crops benefit soil microbiome? A meta-analysis of current research,” by NakianKim et al., Soil Biology and Biochemistry, March 2020; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/artic le/pii/S0038071719303657; “Illinois study shows universally positive effect of cover crops on soil microbiome,” by Lauren Quinn, Acres News, Feb. 27 2020; https://aces.illinois. edu/news/illinoisstudy-shows-universally-positive-effect-cove r-crops-soil-microbiome) Through its 12-acre, 72-plot Farming Systems Trial (FST) started in 1981, the Rodale Institute found that after a fiveyear transition period, organic yields are competitive with conventional; in drought years, organic yields are up to 40% higher than conventional; farm profits are three to six times higher for products from organically managed systems; organic management systems use 45% less energy than conventional and release 40% fewer carbon emissions into the atmosphere; organic systems leach no toxic chemicals into waterways; and organic systems build, rather than deplete, organic matter in soil, improving soil health. (“Longest Field Trials Show Organic Practices Yield Higher Returns than Chemical-Intensive Agriculture,” Beyond Pesticides, Feb. 24,
2019; https://beyondpesticides.org/ dailynewsblog/2020/02/fieldtrialrodale/) A study led by researchers at the University of Virginia and co-authored by The Organic Center shows that organic farming practices can help prevent the global accumulation of reactive nitrogen – a form of nitrogen (N) that can harm the environment – and scale back the presence of one of the major contributors to climate change. The research confirms that the biggest difference between organic and conventional farming is that organic farming helps reduce the buildup of reactive N by using recycled N sources such as compost and other natural soil amendments. Across all food groups, organic production releases around 50% less new reactive N to the environment. Nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas, has over 300 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. Agriculture, the largest human source of N2O, contributes over two-thirds of N2O emissions. Synthetic fertilizer application on conventional crops (especially corn and soybeans) is a leading source of N2O emissions in agriculture and leads to nitrate leaching into groundwater. (“Organic agriculture – the recycling bin for nitrogen,” The Organic Center, April 9, 2020; https://www.organic-center.org/organicagriculture-the-recycling-bin-for-nitrogen/) An analysis by researchers from the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivieres of North American and European studies from 2004 to 2019 found that invertebrate and plant diversity was lower in urban lawns under increased mowing intensity while pest species (e.g. herbivorous beetle larvae and allergenic plants) were greater. (“Love Your Lawn? Let It Grow,” by Ashia Ajani, Sierra, Feb. 22, 2020; https://www.sierraclub.org/ sierra/love-your-lawn-let-it-grow; “Ecological and economic benefits of low intensity urban lawn management,” by Christopher J. Watson et al., Journal of Applied Ecology, Dec. 29, 2019; https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/13652664.13542)
Organic Issues MOFGA is part of a coalition of groups and organic producers that joined the Center for Food Safety in filing a lawsuit challenging the USDA’s decision to allow hydroponic operations to be certified organic. Sarah Alexander, MOFGA’s executive director, notes that MOFGA has been active for nearly 50 years in creating and implementing strong organic standards based on building healthy soil. “We were involved in the writing of the Organic Foods Production Act, and our members expect the certified organic label to remain true to its intent of creating healthy food from healthy soil.” The earliest organic certification programs (including MOFGA’s) based their standards on this premise. However, in recent years some organic certification agencies other than MOFGA have allowed the organic certification of crops grown in
hydroponic systems, which rely on fertilizer management as opposed to soil-building practices to produce crops. MOFGA joined this lawsuit to ensure the organic standards continue to maintain healthy soil as the heart of organic production and because organic farms in Maine, particularly wild blueberry producers, are being negatively impacted by this misinterpretation of the standard. Organic cultivated blueberries, often produced hydroponically in the United States, continue to negatively impact the market for organic wild blueberries. Consumers are purchasing hydroponically produced blueberries labeled as organic without knowing they are not the same as the wild organic blueberries grown in Maine soil. “The federal organic law unequivocally requires organic production to promote soil fertility,” Sylvia Wu, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety and counsel for plaintiffs, says. “USDA’s decision to allow mega-hydroponic operations that do nothing with soil to be sold as ‘organic’ violates the law.” Other plaintiffs include Swanton Berry Farm, Full Belly Farm, Durst Organic Growers, Terra Firma Farm, Jacobs Farm del Cabo, Long Wind Farm and the organization OneCert. The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), which advises USDA on issues related to organic standards, has called on USDA to prohibit organic certification of hydroponics, but USDA has taken no action on that recommendation to date. In January 2019 the Center for Food Safety filed a legal petition requesting that USDA undertake rulemaking to disallow hydroponics in organic production; MOFGA endorsed the petition. That petition was denied, and this lawsuit is the next step in the process to hold USDA accountable to the intent of the organic standards. “While sustainable hydroponic food production may have an important place in our food system, it is misleading for consumers for these products to be labeled as organic in the marketplace, since they clearly don’t meet the intent of the organic standards,” says Alexander. (MOFGA press release, March 4, 2020; https://www.mofga. org/Programs/Public-Policy/Public-PolicyBlog; “Center for Food Safety Files Legal Action to Prohibit Hydroponics from Organic,” CFS press release, Jan. 16, 2020; https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/pressreleases/5501/center-for-food-safety-fileslegal-action-to-prohibit-hydroponics-fromorganic)
Climate In February 2020 Rep. Chellie Pingree introduced the Agriculture Resilience Act, through which growers would use their soil to take up carbon dioxide to help slow global warming – by planting cover crops and reducing fertilizer use, for example. The goal is to make greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture net zero by 2040. The act would also quadruple federal funding for food and agriculture research, tweak management on all grazing land to maximize
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 7
carbon capture, and reduce food waste by 75 percent. To qualify for crop insurance subsidies, farmers would have to show the USDA a soil health plan demonstrating their efforts to reduce erosion and sequester carbon in their soils. (“What Would It Take to Get More Farmers Fighting Climate Change?” by Tom Philpott, Mother Jones, Feb. 26, 2020; https://www.mother jones. com/food/2020/02/what-would-it-take-formore-farmers-to-fight-climate-change/; “The Agriculture Resilience Act,” https:// pingree.house.gov/netzeroagriculture/) More unusually hot days are affecting bumblebee occurrences across North America and Europe. Local extinction rates are increasing, and colonization, site occupancy rates and species richniss within a region are diminishing, independent of land-use change or condition. (“Climate change contributes to widespread declines among bumble bees across continents,” by Peter Soroye et al., Science, Feb. 7, 2020; https://science. sciencemag.org/content/367/6478/685) Maine’s climate is changing and the rate of change is increasing, according to researchers from UMaine and Acadia National Park’s Schoodic Instute. Their reports show that Maine is getting warmer and wetter, and the weather is increasingly variable, with periods of drought, intense storms and temperature swings. Coastal areas are warming faster than interior and northern Maine, and average minimum temperatures are increasing 60% faster than average maximum temperatures. The state’s average annual temperature increased 3.2 degrees F in the past 124 years, and Maine’s six warmest years on record have occurred since 1998. Our growing season is more than two weeks longer than it was in 1950, mostly due to later frosts in the fall. The Gulf of Maine has experienced a rate of warming that few marine ecosystems have encountered and is expected to continue warming at an above average rate. (“Maine is getting wetter, stormier and warmer, with coast warming fastest, researchers say,” by Bill Trotter, Bangor Daily News, Feb. 13, 2020; https://bangordailynews.com/2020/
02/13/news/hancock/maine-is-getting-wetter-stormier-and-warmer-with-coast-warming-fastest-researchers-say/; “Maine’s Climate Future – 2020 Update,” by Ivan Fernandez et al., The University of Maine; https://climatechange.umaine.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/439/2020/02/Maines-Climate-Future-2020-Update-web.pdf)
Pesticides Nearly 70 percent of the fresh produce sold in the United States contains residues of potentially harmful chemical pesticides, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) 2020 Dirty Dozen list. Yet the worst produce commodity this year is not a fresh fruit or vegetable but a dried one – raisins. The EWG’s annual Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce includes the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen, based on USDA test data of pesticide residues in 47 popular fruits and vegetables. Before testing, USDA washes, scrubs and peels produce as consumers would. This year USDA tested raisins as well, so they are also included in the EWG report. For non-organic raisins, 99% of samples had residues of at least two pesticides; on average, each sample was contaminated with more than 13 pesticides, and one sample had 26 pesticides. The neurotoxic insecticide chlorpyrifos was detected on 5% (34 out of 670) of samples of conventional raisins and 6% (five out of 86) of organic raisin samples, and bifenthrin on 77% or samples overall ( and on 78% of organic raisins). The EWG says, “These pesticides [chlorpyrifos and bifenthrin] cannot be used in the production of organic crops, so it is unclear why organic raisins are contaminated with these pesticides.” These are the Dirty Dozen, starting with the worst and with rankings based on the percent of samples with pesticides and on the number and amount of pesticides on all samples and on individual samples: strawberries spinach kale
nectarines apples grapes peaches cherries pears tomatoes celery potatoes According to the EWG, more than 90% of samples of strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines and kale tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides, and multiple samples of kale showed 18 different pesticides. These are the Clean Fifteen: avocadoes sweet corn pineapple onions papayas frozen sweet peas eggplant asparagus cauliflower cantaloupe broccoli mushrooms cabbage honeydew melon kiwi The EWG notes that most pesticide residues the USDA finds fall within government-mandated restrictions, but that legal limits aren’t always safe. The EPA tolerance levels help agency regulators determine whether farmers are applying pesticides properly – not, for example, to set levels to protect children who eat produce. A recent EWG investigation found that the EPA failed to add the Food Quality Protection Act-mandated children’s health safety factor to allowable limits for almost 90 percent of the most common pesticides. The EWG recommends that whenever possible, consumers purchase organic ver-
sions of produce on the Dirty Dozen list. When organic versions are unavailable or unaffordable, EWG advises eating fresh produce, even if conventionally grown. The organization also notes that a small amount of sweet corn, papaya and summer squash sold in the United States is produced from genetically engineered seeds and recommends buying organic varieties of these crops if you want to avoid genetically engineered produce. The USDA does not test for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and some other herbicides and the most heavily used pesticide in the United States. Tests commissioned by EWG found high levels of glyphosate in many oat-based breakfast products marketed to children. (“EWG’s 2020 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce,” Environmental Working Group press release, March 25, 2020; EWG’s 2020 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™; https://www.ewg.org/release/out-now-ewgs-2020-shopper-s-guide-pesticides-produce) According to a fall 2019 Critical Insights omnibus poll of 600 Maine voters (sampling error +/-3.9% at the 95% confidence level), most worry about the effects of pesticides on the health of their children and pets. Released in January 2020 by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Maine Chapter (PSR Maine), the report highlights the serious risks to children’s health from pesticide exposure and shows strong support among Maine voters for government action to prevent exposure and protect the health of children and pets. Dr. Sydney Sewall, a Maine pediatrician and member of PSRM, said, “Normal childhood behaviors, like crawling and putting things in their mouths, put our kids at more risk for dangerous pesticide exposures.Because children breath more rapidly and metabolize more quickly than adults, they absorb more of everything – the good and the bad.” The American Academy of Pediatrics says that prenatal and childhood exposure to pesticides is associated with childhood
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Page 8 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Organic Matter Continued from the previous page cancers such as leukemia, learning disabilities and behavioral problems associated with medical conditions such as ADHD. The PSR Maine report finds that 72% of Maine voters worry about their children’s and pets’ health from exposures to pesticides, and 71% say they support bans on pesticides that are applied only for cosmetic purposes. Only 9% believe that pesticides should be used without restrictions. The use of pesticides continues to grow. In the United States alone, use of glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup and some other herbicides) increased by more than 250-fold in the past four decades. Currently 29 Maine municipalities have ordinances restricting pesticide use, while others, such as Scarborough, have pesticide policies. PSR Maine supported LD 1888, An Act To Protect Children from Toxic Chemicals, which would ban the use of herbicides within 75 feet of schools, daycare centers and
playgrounds. The bill was carried over to any special session of the 129th Legislature. (“Voters express strong support for state and local pesticide limits to protect children’s and pets’ health,” Physicians for Social Responsibility Maine press release, Feb. 5, 2020; https://psrmaine.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2020/ 02/Press-release-pesticide-report.pdf) After a number of states, including California, banned sales of chlorpyrifos, Corteva Agriscience, the largest U.S. producer of the insecticide, said it will stop making the product for financial reasons. Other manufacturers continue to make the product, and it is allowed on imported foods. Studies link the product to lower birth weight, lower IQ, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other developmental issues in children and respiratory problems in adults. Health and environmental advocates, farmworkers and Latino civil rights groups have called for a ban for years. Other companies continue to make the product, and, while the Obama administration supported banning its use on food, the Trump administration reversed the previous administration’s ban, saying data are not sufficient to ban it. Chlorpyrifos has been banned for
indoor use for more than a decade. Hawaii’s ban on chlorpyrifos begins in 2022, New York by late 2021, and the European Union is phasing out the insecticide. (“Trump has kept this controversial pesticide on the market. Now its biggest manufacturer is stopping production,” by Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, Feb. 6, 2020; https:// www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/02/06/trump-kept-this-controversial-pesticidemarket-now-its-biggest-manufacturer-is-stopping-production/; “Latino groups vow to fight for ban on pesticide linked to children’s health problems,” by Nicole Acevedo, NBC News, Feb. 11, 2020; https://www.nbcnews.com/ news/latino/latino-groups-vow-fight-ban-pesticide-linkedchildren-s-health) Researchers from Imperial College London have found that the part of the bumblebee brain called a mushroom body, which is involved in learning, grew less when bee larvae were exposed to nectar containing neonicotinoid insecticides. When treated larvae became adult bees, they still had smaller, functionally impaired brains and were less able to learn to associate a smell with a food reward. (“Pesticides impair baby bee brain development,” by Imperial College London, March 3, 2020; https:// phys.org/news/2020-03-pesticides-impair-baby-beebrain.html; “Insecticide exposure during brood or earlyadult development reduces brain growth and impairs adult learning in bumblebees, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/ lookup/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.2442) Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) secretly funded academic studies indicating “very severe impacts” on farming and the environment if its glyphosate herbicide were banned, an investigation has found. The National Farmers’ Union and others used the research to lobby successfully against a 2017 proposed ban on glyphosate in Europe. The journal Outlooks on Pest Management, which published the studies, says it will not retract or amend them. (“Revealed: Monsanto’s secret funding for weedkiller studies,” by Damian Carrington, March 12, 2020, The Guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/ environment/2020/mar/12/revealed-monsantos-secretfunding-for-weedkiller-studies-roundup)
Genetic Engineering Note: Organic production does not allow the use of genetically engineered (GE or GMO – genetically modified organism) inputs. To attempt to control diamondback moths, genetically engineered (GE) male moths were released in a field trial in New York state. Oxitec, a British biotech company, says that an engineered gene switches on only in female offspring, causing them to die soon after hatching. Males pass the gene on to offspring. Since half of the offspring (the females) die in each generation, Oxitec expects that the lethal gene will disappear within a few generations, so new GE males would have to be released again. Diamondback moth larvae eat the leaves of brassica plants. They have become resistant to many pesticides. (“Male moths genetically modified to kill females released in the wild,” by Michael LePage, New Scientist, Jan. 29, 2020; https://www.newscientist.com/article/2231693male-moths-genetically-modified-to-kill-females-releasedin-the-wild/)
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 9
Calendula Beautiful and Useful BY JOYCE WHITE
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here are so many reasons to plant a big bed of calendula, Calendula officinalis. It blooms until frost for cut flowers and medicine, it isn’t fussy about where it’s planted, pollinators like it, it can be added as a garnish to food, and its seed is easy to save for next year’s planting. In the Asteraceae family, calendula’s cheery blooms of bright yellow and orange with an occasional offwhite flower begin appearing about six weeks after planting. They can be started inside in April for earlier flowering, and the blooms vary nicely in shape and shade, from fluffy, double heads to the more ordinary flat, daisy-like shapes. Also called pot marigold, calendula is native to south central Europe and North Africa and includes about 15 species. Plants are branched and can grow to 2 feet (mine reach only about a foot). Leaves are 3 to 6 inches long and oblong, with stalks gently clasping the stem. Flower heads, 2 to 3 inches across, consist of several rows of ray florets and a central cluster of tubular flowers. Blossoms close slightly at night and on very cloudy days but open wide in morning sun. Frequently cutting flower heads will keep the plants blooming at least until the end of October in Maine. I always leave some in the garden so that in the fall I can collect enough seeds for the following year, leaving the rest of the seeds for birds. The seeds (achenes) have an interesting shape – curved into a sort of half circle and tapering to a point at one end.
Calendula for Health Calendula has so many healing properties that, as David Hoffmann says in “Herbs for Healthy Aging,” it’s almost a medicine chest in itself. It is one of the best herbs for treating skin problems. It can be used safely on inflamed skin whether due to infection or damage, including external bleeding and both new injuries and old, and on slowly healing areas such as skin ulcers. Bruises, burns and bacterial and fungal infections can be treated safely and effectively with an externally applied lotion, ointment, poultice or compress, or calendula can be taken internally as a tincture or tea. It is also ideal for treating minor burns and scalds – and probably for sunburn, although I haven’t remembered to use it for that. Hoffmann adds that it is valuable for treating digestive discomfort and inflammation and therefore can help treat ulcers and symptoms of some gall bladder problems as well as those vague symptoms described as “indigestion.” Steven Foster says in “Herbal Renaissance” that “calendula” means that the plant will bloom nearly year round or on the “calends” – the new moon of each month. (That doesn’t ring quite true for Maine.) The species name, “officinalis,” tells us it was the “official” calendula of the apothecary shop. Marigold is derived from the association of the plant in Catholic tradition with festivals honoring the Virgin Mary. Foster began his 40 years of comprehensive experience in the herbal field with the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Herb Department in New Gloucester, Maine, America’s oldest herb business dating to 1799. At the Shaker gardens, he says, “we planted four 300 foot rows of calendula from four ounces of seed. We har-
vested the flower crop three times. A week after each cutting, the rows were again covered with blossoms. About 20 pounds of dried flower heads were gathered from this planting.” Even my small planting in less than ideal soil produces enough for tincture, salve and cut flowers into early November as well as plenty of seeds for the birds and for me. Calendula, Foster says, is called “poor man’s saffron” since the flavoring and coloring potential are similar to that of saffron. Calendula adds a subtle saline flavor and delicate yellow hue to such foods as rice and grains. Fresh petals are good in salads and can be added to soups. In medieval Europe calendula blossoms were used as a base for soups and broths. Calendula tea promotes sweating, he says, and is useful in treating ulcers, both internally and externally. Two centuries ago it was used widely to treat jaundice. Its primary traditional and current use is as a lotion, tincture or cooled tea wash for sprains, bruises, cuts, minor infections and burns. Foster tells of a 90-year-old friend who had been using his homemade calendula tincture for all his family’s cuts, burns and abrasions for 70 years. He made tincture by soaking the whole fresh plant in vodka for two weeks and diluted the tincture with nine parts water with each use. Calendula was researched for stimulating the immune system to help treat AIDS, but Foster reminds us that even if it is proven to enhance immune system activity, that does not indicate it is a cure-all. Rather, he says, calendula has simply been shown to help activate the body’s own cells to “gobble up foreign debris or invaders.” It may help activate other defense mechanisms, subtly. Over 30 chemical compounds have been identified in this herb – many useful in healing. Various studies suggest a scientific basis for its anti-inflammatory, antiviral and antibacterial activity, and an ointment containing the flower extract has been shown to stimulate wound healing. Calendula appears to be nontoxic and has a long history of safe and effective use that Foster believes warrants further research.
Calendula at Avena At MOFGA-certified organic Avena Botanicals in West Rockport, Maine, herbalist Deb Soule says calendula grows best in full sun in well-drained, compostamended soil. Avena starts 1,000 calendula plugs in the greenhouse in mid-April and transplants them to the garden in mid- to late May. Another 1,000 plugs are seeded in mid-May and yet another the first week of June. In Soule’s experience, the first of the transplants usually have diminished in size and vigor by August, when they are pulled and composted. That space is then seeded to borage or oats. The last two calendula plantings bloom well into October if they received enough water. They are usually pulled by late October. Each bed is then covered in a thin layer of compost topped with straw. Those beds are then ready in spring to receive other annuals. Soule believes it is better for the soil and for the health of annuals to rotate them on a three-year basis.
Calendula offers season-long blooms for pollinators, and its flowers are edible and medicinal. Photo by Mary McAvoy The first calendula harvest at Avena Botanicals begins in late June, when the staff collects blossoms two or three times a week. Soule prefers to pick the blooms with her fingers rather than scissors, as she likes to feel the stickiness of their resin. When each harvest is complete, the staff takes the basket of blooms into the herb drying room, weighs the blossoms and lays them on screens to dry. On average they harvest 300 to 350 pounds of fresh calendula each growing season. Calendula is an important ingredient in many of Avena’s teas, salves and face creams. The herbalists tincture several gallons of fresh flowers and create a fresh succus – medicinal juice – by grinding both flowers and leaves together in a small amount of alcohol. The liquid succus is used as a spray on insect bites and to reduce scarring after surgery.
In the Garden For small-scale herb gardens, calendula is ideal. One need not be a particularly experienced gardener or herbalist to grow an ample supply of this versatile and quite forgiving plant. In mid-April I start saved seed in individual containers of seed-starting mix. I place the containers on top of the fridge until the first leaves appear and then move them to a sunny, south-facing slider until they’re sturdy enough to transplant outdoors, toward the end of May. Once in the garden, they need about a foot between plants and need to be watered if rain doesn’t come every week. In my garden they get only late morning and afternoon sun and appear to be satisfied. I often tell them how beautiful they are, and I thank them when I snip their blooms. About the author: Joyce White lives in Stoneham, Maine, and is a frequent contributor to The MOF&G. This article is for informational purposes only. For serious medical conditions, please consult your health care practitioner.
Page 10 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Cranberries – Don’t Assume You Can’t Grow Them BY WILL BONSALL Photos by Charles Buzzell
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ost folks think of cranberries as a crop with requirements that are too challenging for their situation. Cranberries like sandy, acidic, soggy peat soils that can be flooded at will, whereas the average gardener has (or aspires to have) a welldrained, marl, near-neutral soil with sufficient nitrogen-containing humus. Cooperative Extension sources say that cranberries need a glacial deposit consisting of clay underlying gravel underlying peat underlying sand, or you have to create those conditions by building such layers yourself.
An Adaptable Crop I’m sure that’s what cranberry plants prefer, but I’ve found that the crop is not quite that picky. Many years ago a friend gave me some plants he’d gotten from the state, and I looked for an appropriate place to try them. Our hay field had a slight low spot where thatch always accumulated due to excess water that impeded the decay of each year’s grass growth. The area wasn’t that special; I bet most of you have such a spot. This was hardly a “bog,” but I enhanced the effect by digging out the sod (with most of the topsoil) and shaping it around the area to exaggerate the depression. That left the remaining subsoil sterile, which was rocky and prone to waterlogging – in short, just right. I left a shallow ditch draining the area so that I could retain or remove surplus water as desired, although I never bothered to close the ditch. There were lots of rocks, and I removed most of them, at least the larger ones, but to no great depth. It’s been a long time, and I don’t remember how well I worked the “ground” (“soil” is a bit too kind), but I don’t recall doing much. I will point out that I’ve never been exceptionally fond of cranberries. I just like growing some of everything, and my wife appreciated that they promoted bladder health (more on that later). Since they’ve begun to yield, she finds that she’s off Cranberries ready for harvest
Many Maine farms and homesteads have low spots where cranberries will do well. them, so I’m trying to develop a taste for them myself, with considerable success.
Surviving Neglect I didn’t have much confidence in growing cranberries in my upland, very-un-Cape-Cod-like soil, but I had the plants, so there. They were rather wispy little rooted runners, and I guessed at a spacing of about 2 feet square. I may have returned to cultivate them once or twice, but if so I wasn’t very thorough – so not surprisingly the little plot grew up to alders and gray birch and lots of scruffy weeds that almost obscured the cranberry plants. Many died, and indeed I wasn’t sure any had survived, so haphazard was my attention. The plants are very low and sprawling, and their teeny leaves are easy to overlook, which I did for several years. Then one fall I happened to notice a few half-hidden berries among the skimpy grey-green vines – beautiful full-sized berries that looked almost out of place amid that weedy mess. Only then did I notice that some sections were blanketed with a solid mat of plants, with most of the fruit beneath. This was not a bodacious crop, but quite respectable considering its neglect. Since then I’ve cut out most of the brush and done some cursory weeding. The plants appreciated it, and the weedy gaps are filling in quickly. I helped a little by thinning some spots and transplanting a few of the runners where they quickly took off. What I have not done is what cranberries supposed-
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 11
ly need for success: I have never flooded or drained them, just let them be. My ground isn’t perfectly level but has some slight humps and hollows, which the cranberries don’t seem to mind much. Conventional cranberry growers flood their “bogs” twice a year: first to protect the forming fruit from the false armyworm and other pests (which I have yet to see, but then I’m not on Cape Cod), and at harvest time to float the ripe berries for machine harvesting (I hand pick mine, which suits my purpose). Commercial growers spread a layer of sand on the ice in winter, which in spring sinks to the bottom to mulch out weeds. Again, I do a bit of hand weeding, which is adequate for my noncommercial operation. Despite all I’ve said, growing cranberries is not right for everyone, or at least not for every soil. They definitely do not abide heavy clay soil, nor overly dry soil. Although they tolerate flooding, they don’t want to be constantly waterlogged. Fertility doesn’t seem to be a big issue; mine certainly aren’t over-nourished. No doubt they would like a bit more humus than the sterile subsoil I put them into, but I believe too much nitrogen would pose a greater threat, as it would encourage ranker growth, which would choke them out. They seem to prefer a leaner lot with neighbors they can compete with. We think of cranberries ripening just in time for the holidays, but I was shocked to discover berries left over winter, under snow and some under water, in perfectly good condition the following April. I’m sure they grow back quickly once the weather warms, but I’m grateful for a second chance at whatever I may have missed. I remember reading about the early Puritans shipping cranberries to England in casks of pure cold water, where they keep well for weeks or months.
Adaptable, to a Point Cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpum) are closely related to a species in northern Europe. All belong in the Ericaceae, or heath family, along with blueberries, huckleberries, bilberries, lingonberries or wortleberries (no, I never did either …), all well-adapted for acid peat soils. Could cranberries grow in common garden soil? I don’t know, but I’m skeptical. As mentioned before, the high fertility would create much greater weed pressure without helping the cranberries in proportion. Maintaining a sufficiently low pH would require adding sulfate or something (pine needles?). Like most Maine soils, my patch is naturally rather acidic; for cranberries, I mainly have to avoid adding any alkali. Without the occasional standing water, I expect the roots would feel ill at ease, whether they’d actually tolerate that condition or not. What I do know is that if you can find or create the right conditions, you’ll have little need for further maintenance, as shown by my cruelly neglected patch.
Ornamental and Consumable I’ve never known anyone to mention this, but while cranberry plants look pretty nondescript, the berries themselves are quite ornamental. Their different shades of glossy dark red with occasional yellowish blushes on the unlit side give a dramatic accent to reeds and such. I just like to leave a wooden bowlful sitting on the table – although in warm, dry air they soon wither, at which point you should throw them into the sauce pan right away. No matter; sooner or later they’re meant to be eaten. About eating: Plain cranberry sauce is the classic, and in my opinion the best way to prepare and eat theses tart northern delicacies. Just cover them with water and simmer slowly, sweetening to taste toward the end. I’m not sure how commercial cranberry juice is made, but I’ve more than covered the berries with water and simmered them long and slowly (partly to bring out the color) before hanging them overnight in a juice bag. (An old pillowcase will do; of course it could be a new one too.) Some might like the juice that way, sweetened I assume; I care for it only when mixed at least half-and-half with late fall apple juice. Cranberries have a reputation for being healthy, and they are, but the story is not so simple. They may lower “bad” (LDL) cholesterol and enhance the balance of “good” (HDL) cholesterol. Their high polyphenol content (associated with the rich color) helps prevent cardiovascular disease. They are also high in vitamins C, E and K1, along with the minerals copper and manganese. (“Cranberries 101: Nutrition Facts and Health Benefits,” by Atli Arnarson, Ph.D., healthline, Feb. 15, 2019; https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/ foods/cranberries) As for their bladder-friendliness, here’s where it gets
complicated. In “Hold the cranberries: UTI myths explained,” Courtenay Moore, M.D., a urologist at the Cleveland Clinic, is cited as saying that some initial studies seemed to indicate no significant beneficial effect of cranberry juice on resolving urinary tract infections (UTIs). (Chicago Tribune, Jan. 28, 2015; https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/sns201501270000—tms—premhnstr—k-h20150128-2015 0128-story.html) Follow-up investigations suggest that doses that are too small are ineffectual, but a few glasses per day, every couple of hours (preferably unsweetened), can prevent UTIs. This is because Atype proanthocyanidins in cranberry juice prevent the E. coli bacteria that cause UTIs from sticking to the urinary tract walls, including the bladder. Note that “prevents” is different from “curing” established UTIs. In fact, according to Susun Weed, cranberry juice can aggravate interstitial cystitis, a condition causing bladder pressure, bladder pain and sometimes pelvic pain. (“Interstitial cystitis,” by Susun Weed, Wise Woman Herbal Ezine, May 2008; http://www.susun weed.com/herbal_ezine/May08/grandmother.htm)
Varieties and Sources Three of the most common cranberry varieties are ‘Early Black’, ‘Howes’ and ‘Stevens’. I believe mine are ‘Stevens’. I think the main differences are color, size and earliness, but I don’t know enough to have a preference. More recently developed varieties include ‘Crimson Queen’, ‘Valley King’ and ‘Granite Red’. Commercial sources include Cape Cod Select in Carver, Mass., Willows Cranberries in Wareham, Mass., and Pine Barrens Native Fruits LLC in Browns Mills, New Jersey. Home gardeners can check Fedco Trees, which offers ‘Stevens’. About the author: Will Bonsall lives in Industry, Maine, where he directs Scatterseed Project (https://www.scatter seed project.org/#scatterseed), a seed-saving enterprise. He is the author of “Will Bonsall’s Essential Guide to Radical Self-Reliant Gardening” (Chelsea Green, 2015). You can contact him at wabonsall@gmail.com. This article is for informational purposes only. For serious health issues, please contact your health care practitioner.
Page 12 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
EarthLooms Weave Community at MOFGA’s Common Ground Country Fair BY SONJA HEYCK-MERLIN
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arly each morning since the 2005 debut of an EarthLoom at the Common Ground Country Fair, Wednesday Spinner and Weaving a Life founder Susan Merrill spends an hour and a half preparing the loom for weaving. Located across a busy walking lane from the Wednesday Spinners’ tent, the 9 x 4 ½-foot-tall EarthLoom is the focal point of the “pocket park” where the spinners’ dye garden and a bench-height stone wall surround the loom. Comprised of seven pieces, the large vertical rectangular frame has diagonal bracing near the top. People tell Merrill that the architecture of the loom reminds them of a Buddhist temple or a krusha, an ancient Siberian symbol of home. EarthLooms, like the one at Common Ground, exist around the world: in playgrounds, libraries, national parks, retirement communities and museums. You can find them at funerals, retreats, weddings and graduations. No matter the venue, the goal of weaving on an EarthLoom remains consistent. “The EarthLoom,” Merrill says, “is a living symbol, planted in the ground, of our intention to weave together the fabric of community.” Also called a GardenLoom, the EarthLoom is one of four sizes of looms that Weaving a Life sells, with all four versions having the unique seven-piece structure. The design originates from Merrill’s childhood meanderings on the Maine coast, weaving together seaweeds, sticks and other natural materials. Whether weaving on one her lap-sized models or using a larger model, she sees the process “as a way to explore the inner self and create balance and wholeness in your life and ways to work in the world with peace of mind.”
Joe Auciello of the Maine Stoneworkers Guild created the new EarthLoom. Photo courtesy of Joe Auciello
The New Granite EarthLoom The third iteration of the EarthLoom was unveiled at the 2019 Common Ground Country Fair. The beautiful granite sculpture replaced the second wooden version. Merrill and Joe Auciello, a member of the Maine Stone Workers Guild, whose presentation area at the Fair abuts the Wednesday Spinners’, conceived the idea of the stone loom together. Merrill recounts, “I was sitting on the wall during the Fair, and Joe came and sat beside me. I expressed that it was a shame that our loom was starting to rot. He said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to make one out of stone?’” The loom sculpture adds to the presence of the Maine Stone Workers Guild etched throughout the fairgrounds: the sundial in the common, the north gate arch and numerous benches. From conception to installation, the granite loom took three years to complete, supported by an $800 grant from the Maine Arts Commission. Using Merrill’s design, Auciello, with help from guild members Ray Carbone and Norman Casas, cut the seven pieces out of two large stones donated by JC Stone in Jefferson, Maine. Some parts, says Auciello, “were split and cut as a demonstration at the Fair.” At the site the seven pieces were bolted together with stainless steel and galvanized hardware. The crew dug a wide, shallow pit and lined it “to make sure the frost doesn’t get under the loom,” Auciello says. Then they reinforced the pit with a cage of rebar, drilled through the two legs of the loom and tied them into stainless-steel rods. Weighing about 1,400 pounds, the loom was erected using a tripod and braced into position. Then the
In addition to the full-sized EarthLoom, a portable version called a Journey Loom keeps kids of all ages busy at the Common Ground Country Fair. English photo
stone masons poured 6 inches of concrete, leaving enough depth to completely cover the foundation with soil so that the sculpture “appears to come right out of the earth,” says Auciello. “With the way we erected it, the loom shouldn’t move for a few hundred years.”
Weaving at the Fair The process of preparing the granite EarthLoom for weaving is the same as it was for wooden iterations. Each morning before the Fair begins, Merrill runs long vertical strands (called the warp) of jute twine from the top to the bottom of the loom, alternating between brown and green strands. In the middle she warps a strand of red jute so that weavers have a visual understanding of the center of the weaving.
Susan Barrett Merrill’s husband, Richard, made the old cedar EarthLoom that stood in the pocket park and dye garden at MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center for many years. English photo
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 13
Merrill designed the EarthLoom and makes Zati masks from fiber woven on a loom. “Zati” is an Urdu word meaning “from the inside” or “the spirit inside.” English photo With this setup, weaving on the loom “simply becomes a matter of picking up the brown and then picking up the green,” Merrill says. The Wednesday Spinners choose the recipient of each weaving, typically a person unable to attend the Fair. Weavers create a tapestry each day of the Fair, after which Merrill removes the work and binds of the edges. The first EarthLoom weaving, from the 2005 Fair, hangs in the entryway of MOFGA’s main building in Unity. Merrill keeps the pocket park stocked with weaving materials such as yarn and fabric pieces, placed in separate baskets around the foot of the loom, so that weavers can choose material for their weft (the
English photo
horizontal strands). She also encourages fairgoers to find any natural materials to weave into their shared creation. They frequently use grass, straw, flowers, stalks and even pine cones. Weavers sometimes incorporate handwritten notes addressed to the recipient of the weaving. “The weaving process is intuitive and self-evident,” Merrill says. “Everyone knows how to weave on this loom. No one needs teaching.” Because of its size, the loom can accommodate up to 20 weavers who can work from both sides simultaneously, and because of its simplicity, all ages and abilities can participate. “Weaving together,” Merrill says, “is so powerful. It is a literal act of weaving together the community. In this simple and ancient art, we connect with others
The new granite EarthLoom. English photo whose fingers have touched the same threads to create the same fabric with the same purpose. It is a deeprooted bond in the heart that can change the way we define our neighborhood.”
Page 14 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Gleaning: Healthy Eating for Everyone BY TIM KING
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network of farms and gleaner-volunteers, along with food security organizations, has risen up across Maine in an effort to meet the needs of food insecure Maine residents. From Aroostook County in the north to Lincoln and Cumberland counties in the south, farmers are teaming up with nonprofit organizations and social service agencies, along with hundreds of volunteers, to rescue good food and distribute it through a variety of ingenious ways.
Healthy Acadia in Washington County In Washington County the nonprofit Healthy Acadia works with a few blueberry farmers to glean blueberries that the farmers might never harvest. “I had wanted to do a blueberry glean for a few years prior, but was concerned about the logistics of a highly perishable product,” says Regina Grabrovac, a food programs manager for Healthy Acadia in Washington County. “What pushed me over the edge was the wholesale market situation for wild blueberries. Processors were indicating that the price that they were going to be paying the growers, beginning around 2015, was declining due to an oversupply of berries on the world market.” Blueberries, after they’ve been raked and harvested, need to be sorted and cleaned before they are presentable. Because of that, Grabrovac knew she had to find not only a farmer with an available field but cleaning equipment as well. “I had to find a farmer who had a fresh pack processing line, and there aren’t many of these,” she says. “The few that there are are very precious to the owners, and not everybody is willing to let you use their machine, but I found a very generous farmer. They had a couple of fields that they weren’t harvesting because it was not worth it to them.” A successful gleaning project has a lot of working parts that need to mesh. In the case of the blueberry project, Grabrovac had a farmer with processing equipment, but she needed volunteers. A cadre of community volunteers is vital to Healthy Acadia’s gleaning efforts in Washington County. But when the McKeen Center for the Common Good of Bowdoin College – located in Cumberland County – reached out to Healthy Acadia, Grabrovac knew blueberry gleaning would be perfect for the Bowdoin students’ Community Immersion Orientation Trip. Grabrovac sees participation in blueberry gleaning as an opportunity to educate the students as well as to rescue blueberries.
“We typically have two days of blueberry gleaning,” she says. “One day with the Bowdoin students and another with community volunteers. For the students it’s an introduction to Maine, so I provide information on how wild blueberries grow, how they are processed, and what smallscale growers in our communities are facing.” Then the students learn how to harvest blueberries. “We use hand-held rakes,” she says. She explains the process: “Wild blueberry plants are only 6 to 9 inches high, so bend at the knees, be aware of your back, and use a gentle but firm sweeping motion as you run the rake, held in one hand, through the berries. Take care to not squish them as you rake. Empty your full rake into the 20-pound boxes and repeat. It is a whole-body motion and one that multiple generations of families are familiar with here in Washington County. You learn as you go, and you quickly learn that wasted motion is lost earnings. Good rakers can do 100 to 150 boxes a day.” After the students finish raking in the morning, they go to the processing line for the afternoon. The line has been operating all morning, preparing berries for the fresh market. “I really like it when the volunteer gleaners interact with the women whose job is to clean the berries,” Grabrovac says. “These women have been doing this all their lives, and the young volunteers learn a lot from them.” Like any farming enterprise, the final piece of a successful gleaning project is to get the harvest to market. And, like any marketing effort, this requires planning and good connections. “I alert the food pantries in the county a week prior to the glean with an estimated date of availability,” Grabrovac says. “As a highly perishable crop, I want the berries in the cooler as soon as possible and moved into the hands of food pantry customers within three to five days. Pantry volunteers and managers come to our Healthy Acadia Coolbot walk-in cooler for pickup.” For a gleaning project like the blueberry one to succeed, Grabrovac believes that Healthy Acadia has to offer something to the farmer. “Sometimes I ask a farmer, ‘What do you need help with,’ and they might say they need help derocking a
Students from the Bowdoin College McKeen Center for the Common Good sort blueberries with women who have done this job for years. Photo by Regina Grabrovac
Regina Grabrovac and four young missionary volunteers from the Church of the Latter Day Saints harvest blueberries. Photo courtesy of Regina Grabrovac
field or harvesting some carrots or that they have a massive weeding project,” she says. “I try to provide that support based on the volunteers that I have available.”
Healthy Acadia in Hancock County
Grabrovac’s Healthy Acadia colleagues in Hancock County work to provide that same sort of support for their farmer-partners. Gleaning is not intended to be a one-way extraction process from the farm, say Katie Freedman and Rachel Emus of Healthy Acadia. “A good example of how that works is there have been some farms that were hesitant about having volunteers come at harvest time,” the women say. “But they were interested in getting help picking rocks in a field they were getting ready for production. So we organized volunteers to help with that or some other project requiring a lot of labor. Labor is a big issue for a lot of these farms because there’s not many people that want to work on farms in our area.” However, Anna Davis, a manager at MOFGA-certified organic Beech Hill Farm in Mount Desert in Hancock County, is happy to have Healthy Acadia bring volunteers onto the farm during the harvest. In fact, she sees Emus and those volunteers as an important part of the harvest team. Davis is in regular contact with Emus during the harvest, and they talk about what Emus and her volunteers can do. “We don’t have to do anything [to organize the volunteers], and that’s great because we don’t have any labor to spare in August,” Davis says. “Emus is punctual, reliable and accessible in August, and she knows where all the fields are. If we need a chard bed clearcut before replanting, she just drives right in and goes to it.” The major market for Beech Hill Farm, which is part of College of the Atlantic, is its on-farm stand, which is open Tuesday through Saturday. Harvest crews pick for the Saturday market on Friday. Knowing that Emus will rescue the surplus, harvesters pick plenty to keep the stand shelves full through the close of the market. “On Saturday we pack everything that’s left and put it in the cooler, and on Monday Emus knows that what’s in the cooler is for gleaning,” says Davis. “She’s really organized. She has her own crates and she weighs it all, so we get an idea how much there is.” Davis says that she’s worked at a couple of other farms that were committed to supplying surplus produce to food pantries. However, because of time and labor constraints, the farms’ ability to act on that commitment was often limited. “We want to get our surplus produce to food insecure people in the area, but we don’t have the labor to do that,” Davis says. “Ethically we really believe that’s important, so it’s great that Healthy Acadia serves as a broker between us Lydia Brown and he dad, Buster, farm together in and the food pantry or other organizations.” Lincoln County. The Browns donated over 5,000 Bar Harbor Farm, not far from Beech Hill, pounds of produce last year, and they graciously donated 1,700 pounds of mixed produce to welcomed large volunteer groups to glean. Photo by Healthy Acadia in 2019 and will work with the Sally Ingraham organization in 2020.
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 15
“Rachel Emus has been doing a great job picking up produce in a reliable way and delivering it to those in need,” Glenon Friedmann of Bar Harbor Farm says. “We strongly support that.” Friedmann adds that in an ideal world, she’d change things, however. “Food insecurity in this country is a disgraceful, complex and systemic issue,” she says. “Small farmers, working with thin profit margins, generally want to do their best to help with this problem. Gleaning, in our case, has cost us a bit of labor, harvesting and packing the vegetables, that later end up in the cooler for the gleaning pick-up. A small stipend to offset farm labor and operational expenses, incorporated into the grant paying for the gleaning operation, would be helpful as we do our best to maintain fair wages for our employees.” Healthy Acadia gleaned 28,042 pounds of produce from 40 farms in 2019 and delivered that quality surplus food to food pantries, free meal programs and other food security organizations.
Lincoln County Gleaners The Lincoln County Gleaners, part of Healthy Lincoln County, have a different approach to getting food to food-insecure people. They had gleaned just shy of 10,000 pounds of food by the end of the 2019 growing season and distributed it through what they call sharing tables. They generally don’t distribute via food pantries. “Our goal is to reach the people that are not comfortable visiting food pantries,” says Sally Ingraham of the Lincoln County Gleaners. “We want to expand the charitable food system to include places that are not already being served by other food initiatives. Many times people may just need help one time or they may want to try an unfamiliar vegetable, but don’t want to spend the money for fear of wasting it. We want to encourage everyone to be comfortable, for whatever their reason, to dig in and eat healthy.” Some of the sharing table sites include the Central Lincoln County YMCA, Healthy Lincoln County, Young’uns of Damariscotta, The Jefferson Scoop, local Head Start facilities and preschools, local libraries and low-income housing. The sharing tables are responding to a definite need in Lincoln County. Stacey Cole of the Addiction Resource Center in Damariscotta wrote to Ingraham, “Just wanted to touch base and let you know what a positive impact your program has had on our clients. We have received many positive comments from our clients. Having the opportunity to offer a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables to our clients when they otherwise may not be able to get to a farmers’ market or grocery store has been invaluable. The impact of healthy foods during early recovery is vital for functioning, and your program has enabled us to help support our clients’ recovery efforts in a way we haven’t been able to do in the past.” Last November the Lincoln County Gleaners received a call that allowed them to add to their services. The caller, who leased land to a farmer, said that some pumpkins were available. Did the gleaners want them? They did. The team harvested them, and then a crew processed and froze the pumpkin in a local cooperative kitchen. “We will absolutely do more processing in the future,” Ingraham says. “It’s fun and another way to capture the local food and make it last the entire year. It is important to eat local food that is available, and processing is one way to make sure the food is utilized and not wasted.” The Lincoln County Gleaners, along with Healthy Acadia, is a member of the Maine Gleaning Network,which also includes the Western Waldo County Gleaners, Androscoggin Gleaners, Cumberland County Gleaning Initiative, the Merrymeeting Gleaners and UMaine Cooperative Extension, among others. The Gleaning Network organized the successful “Maine Gleaning Week 2019” last October, among other projects. Partnerships and collaboration are the keys to effective gleaning efforts and to getting nutritious food to those who are food insecure, according to Freedman and Emus of Healthy Acadia. In fact it was a partnership with UMaine Cooperative Extension that got Healthy Acadia into gleaning. “This started with Cooperative Extension when we were doing an annual apple gleaning with them in a pick-your-own orchard,” Freedman says. “They also have a project where they encourage home gardeners to grow an extra row of vegetables for food pantries, and they help connect people to local pantries. It’s not
really gleaning, but it was out of that program and the apple gleaning that the larger gleaning program rose.” Freedman suggests that the best way to start a local or county-wide gleaning effort is to have the food pantries and other organizations get together to talk and discover mutual needs and interests. The result of forming such a network can include not only creating a gleaning program but, more broadly, moving closer to making our communities food secure. About the author: Tim King is a produce and sheep farmer, a journalist, and co-founder of a bilingual community newsletter. He lives near Long Prairie, Minnesota.
Volunteers glean what’s left of the tomato crop at Blue-Zee Farm in Penobscot. From left to right: Elise Teixido, Anna Wind and Justine Appel. Photo by Rachel Emus
Page 16 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 17
Daytripping 2020
Dates
Farm or Garden
Several dates
July 5
3 Streams Farm, Belfast
Avena Botanicals, Rockport
July 25
Campo di Fiori, Bowdoinham
Easter Orchard Farm, Wells
Farms and Gardens to Visit This Summer
July 26
Rabbit Hill Farm, Deer Isle
Fire Flower Garden and Pottery, Thorndike
Note: Due to COVID-19, we urge readers to contact the farmers and gardeners listed below before visiting them to find out whether they are still open for tours this summer. Welcome to the 2020 Daytripping list, an annual feature in The MOF&G. At this year’s farm and garden tours, learn about seed saving, growing fruit trees organically, farming with draft animals, raising nurturing herbs and much more. For more farms to visit this summer, please check the Events tab at mofga.org, where you’ll find MOFGA’s weekly Farm Training Project Workshops, Farmer to Farmer in the Field events, Gather & Grow Homestead Tours and more. Please leave pets at home when you visit these farms.
Hancock County RABBIT HILL FARM in DEER ISLE is a diversified, certified organic farm, cider orchard and rabbitry. The rabbits, raised for meat and fiber, were an important component of the farm’s unique soil-building technique. Farm crops such as cucumbers, asparagus, beans and apples were the inspiration for the specialty food company Cheryl Wixson’s Kitchen. Home of the Deer Isle Cider Company, Rabbit Hill offers wine tastings and farm-to-table suppers. Date: July 26 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. – Farm tours, rabbit feeding, shore walks, learn to dig clams, explore the Crockett Cove woods preserve 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. – Wine tasting by Deer Isle Cider Company 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. – Potluck sunset supper. Bring something to share, a musical instrument and your dancing shoes! Directions: Take Rt. 15 onto the island of Deer Isle and proceed to Deer Isle village. As you pass the red house and go down the hill, turn right off Rt. 15 onto Main Street. The Deer Isle post office and the Pilgrim’s Inn will be on your left. Drive south toward Stonington for 4.2 miles. Turn right onto Barbour Farm Road., a dirt road. Keep left and follow for 1 mile to the end and up the hill. Drop-off passenger area and handicap parking only are available on the hill. This is a private road and parking is limited. Please drive slowly and plan to park and walk. Contact: 148 Barbour Farm Rd., Stonington, Maine, 207-367-5003, www.cherylwixsonskitchen.com
Kennebec County WINTERBERRY FARM in BELGRADE, owned by Mary Perry and her family for the past 20 years, dates back to 1870. This diversified, 40-acre farm extends down to the shores of Great Pond in the Belgrade Lakes area of central Maine. Winterberry Farm is a “Forever Farm”: Perry has donated the development rights so that it will remain a farm forever. The MOFGA-certified organic family farm is horse- and oxen-powered and grows cut flowers and vegetables for its CSA
and its farmstand. It offers cut-your-own flowers and farm-to-table dinners, is available for events and weddings, has a full-service farmstand with bake shop, and offers sleigh rides and tours of its maple syrup operation. Dates: The farm is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from May to September and year round with limited hours. For a tour, please call ahead – but if you find yourself in Belgrade, please stop for a slice of blueberry pie from the farm store and view the flower gardens or take a self-guided tour. Directions: The farm is located at 538 Augusta Rd./Rt. 27 in Belgrade. Drive north from Augusta for about 15 minutes or west from Waterville for about 20 minutes. Contact: 207-649-3331; www.winterberryfarmstand.com
Knox County AVENA BOTANICALS in ROCKPORT, Maine, makes herbal remedies using fresh organic and biodynamic herbs while nurturing plants, people and pollinators. These vital plants along with a sacred connection to place promote wellness of the body, mind and spirit and encourage humans to be mindful and loving stewards of the Earth. Avena’s retail herbal remedy shop is open every Monday through Friday from noon to 5 p.m. and during each garden walk. Try herbal tinctures, cremes, salves, oils, elixirs and glycerites. Avena also sells tea blends. Dates: Guided herb walks by herbalist Deb Soule, who will speak about a variety of medicinal and pollinator plants, on Wednesdays, June 10, June 24, July 8, July 22, August 5 and August 12, from 3 to 4 p.m. Herb walks for children are on Tuesdays, July 14, July 21 and August 4, from 3 to 4 p.m. Please see website for details. Directions: From Rt. 90 in Rockport, turn left onto Mill Street and proceed almost a mile to mailbox #219 and the Avena Herb Gardens sign on your right. Contact: Avena Botanicals, 219 Mill St., Rockport, Maine 04856; 866-282-8362; https://www.avenabotanicals.com
August 8-9 The Trotochaud/McDowell Gardens and Everyday Potter, Belmont
Winterberry Farm, Belgrade
GEORGES RIVER LAND TRUST’s annual Gardens in the Watershed tour has been canceled this year in an effort to keep everyone safe. The trust will, however, provide alternative online garden experiences for its valued supporters. Please visit Georgesriver.org for more information.
At 3 STREAMS FARM in BELFAST, see the burst of biodiversity beneath the second-year sprout pompoms of pollarded trees in a 1acre air meadow demonstration plot funded by Northeast SARE and now complete. Meet livestock that eat tree leaves, and sample products of the woodland. Date: Sunday, July 5, 8:30 a.m. Please leave a voicemail if you plan to come: 207338-3301 Directions: 209 Back Belmont Rd., Belfast, halfway between Jesse Robbins Road and the big power line. Look for a black mailbox #209 on the north side of the road, with wide wooden gate, probably open. Follow the gravel drive. Contact: Shana Hanson, shanahanson@ gmail.com or (preferred) 207-338-3301; https://3streamsfarmbelfastme.blogspot.com
Sagadahoc County CAMPO DI FIORI in BOWDOINHAM MAINE is a small commercial nursery growing a unique selection of herbaceous wildflowers and ornamental grasses specifically chosen for use in naturalistic planting design, and as portrayed in three separate display gardens. Of equal interest is the nursery’s developments in growing and breeding neohybrid hazels; it is one of only a few Maine sources for such seedlings. A general farm tour will introduce the nursery, vegetable gardens and orchards, along with an inevitable philosophical discussion about gardening, food, nature and the farmer’s passion for plants. Date: Saturday, July 25, 10 a.m.; will be canceled in event of rain. Directions: From north take 295 to Bowdoinham exit. Turn left onto Main Street. Look for DOT sign – 1 mile on the Fisher Road. From south take 295 to Bowdoinham exit. Turn right onto Main Street. Look for DOT sign – 1 mile on the Fisher Road. From Rt. 24 look for DOT sign at Bowdoinham center – 1 mile to Fisher Road. Contact: Campo di Fiori, 212 Fisher Rd. Bowdoinham, ME 04008; 207-666-8419; andrewfiorigardener@gmail.com; mainegardendesign.com
Waldo County FIRE FLOWER GARDEN AND POTTERY in Thorndike, a small flower farm owned by Barbara Walch and Charlie Krause and certified organic by MOFGA, features display and propagation perennial gardens and annual cutting gardens, plus a log-built combination sauna, potting shed and greenhouse, on the grounds of a potter’s home and studio. The primula garden, with a living willow fence, should be in bloom in early spring. The garden is only a few miles from MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center and the Common Ground Country Fair grounds. Date: Open by chance; call ahead to be sure. Directions: From Rt. 220 take Rt. 139 out of Thorndike toward Brooks, about 2 miles to 33 Knox Station Rd. on your right. It is the first house on the right. Contact: 33 Knox Station Rd., Thorndike, ME 04986; 207-568-3736; walchkrause@uninets.net; on Facebook: Fire Flower Garden
The TROTOCHAUD/MCDOWELL GARDENS AND EVERYDAY POTTERY STUDIO in BELMONT will hold its annual pottery sale and garden tour on August 8 and 9. With a goal of creating a sustainable organic garden, Mary Trotochaud and Rick McDowell have established numerous fruit, vegetable and flower beds that include cranberries, blueberries, strawberries, rhubarb, apple trees, cherries, raspberries, breadseed poppy, hazelberts, peach, apple, apricot, pear and plum trees. A romantic but sturdy grape arbor supports five varieties of grapes. See also a fire pit, a pizza oven, a well-designed chicken coop and a reflecting pool with a small fountain. The pizza oven will be lit up, weather permitting. (Trotochaud is a longtime donor to the MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee’s Empty Bowl Supper.) Date: August 8 and 9, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Open other days by chance or appointment. Directions: From the intersection of the Rt. 1 bypass and Rt. 52 in Belfast, take Rt. 52 5 miles to Ryan Road. Turn right on Ryan Road (which becomes Northport Road) and go about 2 miles. Signs for Everyday Pottery are on Rt. 52 and at the house. Contact: 103 Northport Rd., Belmont, ME 04952; 342-2251, 706-3954; mtrotochaud@earthlink.net; www.marytrotochaud.com
York County At EASTER ORCHARD FARM in WELLS, farmer Mort Mather raises MOFGA-certified organic vegetables for Joshua’s Restaurant in Wells. An acre managed largely with grass clipping mulch provided over 12,000 pounds of vegetables last year for his son’s truly farmto-table restaurant. Dates: Drop by or call 207-646-7177 in advance to be sure we can welcome you. Directions: Take the Loop Road off 109 in Highpine (about midway between Wells and Sanford) to Bald Hill Rd. The farm is 0.8 mile up Bald Hill Road on the right. Contact: 802 Bald Hill Rd., Wells. 207-3370865
171 Capitol St., Augusta, ME 04330
Page 18 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
The Roots of Organic Movement Building in PostColonial Guyana BY JOHN BLISS
W
hat does it take to build a movement? At what point does despair transform into hope; stagnation into motivation? How is a movement embodied in leadership, in community and in the landscape? In November 2019 I had an opportunity to travel to South America with a U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) project. I have written in The MOF&G in the past about the USAID Farmer to Farmer program (not to be confused with MOFGA’s Farmer to Farmer Conference) that recruits volunteers with specific expertise to share knowledge with farming communities throughout the world. This time I was sent to Guyana, which lies on the coast of the Caribbean Sea between Venezuela and Suriname. Although these aid programs usually have conventional goals such as “cold-chain development” (temperature-controlled storage and transportation) or “finance for cooperatives,” this time I was to conduct short introductory trainings on small-scale organic vegetable farming. This was very exciting for me since it felt solidly in my wheelhouse, having been farming organically for 18 years as well as doing inspections for MOFGA Certification Services for the past three seasons.
Learning About Guyana Preparing for a volunteer assignment in a place you have never visited is difficult. The climate, the culture, the markets as well as the expectations placed on you are mostly unknown. But diving in and being flexible make the experience a bit of an adventure. Learning about a part of the world and meeting interesting people is the reward. In short order I learned that Guyana is a small country in population with a vast and sparsely populated rainforest ecology extending away from the coast. Along the sea the landscape is flat and fertile, although heavily exploited and abused throughout a long colonial history. Agriculture is still oriented toward sugar plantations and large-scale rice farming, but it is no longer competitive in global markets, so deindustrialization or underdevelopment has proceeded painfully for decades. Partners of the Americas, the NGO that implements Farmer to Farmer in Guyana, is at the forefront of educating communities in self-suffi-
The author conducted trainings on organic farming on various farms using on-hand demonstrations and flip-chart illustrations. ciency and small-scale farming. I met Jermaine during a heavy downpour on my first morning in Georgetown, the capital city. He is the program manager for Partners of the Americas and was my guide, my driver and my patient culture decoder for the duration of the assignment. Guyana is a Caribbean country, sharing the heritage of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and other “West Indies” countries. Driving the coastal highway revealed a landscape as clear as any history textbook of the colonial project. Dutch-engineered dikes divide the land with alternating irrigation and drainage
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 19
canals. British measuring systems rationalize ownership in chains, rods and acres. The naming of places may not be particular to colonialism, but the British who took control of the coastal plain echo get-rich quick schemes from the early 19th century: “Good Intent,” “Three Friends,” “Maria’s Delight” and “Land of Plenty.” One might get the impression of lakehouse camps or suburban developments, but these are plantation names with brutal histories where wealth was extracted only by the ubiquitous oppression of black slaves. A plantation called “Bachelor’s Adventure” earned its place in history after a huge slave rebellion in 1823 was quashed, with hundreds killed. The legacy of slavery, land exploitation and colonial resource extraction is obvious at every turn. After emancipation by the British in the 1830s, slaves were replaced by indentured workers from other parts of the British Empire, often working in comparably harsh conditions. Easily the most ethnically diverse country I have ever visited, people of Indian, West African, Chinese, European and Amerindian extraction live a narrative of resilience to historical trauma.
A Permaculture WhatsApp Group During my first week, Partners of the Americas introduced me to a group that had organized around an online listserv on social media – the PermacultureSahakari WhatsApp Group. Its goal was to learn about and apply organic and permaculture techniques to members’ backyard plots and small farms not far from Georgetown. They had regular meetups and workshops, but the main function of the group clearly was encouraging and advocating for each other’s projects. This was my first window in on movement building. The group started small, and the core members shared a desire to eat healthily. Seeing no organic food options at the markets, they resolved to educate themselves about growing their own food. Their motivations were varied and layered, but one theme I heard from several people was sickness – either of family members or of themselves. It is easy to forget that fundamental to change is suffering, and although we all suffer some hardships, acute illness can induce lifelong purpose. Here was a small group of educated people, well-off in society, who had been touched by pain. Either on advice from doctors, the internet or intuition, all had come to the not-unlikely conclusion that conventional food was central to their health problems, and their solutions had a feel of desperation, as we all experience when there is a glimmer of far-off hope. I wanted to sit with this awareness and absorb it as much as I could, but there was a depth of feeling in their personal narratives that I did not need to probe. I saw that the social media platform was performing an emotional need, reinforcing commitment and persistence. These members often did not have the support
of their family or neighbors, so without the WhatsApp group, their struggle would be lonely. I toured their growing areas, some big, some small, some a decade old and others still dense with jungle vegetation. After most of a week of informal and structured conversation, I conducted a training day, based on the fundamentals of organic farming as I know it, and on research I had been gathering over the previous month. First and foremost, I shared the fundamental principles of organic farming, which I took from a training manual from the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM, which publishes loads of documents on organic farming and organizing): The principle of health The principle of ecology The principle of fairness The principle of care Although focusing on these concepts took time away from the practical concerns of organic farming, I
A Rastafarian farmer gives a tour of his diverse production area. found that the discussion of principles revealed some important misconceptions. What makes organic farming different from simply farming without synthetic chemicals? Isn’t an Amerindian farmer (the term for those indigenous people living mostly in the interior of the country, in the rainforest) an organic farmer? Here I found it helpful to situate organic farming as a response to industrialism, and thus as part of a family of social and political movements stretching back in history. We also discussed multiculturalism, often overlooked by even well-established organic advocates. Within the principle of fairness is acknowledgement and respect of the diverse cultural traditions that have inspired organic farmers. Especially as advocates of permaculture, which has folded so many indigenous techniques into its brand, the wider struggles of social Continued on the next page
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Page 20 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Guyana Continued from the previous page justice should be embraced. Far from being an academic diversion, these conversations laid groundwork for movement building. Production in this group was, in most cases, minimal, but all participants were openly sharing what they had. I was added to the WhatsApp group, and soon notifications on my phone were dinging every few minutes. The group shared ideas about leafcutter ant defense (as opposed to a pesticide bait), described trials and tests, and freely gave seeds and seedlings to one another. I was shocked by how networked this group was! If one member posted a picture of a vine full of butternut squash, that member was inundated by offers to buy two or three. Here was a waiting market, but without much in the way of product.
Organic Production Farms and a Participatory Guarantee System As far as the Farmer to Farmer program goes, spending time with a community of affluence in the capital city was unusual. During my second week Jermaine and I traveled southeast along the coast into the farming villages more in line with my past experiences in East and southern Africa. Each day we toured production farms and met with a different group of farmers. I had two or three hours to offer an overview of the techniques of organic growing and led a discussion on organizing growers around a standard that could be leveraged in the marketplace. These farmers were already self-selected to have an interest in farming without synthetic chemicals, and previous trainings had covered concepts of composting and nutrient cycling, for example. But all were frustrated that the marketplace did not support a transition to all-organic production, given the higher costs they experienced by not using synthetic chemical fertilizers. These conversations mirror those we have in our own communities in Maine. My farming colleagues have invested tremendous effort in developing Community Supported Agriculture enterprises, farmers’ markets and farm-to-restaurant relationships, all while driving the organic standard marketing message forward. Likewise Cooperative Extension, MOFGA’s farmer services and various other nonprofits participate directly in training and networking. Although the imperialist muscle of USAID is at the fore of my awareness, I do not see Partners of the Americas as implicated in that brand of influence or covert “consensus” building. Doing so would be turning a blind eye to
quotidian global poverty of farmers like ourselves. But profit. My new friends from the Permaculture Whatmovement building is ideological by nature, and being sApp group were well-positioned to explore PGS develhonest about this is crucial to our effort. opment and create secure markets for producers. One farmer in particular raised my awareness in this Farmers would still need plenty of technical assistance regard. His place was along a canal where he was alley to achieve organic standards, but the networks were cropping with beds of annuals between diverse tree all but inevitable. crops. Working alone he had created a beautiful 2- or By the third week of my stay in Guyana, I had wit3-acre market garden, striving to eschew conventional nessed the potential of the movement: consumers methods. A member of the Rastafarian searching for product, farmers considA sense of priority community, he was on his guard as we ering new markets and activists willcame to visit his farm. A small ing to do the heavy lift of organizing. emerged that, while delegation of municipal and state The single biggest obstacle to success export production may employees accompanied Jermaine and was trust. The hungry consumers in me. With open frustration, he vented the city did not trust the rural farmers exist in the future, the about the politics governing the use of to be honest about their production. near-term goal was to canal irrigation water for his crops. The rural producers did not trust the Rastafarians in Guyana are a significant build an organic urbanites to be loyal over the course religious minority whose blackmovement domestically. of a growing season. Class issues were nationalist roots can set up barriers at the heart of this breakdown. This between them and non-Rasta community members. was my outsider perspective of course. Although I The dispute over irrigation water as well as other could say the same thing of the challenges in markets frustrations in the local market seemed to be based on in Maine, I would instinctively inject all sorts of prejudice. While his religious and cultural identity had nuance into the assessment. Still, classism is the most strongly fortified his independence from synthetic helpful umbrella concept with which we can move chemical inputs, it also jeopardized his integration in forward progressively. On one hand, discrimination of a community of producers (through irrigation rights). all kinds can be addressed through regulatory means: The local market also required close cooperation, and building or dismantling justice standards through the here I thought I could offer some insight. state. On the other, as many farmers know, there is a Organic or close-to-organic production was indeed natural beauty in a farmers’ market where conversahappening in these farming regions of the country, but tions and familiarity can erode divisions. no marketing strategies were communicating and A Participatory Guarantee System brings these two guaranteeing its importance. As MOFGA Certification approaches together: An organized group decides its Services knows, being an accredited third-party certifier own rules and creates a protective market space. A of organic products is a complex and expensive process. peer-certification network achieves compliance and Exporting globally increases this complexity and is elevates everyone’s level of education around viable only where lucrative markets express a demand. production. Throughout my assignment in Guyana, a sense of Through this volunteer work in Guyana, my underpriority emerged that, while export production may standing of geography, culture and history grew – and exist in the future, the near-term goal was to build an I gained a deeper understanding of social justice organic movement domestically. A Participatory movements globally. The work has allowed me to look Guarantee System (PGS) is a quality assurance system more clearly at our own organic farming community designed to function cooperatively, as in a peer-to-peer in Maine, where we have been and where we need to network. IFOAM again came to my assistance in go. MOFGA started with a PGS mentality, providing articulating these ideas to the various stakeholders with for the needs of its members. Although it has matured whom I was networking. Many regions worldwide alongside National Organic Program protocols, it depend on a PGS to bring trust and security to markets, maintains its grassroots commitment more than most and their development has charted a decidedly third-party certifiers, and to have the best of both nonhierarchical path. Here was another example of worlds, we in Maine, as farmers and consumers, are “organic” as a broad historical movement in the truly lucky. tradition of democratic grassroots activism. Avoiding a top-down regulatory agency does not About the author: John Bliss works at Broadturn Farm in make a Guyanese organic movement easier. It places Scarborough, which grows MOFGA-certified organic responsibility on individuals in the community to vegetables. He wrote about subsistence farming in the agree upon a standard and regulate each other. A PGS Ethiopian highlands for the summer 2016 issue of The has structural aspects designed to accentuate demoMaine Organic Farmer & Gardener. cratic power, facilitate transparency and yet enable
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 21
Aroostook Update BY JEAN ENGLISH AND JOHN CHARTIER
O
n a couple of snowy days last November, we took advantage of the off-season to visit a few enterprises that contribute to Aroostook County’s agricultural economy: Aurora Mills, Yost Farms and the University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI – where we also got a hops update). Here’s our report from Maine’s biggest county.
Steady Growth at Aurora Mills Five years ago The MOF&G covered Aurora Mills & Farm LLC in Linneus, Maine, near Houlton, where Matt Williams and his daughter Sara Williams Flewelling were growing MOFGA-certified organic grains on some 210 acres. They also processed grain from contracted growers and combined grain for various growers. Sara had returned to the farm in 2013 after working as a landscape designer in Washington, D.C. She and Matt were growing wheat, spelt, peas, oats, clover, buckwheat and garlic on the farm that Matt and his wife, Linda, own. At the time Aurora was probably the third largest organic grain grower in Maine, possibly the largest organic wheat grower and probably the largest processor of all-Maine organic grain.
Adding Land Since then, says Sara, she and her husband, Marcus Flewelling, bought a nearby farm where they now grow 90 acres of organic grain. They are renting and transitioning the farm next to it, which will be certified organic this year after being in clover for three years. “We’re slowly increasing acreage and trying to figure out how to bring on at least 25 acres per year,” says Sara. She and Marcus also added to their family, with two young children.
Adding Infrastructure and Income Aurora Mills has added storage and drying capacity. Matt describes the “rolling” nature of the enterprise: “Resources go to increase farming and then to increase milling efficiency. The two can never be separated.” They added a grain dryer out of necessity, due to multiple cold, wet falls. And they upgraded to a John Deere 9550 combine with a 25-foot header. “We hope it will help us have less volunteer buckwheat because [the seed] is not hitting the ground,” says Matt. They continue to add silos, and they hope to build a new processing facility offsite over the next five years
1OO% ORGANIC
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so that they can continue to grow and meet their customers’ needs. “Sarah’s made a huge effect,” says Matt. “Our equipment is getting better, and we intend to upgrade when we can afford it.” In fact sales have quadrupled since she returned, says Sara – but even the current acreage is not enough. “When you get a customer,” says Matt, “you want to keep that customer going. It’s hard to get a new one” Two generations cultivate Aurora Mills & Farm. From the left and standing without growing more grain. in front of some of the new silos: Marcus Flewelling, Sara Williams “Our customer roster has Flewelling, Matt and Linda Williams. grown the same way as our farming: sustainably,” says Sara. “It’s easy to sell: People at all.” Farmers who use fungicides, he says, have to like our story, it’s multigenerational, and we are use more fertilizer and water because fungicides kill authentic.” In 2020 Matt and Sara were among 50 mycorrhizae. “The system isn’t sustainable,” says Matt. Mainers listed as “creating a bright future for the They continue to finesse their rotations and cleanstate” in Maine magazine. ing operations to deal with volunteer buckwheat or The demand for organic grain is growing, Sara convetch seed in their grain crops and to deal with clitinues. “I hope plant protein catches on. College stumate change. Their general rotation goes from cereals dents want to know where their food comes from. to a legume such as field peas, and then to buckwheat. They were raised on it. People love that crusty, hearty Winter rye has not grown well for them because of bread now. We could grow double the amount of freeze and thaw cycles, says Matt. “It’s probably relatwheat and I could sell it all easily, but it’s hard to grow ed to climate change. For the last three or four years, organically. That’s why we keep growing the farm.” we’ve had warm January rain followed immediately by She adds that margins are small for grain growing, a sub-zero front. You get a huge ice sheet under the so growers need more than a couple of hundred acres snow. So we’re coming to depend more on spring to make enough money. crops. “Climate change is a threat to agriculture particularTweaking Crops and Rotations ly,” he continues, “because you’re not going to be able Aurora is milling wheat, oats, peas, soybeans, rye and to do it the way your grandfather or even your father buckwheat, retailing most of the grains and milling did it. We’ll see how our friends in the Midwest do if some for other businesses, such as wheat for Borealis wet springs become a constant.” Breads and oats for Allagash Brewing. People know they’ll eventually have to eat less “It’s nice to find partners who share the same values meat, Sara says, and Matt recalls a recent conference that we do – like Allagash and Borealis Breads,” says attended by people in charge of feeding students at Sara. Cornell University. “They’re aware of it. What’s driv“We look for the integrity in our customer to match ing that is climate change and the carbon footprint of our integrity,” adds Matt. food.” He says the food service people and the Cornell Matt notes that wheat is very dependent on mycorstudents communicate well. “It is becoming huge. rhizae to break down and move nutrients to plants, Those students want to know what they’re eating and much more so than oats. For that and other reasons, where it’s coming from. Cornell now has a local zone “we don’t use organic pesticides [including herbicides] that is 350 miles around it. Move that to Harvard, MIT … That generation is going to be running this country.” The Aurora farmers had limited success in using their red clover rotation crop for salable clover seed – first due to combine issues, which the 9500 solved, and then due to rain, which caused their clover seed to germinate before they could get it into storage. They tried soybeans, but the corn seed maggot reduced yields below the economic threshold. Now they’re trying crimson clover – an annual that should die over winter, enabling no-till planting in spring. “We’re going to try to move toward no-till as much as we can,” says Sara. Crimson clover, notes Matt, should fix more nitrogen than red clover, and the seed costs about one-third as much. “We’re about long rotations,” says Sara, “but until the market catches up, we use some shorter ones. There’s a market for organic soybeans if we can get them to work.” Field peas, she continues, did well in 2019 but lacked a food grade market. Matt says he was impressed that the canopy closed over, weeds were pretty nonexistent, yield was good and the peas combined easily. They came off at the end of August, after the first wheat harvest. “Our biggest problem is grass, our most significant 0GGFSJOH weed,” adds Matt. “Conventional growers freak out with mustard or kale. To me that’s not a real competi~ Stone Ground Flours ~ Hard Red Spring Wheat, tive weed. Wheat will have done what it needed to – Oat & Rye Flours tiller, etc. – by the time the mustard plant is up, and ~ Wheat and Rye Berries ~ it’s not very deep rooted.” ~ Oats ~ Raw Rolled, Quick & Steel Cut
~ Cover Crop Seeds ~ Japanese Buckwheat, Hairy Vetch & Field Peas
Birds and Bees Also new on the farm: “a million bees,” says Sara. The “bee whisperer” (Peter Cowin of Hampden, Maine) Continued on the next page
Page 22 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Aroostook Update Continued from the previous page brings his hives to their farm to make honey. And this year, with funding help from the Natural Resources Conservation Service Environmental Quality Incentives Program, they’ll plant 5 acres of pollinator habitat on Matt and Linda’s farm and another 5 acres on Marcus and Sara’s farm where the ground is too wet to cultivate. Matt says he’s also open, where appropriate, to putting in hedgerows to support pollinators and other beneficials, particularly on roadside frontage. He says hedgerows compete better with grass than do herbaceous plants. Hedgerows also create a height barrier against potential pesticide drift. To meet organic certification standards, “we need a 100-foot buffer anywhere where there’s potential for drift,” says Matt. Thanks to their wildlife-friendly farmscape, “we have an amazing amount of wasps, in addition to bees,” he says. “Because we don’t use any pesticides, we have a higher songbird population. Between the songbirds and the wasps, we didn’t have any cluster flies this year, or ladybird beetles that were always getting into the house. The wasps work the side of the building where the flies come.”
Succession Planning Just as Matt and Sara often finish one another’s sentences, they and their spouses are making succession plans for the farm. “It’s a tough thing to do,” says Matt. “To let go,” Sara finishes. Matt, now 75, says he’ll keep going as long as he can. “I enjoy trying to solve the problems about the rotation.” Meanwhile they are looking for a farm manager with mechanical ability and an organic orientation to train under Matt.
Youthful Energy and Risk Taking at Yost Farms Some 40 miles north of Linneus and almost on the New Brunswick border, Tyler and Tristan Yost grow grains and more on Yost Farms in Blaine. Originally from Mississippi, the brothers moved to Maine when Tyler was 12. They had a garden and were interested in agriculture from a young age. Both are now married and have three young children each. They started their own farming enterprise after working for a local potato farmer. “When I was 18,” says Tyler, “I rented 20 acres of ground, borrowed the farmer’s equipment and started growing crops. The next year my brother joined me. We had about 40 acres then. We tried to pick up more ground each year, largely focused on grains – conventional at that point.” They started with soybeans, selling to a company in New Brunswick that ships up the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Seeking more ground to rent, they looked for land coming out of the Conservation Reserve Program. “We got up to about 200 acres over five or six years that way,” says Tyler. “Then commodity prices started dropping.” Their soybeans had been doing fairly well without rotations until disease issues started cropping up, and “then things started falling apart. So we plant-
Making things grow at UMPI: from the left, Jim Dwyer, the Dr. Robert Vinton Akeley Chair of the Agricultural Science and Agribusiness program; Jason Johnston, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (and co-owner of MOFGA-certified organic Aroostook Hops); and Noah Winslow, adjunct instructor of agricultural economics and agribusiness. ed our first organic field on land that hadn’t been farmed, so there was no transition period. That was probably six years or so ago. We were scared! We were used to using chemicals. We thought the weeds were going to take over. We were pleasantly surprised. There were some weeds, but they weren’t too bad.” They still plant some conventional crops to meet existing customers’ needs but have been adding more organic fields because the economics are better. They started with oats, then tried emmer, “with not very good results,” says Tyler. Then they considered growing crops that had more than one use so that if they didn’t make food grade, they would at least make feed. “Emmer can be a feed grain, but the feed markets don’t know it,” Tyler explains, “so you don’t get the value out of it. It took me two years to sell the organic emmer as feed.” Two years ago they mixed their first organic feed ration of barley, wheat and minerals for Aaron Beachy of MOFGA-certified organic BB Farm in Hodgdon, Maine. “It’s worked for him. We’ve picked up customers for organic since then: Misty Brook in Albion and a few others.” Now the Yosts are adding Cornish Cross chickens to sell to MOFGA-certified organic Tide Mill Farm, and they’re growing and grinding their own grains for those birds. As we spoke with Tyler in November, he was awaiting the first chicks and putting the finishing touches on the 40-by-68-foot facility that he and his brother designed and built for the project. Baby chicks will be delivered every three weeks. The building is divided into three rooms, and the animals will be moved from one room to the next as they grow. Fans provide ventilation, and doors open so that the chicks have outside access in warm weather.
Tyler and Tristan now farm a little over 500 acres of grain – about 30 to 40 percent of it organic. “The organic side is growing,” says Tyler. “We’re keeping the conventional where it is. We have customers we’re growing conventional for, so we’re just meeting their needs. We’re not pushing that so much, but the organic side seems like there’s plenty of potential for growth – but there are more challenges with weeds, diseases, rotations. Our number one challenge is wild radish and lambsquarters. We have fields that are pretty bad, and we’re trying to find ways to deal with them economically. The potential for growth is there, but I don’t want to grow faster than I know what we’re doing. We’re probably already pushing that. [Organic] takes more management and labor.” The brothers and one full-time worker, Levi, do all the farm work. None have off-farm jobs. “We’re all here 50 to 80 hours a week,” says Tyler. “We’re here for the long haul, unless something changes.” A trucking company hauls their grain to customers’ farms. “If people can handle tote bags, we can move that fairly efficiently around the state,” says Tyler. “But a lot of people don’t have a big enough tractor to get [totes] off the truck, or they have grain bins. You need a tractor that can lift a ton, or a forklift. I can get a tote bag anywhere in the state for $60.” In addition to barley and wheat, they grew some peas and a little corn and soybeans in 2019. Some wheat goes to Aurora Mills; some to Maine Grains. “All the rest we grind into feed. If it’s not food [grade], it probably doesn’t leave here as a whole grain. And now some will leave as meat.” They expect their facility to produce about 30 tons per year of chicken litter, which they’ll spread on up to 40 acres of land. That plus peas or soybeans will add
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 23
Growing hops involves significant infrastructure. Jason Johnston on his Aroostook Hops farm. nitrogen to the soil. “Finding nitrogen inputs was an incentive” for the poultry business, says Tyler. While chicks are available only every three weeks, Tide Mill needs finished birds every week. “There are challenges,” says Tyler.
New Greenhouse and New Ag Major at UMPI In September 2019 the University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI) dedicated its new Zillman Family Greenhouse – a state-of-the-art teaching and research space with year-round opportunities. The $935,000, 2,400square-foot structure features a teaching classroom, two climate-controlled research labs and a faculty office for Jim Dwyer, the Dr. Robert Vinton Akeley Chair of the Agricultural Science and Agribusiness program. Dr. Don Zillman, UMPI president from 2006 to 2012, and his wife, Linda Zillman, provided the first gift for the greenhouse. Subsequent grants and gifts completed the funding. During the dedication, Dwyer and UMPI’s ag students did a ceremonial planting in pots of Kennebec potatoes, a variety created by Dr. Robert Akeley, in the greenhouse. Akeley was a Presque Isle native, father of donor Mary Akeley Smith, internationally known potato breeder and leader of the USDA National Potato Breeding Program. In addition to supporting the greenhouse, funds from Mary Akeley Smith enabled purchase of a new John Deere tractor and Gator for ag-related programming and composting efforts and a new DJI Inspire II drone for precision ag and mapping work. The new greenhouse “is great for students in the ag program to demonstrate agricultural practices and plant growth habits through the school year,” Dwyer told us. Currently about 25 students are in the ag program. In addition, students from SAD 1 and from Caribou High School can earn college credits at UMPI while in high school. Jason Johnston, an ecologist and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (and co-owner of MOFGA-certified organic Aroostook Hops), explains that UMPI started its sustainable agriculture program within the environmental sciences department in 2014, and that plus a survey of local people led to the new, additional degree in agricultural science and agribusiness. The new degree focuses more on science, agronomy and agribusiness. “Connections we’ve made locally with Cooperative Extension and with the Aroostook Research Farm, and researching plant biomass, generated a lot of conversations and connections and understanding of who we had locally for capacity. We’re in the middle of ag land. I reached out to John Rebar [of UMaine Cooperative Extension] and said we’d like to start a program but would have to share faculty positions. So we had the first university system joint appointment with him. Then we added another position, and then the endowed chair.
“It’s really a dense major,” says Johnston, “because as a farmer you have to know everything: managing people, managing money, managing data, all of the basic ag science and technology. We want to make sure we’re relevant. Our goal is 15 graduates from the ag business program per year.” Students in the new major have a practical learning experience requirement, which can be an internship, an independent study or GIS training. Dwyer notes that many UMPI students actively farm already on their family farms. “This makes for great conversations during class.” Dwyer worked for UMaine Cooperative Extension for 38 years before filling the endowed chair at UMPI. Among his courses are operations and safety, introduction to agriculture and crops, introduction to entomology and introduction to plant pathology. The ag program should help meet the needs of McCain Foods and other area companies that are seeking trained employees. “It’s harder and harder to find people with that expertise,” says Dwyer. “We hope we’ll be able to fill that need – and encourage our young people to stay here.” Noah Winslow, an adjunct instructor of agricultural economics and agribusiness at UMPI, teaches the program’s agribusiness courses. “What makes the program unique,” he says, “is that it’s a solid ag program – greenhouse ag, production systems, botany – but also three or four agribusiness-specific classes. I think it’s unique in Maine to have such in-depth agricultural science plus such exposure to agribusiness.” Winslow, in fact, found that his students have far more interest in farm-level production agriculture than he had anticipated. “I recalibrated parts of my course to take that into account.” When Winslow brought a guest speaker who sells farm equipment throughout New England to his class, “he was putting feelers out for possible candidates to hire in the future. There are a lot of opportunities in this industry. There are so many synergies – the location of this campus, this greenhouse; the major agricultural growing area is key to the future here.” One important area of focus is managing agricultural data, says Winslow. “GIS/GPS-guided machines and precision agriculture are so important for information management now. Irrigation systems can run from your smart phone. You can control ventilation systems from your home computer.” UMPI got a large U.S. Department of Education Title III grant for a computer science program, and one course proposed for that program is management of agricultural and natural resource data. Dwyer notes that “a tremendous amount is riding on that information – for example, operating irrigation systems or managing storage from smart phones.” Ensuring the security of that information is important, he adds. In 2020 UMPI was named one of five Most Innovative Schools for Regional Colleges in the North in the U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges list. It was
also named among the 30 Best Regional Colleges in the North, the top 20 Public Schools in the North, the top 15 Regional Colleges in the North for graduates with least debt and the top 25 Regional Colleges in the North for Social Mobility. About 1,200 students attend UMPI, most full-time.
Jumping Over to Hops We took advantage of our visit to ask Johnston about Aroostook Hops, which he and his wife, Krista Delahunty, and their children raise. He says they are doing well. “We sell to 10 or 12 breweries, almost exclusively in Maine.” That includes Allagash, which recently brewed its first organic beer. “We need to grow more,” says Johnston, “but we also need to expand our ability to harvest and process. Labor is a constant issue during harvest. If we can get a new used harvester, that will reduce labor and increase our harvest ability about three-fold. “There is definitely potential to grow the industry here,” he continues. “For us it’s a matter of balancing off-farm work, family and farming.” For weed control, tilling up to the perennial plants would damage their roots, and straw mulch works for the first year or two but is expensive to buy and apply and is impractical on a large scale. So he tried running sheep through the hops rows to control vegetation, to strip the lower part of the bines (the long, climbing stems) and to help control downy mildew. The idea is that “the sheep prune the plants up as high as they can get on their hind legs. They prefer hops by far to other vegetation. Unlike goats, they leave the stems alone.” However, the sheep farmer brought four rams and eight ewes, says Jonhston. “The rams were rough on the plants. If they got stuck they would keep going forward. They broke about 100 strings” on the hops trellises. Sheep also promote grass growth because grass recovers better than dicots such as goldenrod. Johnston had clover between his rows for a few years before grasses came in. He would mow it twice, directing clover clippings onto hops rows to add a little nitrogen. He’s also planted some buckwheat to attract beneficial insects. Johnston says that 12 to 20 years is probably the practical life of a hops planting, depending on the variety and shifts in marketing and whether the trellis needs to be reestablished. Some local hops plantings from the ‘30s still have feral plants. Hops are challenging in terms of yield, pests and diseases, he adds. Some varieties are more susceptible than others to downy mildew, and two-spotted spider mites were an issue two summers ago since mites love dry, hot weather. Overhead irrigation might help, but that’s big and difficult to move – and may contribute to fungal disease. And “so much is unknown about controlling insects, especially in hops,” Johnston concludes. Maybe that’s a research project for UMPI students.
Page 24 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Wise Acres Farm Continued from page 3
drawback is that Airtable requires cell reception or wireless service. Square is a mobile payment and point of sales app. Hopkins uses it on a tablet to track the sale of individual purchases at their three weekly farmers’ markets: Ellsworth, Waterville and Bangor. (Bangor is the only market they continue through the winter.) Before market she enters a price and photo of each crop into Square. At market she uses the touchscreen to select the crop and enter the quantity sold as she checks out customers. “Square eliminates mental math, makes it easier for new employees to participate, and allows me to calculate the amount not sold,” Hopkins says. About using Square at market, Trueworthy adds, “Because there is no mental math, it’s easier to have substantive conversations with customers while ringing them up.” The most difficult part of enterprise budgeting, Hopkins thinks, is tracking labor costs. Each year she selects two weeks to focus on this job, one early in the season and one late. In those two weeks she and her employees record how long it takes to complete every individual task. Then she uses the data to extrapolate labor costs for each crop-specific task. Hopkins uses a third program, Excel, to analyze the output from Airtable and Square. This spreadsheet shows where her efforts are rewarded most and plays a large part in the reason her enterprise grossed $50,000 per acre under production in 2019.
Late-season crops, including cucumbers, grow in one Ledgewood high tunnel.
Tomatoes follow spring greens in a second Ledgewood high tunnel.
Using the Data
asparagus, strawberries and raspberries. These are the crops that Hopkins has deemphasized in the past few years, growing just enough to add some color and variety to markets and CSA shares. Annually they plant 600 strawberry plants and maintain 300 row feet of raspberries. They do not grow corn, shell peas or potatoes. Of their 4 open acres, which include two Ledgewood brand high tunnels (a 21-by-104-foot and a 30-by-152foot) and two 150-foot caterpillars, about half is culti-
By collecting and analyzing data, Hopkins can decide what and how much to grow. “Interestingly,” she says, “we have found that we didn’t need more land to grow production and sales. It has been more about better management of existing fields, season extension and crop choice.” The current goal is to grow larger amounts of profitable crops and ones that do well on their site while still maintaining enough diversity for their farmers’ markets and 40member Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. “There’s a limit to how much we can pare down,” says Hopkins. “I think we’ve done it as much as we can, and I realize that our customers miss crops that we used to grow. It has still been a good choice for the economic sustainability of the farm and our sanity.” Profitable crops are salad and baby greens mixes, Salanova, root crops, garlic, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash and brassicas. Breakeven crops include winter squash, Chisel plowing and incorporating cover crop residue breaks onions, green beans, up the compaction caused by years of haying. A spacious and abundant display of Wise Acres produce at market.
Yes, Wise Acres has some rocks.
The barn and packing area at Wise Acres
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 25
vated each season. The remaining acreage is cover cropped and fallowed. In 2020 the smaller high tunnel will grow early spring greens, followed by tomatoes. The larger high tunnel, built in 2019, will grow diverse crops, with an emphasis on late-season greens. The growing plots at Wise Acres average one-quarter to three-quarters acre and are standardized with 150foot rows and 42-inch-wide unraised beds. Tire tracks from their only tractor, a 55 horsepower New Holland T2410, form the pathways. Primary soil types are Thorndike and Dixmont shaley silt loam, and the ground is laden with rocks of all sizes. Regarding the rocks Hopkins says, “Visitors come to the farm and say, ‘I don’t know how you put up with this.’” The good thing about their soils, however, is that they are well-drained. Primary tillage tools are a 6-foot rototiller and a chisel plow. Hopkins says, “The chisel plow has been critical to breaking up the compaction caused by years of haying.” Each field gets chisel plowed and rototilled each year. She acknowledges that rototilling is a controversial tillage method, but she believes that between the combination of her lighter soil and a high ground speed, she can make a decent seedbed without compromising the soil structure. Ideally beds are prepped ahead of time to allow for stale seedbedding – a management practice in which weed seeds just below the soil surface are allowed to germinate and then are killed before or soon after seeding a crop. Hopkins uses a Williams Tool to accomplish this. The tool features a gang of light Sshaped spring tines that she drags across the surface of each bed to kill freshly germinated weed seeds. After stale seed-bedding, she either direct seeds or transplants crops. Primary direct-seeded crops are cutting greens, herbs and root crops. For direct seeding, she has depended on an Earthway seeder but recently bought a Jang precision seeder. Hopkins warns that with the Jang, “you have to make sure every seed germinates; otherwise you end up with a sparse crop.” She has found the Jang to be most effective for radishes, salad turnips and spinach. Before transplanting field crops, which include lettuces, brassicas, cucurbits, alliums and nightshades, Hopkins marks the beds with a Two Fat Cats dibbler. This Vermont-made nonelectric tool has an offset handle and is rolled down the bed, leaving an impression in the soil to accurately space transplants. She adds or removes wheels and spikes depending on how many rows and what in-row spacing are desired. Hopkins bought a legacy of depleted soil, and she struggled with low yields in her first few years. However, she has consciously decided not to use any manure and relies on cover cropping and a 5-4-3 organic pelletized fertilizer to meet the nutrient needs of crops. She applies the fertilizer with a cone broadcast spreader. Onions and garlic are sidedressed in-row by hand. Her main reason for excluding compost and manure, she says, “is that we are blessed with a low weed seed bank, and I don’t want to import any weed seeds.” Her crew manages the weeds that do grow with 7-inch collinear hoes and maintains pathways with sweeps attached to the sides of the Williams Tool. The weed pressure is so low though that Hopkins says her crew (typically one part-time and two-full time employees) doesn’t ever fully hone its hoe weeding skills. “We usually have a few long-season plantings that get away from us and need to be laboriously rescueweeded by hand,” Hopkins acknowledges. In August typically, they also diligently rogue any weeds from beds still in production that are “threatening to rain weed seed.” Hopkins also rogues seedy weeds as beds transition from harvest to autumn cover crops.
Trying Times Small-acreage mixed vegetable farms such as Wise Acres are proliferating across Maine and beyond for good reason. On a small footprint, with modest infrastructure and equipment requirements, a determined individual such as Hopkins can take an old hay field and methodically transform the land, promote biodiversity and grow nutrient-dense food. Hopkins finds this venture to be “an endless allure and an endless challenge.” Although farming is inherently challenging, Hopkins takes deliberate steps to hedge the risks. With the help of cost sharing from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, she can now irrigate. High tunnels, also obtained through cost-share, enable her to extend the growing season and prevent diseases such as late blight on tomatoes. By growing diverse vegetable crops, she can survive crop failures.
As Hopkins was beginning to ratchet up the 2020 growing season, she and other farmers whose economy depends on farmers’ markets were facing an uncertain season because of the COVID-19 virus. Maine’s many farmers’ markets, deemed essential services by the state, were expected to continue under special guidelines intended to prevent the spread of the virus. Hopkins, like all of us, lacks the knowledge to know if the most serious phase of the virus will continue for two, four, six months or more, and without knowing that, she says, “It’s hard to figure out how to respond.” After nearly a decade of attending farmers’ markets, the Wise Acres stand draws long lines of customers. Hopkins was creating a system that would allow her to attend markets yet maintain physical distancing protocols. Using Square, she was setting up an online store where customers preorder and prepay. Orders would then be packed at the farm and picked up at market. She was also considering prepacking some boxes, similar to a CSA share, to make available at market. “As long as physical distancing measures are in place, we plan to stick with some form of preordering
and grab-and-go boxes to minimize handling payments and speed up transaction time so customers can come and go quickly,” Hopkins says. If physical distancing persists through the busiest part of the season, she anticipates the need to focus on a few sizes and types of “farmer’s choice” CSA-style boxes to help minimize traffic and interaction at market and to limit the hours of prepacking logistics needed before market. “Once it gets busy,” Hopkins says, “I don’t think we’ll have the capacity to pack customized orders for each customer. We’ll have to streamline the process.” While the COVID-19 pandemic presents an unprecedented challenge, Hopkins says, “We still envision farmers’ markets being our main distribution sites. I feel strongly that farmers’ markets are important food access points. They are an essential part of the food system that I hope we can continue to operate during this pandemic.” About the author: Sonja Heyck-Merlin is a regular feature writer for The MOF&G. She and her family own and operate an organic dairy farm in Charleston, Maine.
Page 26 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Why Grow Cannabis At Home? BY JOHN JEMISON EXTENSION SPECIALIST – SOIL AND WATER QUALITY, UNIVERSITY OF MAINE Photos by the author
I
have had the pleasure to work for Cooperative Extension for almost 30 years. I never dreamed when I started with Extension that I would ever be writing an article about how and why I think you should consider growing cannabis at home, but I think there are many good and interesting reasons why you should. Cannabis has been a most maligned plant. The stigma associated with cannabis started in the 1930s and continues today in many communities. Consider reading about Harry Anslinger and his highly racist effort to demonize cannabis. Other, more thoughtful people think cannabis may have played a key role in enabling early humans to switch from a hunting and gathering culture to settle along rich river bottoms and initiate crop and livestock production. Regardless, cannabis should not be vilified; it has varied beneficial uses. Much as cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts were all derived from one plant, Brassica oleracea, through plant breeding, Cannabis sativa has been bred to produce fiber, grain and medicines. Cannabis can be densely planted for fiber and grain, or planted with wider (5-by-5-foot) spacing for flower production, in which case a field of cannabis can resemble a Christmas tree operation. Cannabis has both male and female plants. For fiber and grain production, you want the males to pollinate the female plants. Once that is accomplished, male plants have little use, and they wither and fade away. (One might extrapolate this to the utility of human males, but I’d rather not.) The medicinal properties of cannabis are associated primarily with the female flower, particularly the trichomes, which are sticky resinous structures that under magnification look like little water towers. These are thought to protect the plant against insect
feeding. Trichomes hold high concentrations of cannabinoid and terpene compounds. The cannabis plant has many cannabinoid compounds, the most famous of which is delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), due its psychoactive effects. However, that is but one of many cannabinoids, most of which are not psychoactive and which provide health benefits. Plant breeders have bred both super-high-THC cultivars relative to what was used in the ‘60s and ‘70s, as well as lines very low in THC but high in other cannabinoid compounds, such as cannabidiol (CBD), cannabigerol (CBG) and cannabichromene (CBC). This has helped change how some people view and use cannabis. Terpene compounds give the plant flower its characteristic aroma and affect the flavor profile of the specific cultivar. Botanically similar to the cannabis flower, flowers of hops plants are sticky, resinous and aromatic due to terpene compounds (pinene, limonene, etc.). These give specific hops varieties their characteristic aromas and give beers such as IPAs their specific flavor profiles. In some cannabis cultivars, terpenes provide flavor but may also intensify the effect of a specific cannabinoid. Had cannabis not been on the controlled substances list for the past 50 years with drugs such as heroin, peyote and LSD, we would have known far more about this plant! Legislation passed in 2016 and amended in 2018 allows Maine adults to grow up to three flowering cannabis plants per adult in the household for personal use on their land. To grow more than that number, you need to follow state rules regarding licensing for hemp production or become a caregiver.
Why and Which Cannabis to Grow in the Garden I grow cannabis plants because 15 years ago I had a significant grand mal seizure. I have had only one, but it wasn’t fun. I hope that regular consumption of high-CBD cannabis products might reduce my chances of another. The FDA evaluated and approved for children a high-dose CBD medication called Epidiolex, which is 99% pure CBD developed from greenhouse-grown cannabis, based on evidence that it helped control seizures. However, the FDA almost did not approve the medication due to concern about liver toxicity at high (20 mg/kg body weight) doses, but most of the CBD that I grow, make and use at home is closer to a 0.02 mg/kg daily dose. People claim that CBD and other cannabinoids can help with conditions from arthritis and anxiety to improved skin, but as my raison d’être is to provide people with research-based information, I’ll just say we need more information. As more emerges, I’ll be happy to share. But we do know some things, thanks to work done outside the United States. Israeli scientist Rafael Mechoulem showed that plant cannabinoids react in our body by affecting the endoFigure 2 – Female flowers emerging
Figure 1 – If you want lots of flowers, train your plant by cutting off lower branches that receive little sun (lollypopping). cannabinoid system. Receptors exist throughout the central nervous system that affect our mood, appetite and sense of well-being. Our bodies create endocannabinoid molecules such as anandamide, which is responsible for the feeling of well-being that one might experience following exercise. That short-lived chemical acts on the CB1 receptor. Phytocannabinoids, particularly THC, act on the same CB1 receptors to provide a similar feeling of well-being or euphoria. Another set of receptors (CB2 receptors) works with CBD. Reportedly CBD slows the natural breakdown of anandamide, which is why CBD is said to improve homeostasis and provide a general feeling of wellbeing. Finally, CBD can also block CB1 receptors, which is why the USDA rule that agriculturally-produced CBD hemp must contain less than 0.3% total THC on a dry weight basis is unnecessarily strict. Up to 1% THC has been shown to have no psychoactive effect, and with a high percentage of CBD in the flower, one could likely have over 1% THC and feel nothing because the CBD blocks the CB1 receptor sites. But that is why I grow and use high-CBD cannabis. A National Academy of Sciences Engineering and Medicine meta-analysis of all research done on highTHC cannabis concluded that good evidence exists that high-THC cannabis can help relieve chronic pain, muscle spasms, nausea from chemotherapy, reduce ocular pressure from glaucoma, and reduce spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. Select your cultivars based on your needs, but greenhouses should be selling high-CBD seedlings for summer planting.
When and How to Grow Cannabis The cannabis plant might have mystical properties and provide useful benefits, but it is just a plant and is subject to all the same issues as all other cultivated plants. Growing cannabis involves basic agronomic
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considerations such as planting timing, water needs, spacing, fertility, as well as disease, insect and weed management. Once you have sourced your plants and have adequately hardened them off, assess their health closely before planting. Like me, cannabis likes neither wet feet nor to be cold. I grow my plants in extremely fertile raised beds. My garden soil has 9 to 10% organic matter and a pH of 6.9. I apply a layer of aged manure or compost about one-half to 1 inch thick on top of the bed, work it in, and plant no earlier than June 1. If you don’t want to deal with large plants, consider planting around the summer solstice. Overwatering can lead to diseases such as Pythium. Cannabis is adapted to lower water use than many plants, but don’t let your plants become overly stressed, as stress can make a female plant produce male flowers … bad news! You can feed your plants with fish emulsion every three weeks. If you want lots of flowers, train your plant by cutting off lower branches that receive little sun (lollypopping – see Figure 1) and trimming the top couple of inches off the leader of the plant to promote side shoots. Do this two or three weeks after transplanting with clean sharp shears. Don’t be afraid to cut lower branches up to a quarter of the way up the plant well before flowering. This will improve aeration, which is critical for disease prevention. Cannabis is easy to grow (it is called weed), but like potatoes, it is hard to grow well. Walk your garden as often as possible, enjoy the aromas and the quiet, but carefully scout for anything that looks out of the ordinary – disease, insect damage, possible nutrient deficiency – and cultivate any weeds around your plants. In early August start looking for the female flowers (those with stigmas) to begin to form (Figure 2). Make sure your female plant hasn’t turned into a hermaphrodite (a plant with both male and female flowers on it). By mid-September plants are in the late flowering/preharvest stage. They will be as large as they will be, and the flowers will be covered with trichomes. Watch for their color to start to change from clear to slightly opaque (Figure 3). Also be aware that as the
Figure 3 – A plant that is ready to harvest. days shorten and temperatures fall and humidity rises, disease pressure becomes your biggest nightmare. If possible after rains, gently shake as much excess water as possible from your plants. Larger flowers retain water, creating conditions for botrytis (gray mold or bud rot) to set in (Figure 4). My best advice is to start your harvest in waves. By the third week of September, begin to watch the weather forecast. If days of rain are forecast, start harvesting the largest flowers first or totally harvest your plant. A few more days of growth is not worth using your cannabis as fire starter in the winter. I hang plant branches from clotheslines in my basement at about 55% humidity and about 60 degrees F for about seven to 10 days. This is a good time to purchase some two-way 62% humidity control packets. Once you are ready to store your flower for long-term use, the packets will protect your flower from drying out. If your flower is too moist, the packets will pull some of the moisture out. At six days, begin to examine the branches and the flowers. If the branches snap, begin to cut and trim the flowers. The outside of the flower should be dry to
Figure 4 – Larger flowers retain water, creating conditions for botrytis (gray mold or bud rot) to set in. the touch, but the inside should still be somewhat moist. Have comfortable shears and a tray on which to trim. Cut the leaves off the flowers and place the trimmed flower bud into quart or half-gallon bell jars. Don’t pack the flowers in the jar, as they need to lose water slowly from the inside to the outside of the bud while in the jar. This curing process is important to stop enzymatic flower degradation. Store the jars in a cool, dark area. Open them for a couple of minutes to allow gas exchange at least a couple of times a day for the first week. If you smell ammonia in the jar, the plants were not sufficiently dry and should dry longer. After the first couple of weeks, continue to open the jars daily again for a couple of minutes to allow fresh air to enter the jar and moisture to escape. If you have managed to get to this phase, you have successfully grown, harvested and cured your first cannabis plants. This article is for informational purposes only. Please consult a health care practitioner about serious medical issues. Any product endorsement is unintended.
Page 28 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Using Cured Cannabis Flower BY JOHN JEMISON UNIVERSITY OF MAINE COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SOIL AND WATER QUALITY SPECIALIST Photos by the author
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ow that you have adequately cured your harvested and trimmed flower, you are ready to dive into making edibles. In cured flowers, most cannabinoids are not in a form your body can use best unless you smoke or vaporize the flower. I am not a fan of smoking anything, so I suggest that you consider cooking with your flower to make healthy edibles.
Decarboxylation – What, Why and How All cannabinoids occur in the flower in both their regular form (THC, CBD) and an acid form (THCa and CBDa). Preparing your flower for making edibles involves using the heat of cooking, smoking or vaping to convert the CBD in the acid form to the base form – a process called decarboxylation. Heat converts CBCa to CBC, CBGa to CBG and THCa to THC. This happens through a controlled, slow, lowtemperature baking. You can put a half ounce of flower on a cookie sheet, cover it with foil and bake it at 240 F for about 45 minutes. Your kitchen will fill with the characteristic cannabis aroma that may or may not please others in your household. Small thermos-like cookers (decarboxylators), available online, can decarboxylate flower in half-ounce batches; these have a rubber lid that keeps most of the smell in the container. If you intend to do this frequently, the Ardent company sells such products. I use one of these decarboxylators, but your oven can do this perfectly well. The next step involves extracting cannabinoids and terpenes from “decarbed” flower. The trichomes that contain these chemicals predominantly are soluble in both oil and alcohol, so, depending on your preference, you could use either. I like to make my own edible gummies since I am confident about the ingredients I choose, the edible strength, and I enjoy the time in the kitchen. Since I boil my extract at a low simmer for at least 30 minutes, I am confident that I have boiled off the residual alcohol. If you do not want to work with or consume even trace amounts of alcohol, you can certainly extract flower in oil.
Preparing Tinctures My goal for gummies is to make the healthiest product I can. I don’t know that I can’t make my gummies with an oil infusion; I just have always used alcohol as my solvent of choice. Since trichomes don’t dissolve in water, the stronger the alcohol source, the better. Again, as I am going to boil off all of the alcohol that I put into the gummy mixture, I want to extract the cannabinoids and terpenes in the flower efficiently.
Some Maine-based companies sell culinary solvents (100% pure ethanol) for this purpose. Adults can order these online and have them shipped to their home. Or you can purchase 151 proof grain alcohol at a liquor store for this purpose, but this is 25% water, which reduces extraction efficiency. The alcohol will cost $10 to $20 per tincture batch. I put my solvent in the freezer so that it is ice cold to start. I also place my cooked cannabis in a plastic Ziploc bag in the freezer to improve extraction efficiency. Since the amount of flower I work with is not a limiting ingredient, I often extract a half ounce of cooked flower and a half ounce of uncooked flower in the same 16-ounce solvent extraction to benefit from both CBD and CBDa, which is also reportedly healthy. I place the chilled, decarboxylated cannabis in a 16-ounce bell jar, add ice-cold alcohol almost to the top of the jar, and screw on the jar lid. I shake the mixture by hand for five minutes and then filter it into another jar. Once all the alcohol has drained from the cannabis, I discard the flower and then add the other half-ounce of uncooked cannabis to the same alcohol. I shake that for another five minutes and filter that as well. This is my tincture recipe.
Gummy CBD Strength I have never tested my cannabis for CBD or THC concentration, but a friend’s ‘Mae’s Cannatonic’ cultivar (the one I have grown) had a total CBD (CBD + CBDa) content of 21% and a total THC (THCa + THC) of 0.77%. The extraction efficiency with alcohol is reportedly 15% to 20%, depending on alcohol strength. So if your cannabis contained 21% total CBD, and the alcohol extraction efficiency was 15% to 20%, and if your tincture was made from 14 grams of decarboxylated cannabis and 14 grams of uncooked cannabis, the alcohol extract should contain between 2 and 2.5 mg total CBD/ml of tincture. I put one-third cup (80 ml) of tincture into each batch of gummies that I make, and each batch creates about 750 grams of gummies. I use an eye dropper that comes with the gummy molds to fill each shape, and each edible weighs about 7 grams (Figure 2). So I consume 1.4 to 1.8 mg of total CBD (CBD + CBDa) with each gummy each day. With one in the morning and one at night, my CBD intake is about 3 to 4 mg/day. Most CBD gummies sold on the market are said to contain 5 or 10 mg each, but up to now, there has been little oversight of how the flower is extracted, how the edibles are produced or their actual CBD concentration. Most are coated with granular sugar, which I would rather not consume. I could test my gummies for their CBD concentration, but because they are for my own consumption, I think I am on track. One day, I’ll test to be sure.
Figure 1 – Weighing flower for decarboxylation. Note the 62% moisture packet in the bell jar container, and tart cherry concentrate.
Making Gummies This should be the fun part. To make gummies, you need a blender (I use a Vitamix), heavy sauce pan, whisk, culinary silicone gummy molds and an eye dropper. Again my goal is to create the healthiest, super-antioxidant-rich gummy I can. For each batch you will need 16 ounces elderberry or blueberry juice concentrate, 1 cup frozen blueberries, zest of two lemons and the juice of one lemon, a large chunk of ginger (15 to 20 grams), one small piece of turmeric root (2 grams; this will stain everything it contacts yellow, so be sure you are committed to turmeric), honey to taste and grass-fed beef gelatin. You will also need about one-eighth cup of olive oil to lubricate the molds. Put the juice, berries, lemon zest and lemon juice, ginger (chopped as much as possible), turmeric and 1 tablespoon of honey into the blender and blend for 5 minutes. Pour this into a heavy saucepan, add one-third cup of tincture and then start to heat the mixture (Figure 3). Do not add the alcohol while the burner is on! Promise me that you will not under any circumstance leave the saucepan unattended until you turn off the heat. Reread the previous sentence. If you let this solution boil over, you will not be happy with me. Everything will look fine, your mixture will be simmering nicely, and boom, it starts to rise up and boil over … so please don’t leave the saucepan unattended even for a minute. Now cook the liquid over medium-low heat until little bubbles start forming. Very, very slowly, add gelatin to the mixture in the saucepan while whisking constantly to avoid clumps. Eating clumps of gelatin in your gummy will not please you. The amount of
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 29
dropper to fill the dropper with gummy liquid, and fill each mold cavity. Place the filled molds in a cool area. In spring, fall and winter, I cool molds on my screen porch or in the cellar to let them set. In summer I might have to place them in the refrigerator, which is less desirable, as spilled elderberry juice is as popular as boiled over gummy liquid. When firm, pop the gummies out, place them into silicon storage bags or Ziploc plastic bags and store them in the refrigerator. Because of the low pH (thanks to the lemon juice), gummies will keep for up to a couple of months in the refrigerator.
Cost to Produce Figure 2 – Molds ready to receive gummy mixture. Note the eye dropper with the mixture. gelatin to add depends on your taste and how firm a gummy you want. If you like them to dissolve in your mouth and not be terribly chewy, add approximately 50 grams (3 tablespoons) of gelatin for the volume of liquid described above. Once completely mixed into the liquid, continue to simmer the liquid for about 20 to 30 minutes to blow off any residual alcohol. This cooking will convert some but not all of the CBDa to CBD. That is why I talk about total CBD and total THC in my gummies.
Preparing Gummy Molds Purchase silicone molds designed for culinary purposes to make your gummies. While your mixture cools (for 15 minutes or so), place the molds on a cookie sheet on your kitchen table or an appropriate workspace. Rub the inside of each cavity with good olive oil – just enough so that the gummies will pop out when cool and firm. Squeeze the ball of an eye
My homemade gummies cost approximately $32 per roughly 750-gram batch to make. At 7 grams per gummy, that’s about 100 doses, or enough for 50 days at a cost of about $0.60 per day for 3 to 4 mg of total CBD. Prices online for gummies vary, but many companies sell 60 gummies per container at 5 mg per gummy for $50 or roughly $1.20/day. I expect the Food and Drug Administration to publish guidelines on CBD extraction, testing and allowable variance in product concentration, but very little industry oversight exists now. When I make my own, I have all the control. I have to believe my edibles are healthier than anything sold commercially today. Again, I don’t coat gummies with granular sugar, and I’d guess that the antioxidant content can’t be beat. I have also made sour cherry gummies by replacing the elderberry concentrate with an equal volume sour cherry concentrate. These are delicious too.
Other Extraction Methods Plenty of other means exist to extract cannabinoids from “decarbed” flower. Many people extract with coconut oil, medium chain triglyceride (MCT) oil or
Figure 3 – Cooking gummy mixtures butter. When making CBD-based chocolates, cookies, salad dressings or whatever, fats and oils are preferred extractants. Tools such as the MagicalButter machine or other infusion devices allow people to select how long they want to extract the flower and may influence the concentration. After cooking, the flower residue is filtered out and the oils can be put into edible products. I made CBD chocolate truffles once that were quite good, but my goal with CBD flower production is to make super-healthy, antioxidant-rich edibles. This article is for informational purposes only. Please consult a health care practitioner about serious medical issues. Any product endorsement is unintended.
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June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 31
What to Do With That Bounty of Food You Grew BY ROBERTA BAILEY
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any magazine or periodical journalists write their pieces for the readers of the future. With my Harvest Kitchen column, for example, I write in April for the summer issue of The MOF&G. Normally I don’t know in April whether summer will turn out to have been dry or whether we will have had a major weather event, but usually I do know what will be ripe in the garden or available at the farmers’ market by summer. I write toward a fairly predictable future. In April of 2020, however, we were still sheltering in place, and I had the unsettling task of writing to an audience that knows that the next few months will be dominated by all the unknowns of the coronavirus pandemic. I do know that the pandemic made many extremely aware of their food insecurity. People decided that they had better grow more food. Farmers responded to the increased demand for local produce, eggs and meat. As a result, seed companies were overwhelmed with unprecedented numbers of orders – so many that some had to shut down their websites temporarily so that a reduced staff could fulfill existing orders. Farmers who had products to sell got creative with curbside marketing and deliveries. I hope that this shift toward valuing a more-local economy will endure beyond the immediate demand. I think I can safely predict that many gardeners now have a counter overflowing with freshly grown produce. Who knew that a row of beans would yield so well? What can one do with 20 zucchinis or all the broccoli that is ready at the same time? Or perhaps your seeds are still in their packets. If so, consider buying in bulk from a farm or at a farmers’
Freezing Goods from the Garden
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reezing fruits and vegetables can be quick and efficient. Freezers are relatively inexpensive and are sometimes free on the side of the road! Always label your frozen goods with the type of produce and date frozen.
Frozen Herbs Pick leaves of basil, cilantro, oregano, sage, parsley or other herbs. Lay the leaves flat, packing them well into a glass jar or plastic yogurt-type container. (Parsley is best chopped.) Place a lid on the container and store it in the freezer. Herbs keep all winter this way with excellent flavor, and the leaves separate easily for removal from containers. Use them in cooking or crumble frozen herbs on a salad.
Frozen Pureed Herbs Blend herbs in olive oil and a small amount of salt. Place the puree in glass or plastic containers and freeze, or freeze them in ice cube trays and pop the frozen cubes into freezer bags or containers. Use
market. Winter squash and onions will keep for months in a cool room. Potatoes, beets, cabbage, leeks and carrots will keep in a cold cellar or back room, especially if you can bag them to control moisture loss. You can also put off processing until a cooler or less hectic time of year. I often freeze berries in the summer and make jam or juice in the fall when I have more time and when I appreciate the heat from the stove more. This delay also allows for mixing foods that ripen at different times – to make, for example, blackberry elderberry juice, raspberry or peach applesauce, peach and fresh ginger marmalade, or tomatillo salsa verde. Here are a few tips for quick and relatively easy ways to deal with your bounty. Also consider lacto-fermenting vegetables. The process is quick, very easy and can use up a lot of surplus produce. Reliable instructions are available on the web.
ZUCCHINI PUREE Use this puree as a simple soup, or freeze and use it as a base or background flavor enhancer for soup, sauces or stews. Lots of zucchini or summer squash, cut into chunks 1 to 2 or more onions, chopped in eighths Salt Basil or other herbs (optional) In a large stock pot, bring 1 inch of water to a boil. Add the squash and onions. Steam until tender. If adding salt or herbs, toss them on top of the hot squash. Let cool and puree with an immersion blender or food processor, or hand mash. Freeze in pint or
pureed herbs to season sauces, meat or fish, or as a pesto base for pasta, pizza and more.
Frozen Sweet or Hot Peppers We use 4 gallons of frozen sweet peppers each winter. Their flavor and aroma is amazing. They are excellent in any cooking and are great in salads. Their texture is not crisp but not too soft. To prepare, remove seeds and stems from peppers. Dice into quarter-inch pieces or desired size. Hot peppers can be sliced whole or prepared as noted for sweet peppers. Fill freezer bags or containers and pop them into the freezer.
quart containers. If making a soup to eat now, adjust seasonings. Garnish with minced chives or parsley, if desired.
DILLY VEGETABLES These are like dilly beans but are made with any vegetable you have. Pack hot, wide-mouth pint jars with clean, bitesized raw vegetable pieces. Asparagus, green or wax beans, cauliflower, carrots and snap peas work well. Add to each jar: ½ tsp. whole mustard seed ½ tsp. dill seed or 2 heads fresh dill 1 clove peeled garlic ¼ tsp. crushed red pepper or 1 small piece fresh hot pepper (optional) Mix and heat the brine. Ten cups of brine fill 8 or 9 pint jars of vegetables. 5 c. vinegar 5 c. water 1/3 c. pickling or sea salt (non-iodized) Pour boiling brine into the jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Seal and process for 5 minutes in a boiling water bath. Remove and cool.
SEVEN TREE FARM’S BROCCOLI CHEDDAR SOUP Serves 8 4 Tbsp. butter or vegetable oil 1 large or 2 medium onions, sliced large 3 large garlic cloves, sliced large 2 quarts veggie or chicken stock 1 or 2 large heads of fresh broccoli, cut into 1- or 2inch pieces 3 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed 1 additional head of fresh broccoli and/or cauliflower or kale mix, steamed and cut into bite sizes
Frozen Tomatoes
8 to 10 oz. cheddar cheese, cut into a few squares
Wash and slice ripe tomatoes. Lay the slices on a cookie sheet and freeze them. Place the frozen tomatoes in freezer bags or containers. Use them in cooking or to make sauce.
2 c. whole milk
Fruits and Berries All berries, rhubarb and most fruits can be frozen without any other processing. Some need to be pitted, skinned or chopped to the desired size. Then just place them in containers and freeze them – or freeze them on a baking sheet and place frozen fruits in containers.
2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast (or more to taste) Salt, white miso, or bouillon and pepper to taste Saute onion and garlic in butter or oil until translucent. Add chopped broccoli and stock. Gently boil stock with onions, garlic, initial head of broccoli, and potatoes for 20 minutes or until soft. Remove from heat and use a stick blender or food processor to blend the mixture to a puree. Return to gentle heat and add the cheddar, milk and nutritional yeast. Simmer and stir until the cheese melts. Season to taste with miso or salt and pepper, etc. Add the additional cooked broccoli/cauliflower and bring to temperature, being careful not to boil. Serve with fresh bread or cornbread on the side. Note that you can cook all the veggies in the first stage if you want a wholly pureed soup; you can add grated raw carrots or cooked cubed carrots with the second-stage veggies for additional texture and flavor; and you can garnish with freshly minced chives. About the author: Roberta grows an abundance of produce and saves seeds at her Seven Tree Farm in Vassalboro, Maine. She is the longest-running columnist for The MOF&G.
Page 32 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
MOFGA CERTIFICATION SERVICES LLC
Steelbow Farm: A Loss for Maine, a Gain for Texas BY JACO SCHRAVESANDE-GARDEI ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CROPS, MOFGA CERTIFICATION SERVICES, LLC
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often say that working for MOFGA Certification Services (MCS) is mostly a social job – that before the knowledge of organic growing practices, of the National Organic Program rule, etc., come into play, we try hard to keep the human touch in our work while staying within the National Organic Rule. Clients call and explain why their paperwork is late; inspectors report that their record keeping was not so good as last year because of the birth of a baby; a farmer has to change growing practices due to a health issue. Our clients are not just clients, so when farmers occasionally surrender their organic certificates, I often wonder how they are doing. One such client this year was Steelbow Farm, which moved its operation to Austin, Texas. In our email exchange, the farmers, Finnegan Ferreboeuf and Jason Gold, asked if MCS could still certify them in Texas. We considered this, especially since three of us would be in San Antonio for the National Organic Certifiers training in February. However, we decided that we could not certify them since parts of the National Organic Program rule would have been hard to comply with from so far away.
The Move to Tecolote Farm Since I was going to be close to Austin, though, I did ask if I could visit their farm there to see how they were doing and to hear about farming in Texas. So on a sunny afternoon I drove to their new farming location at Tecolote Farm. The drive brought surprises, such as zebras grazing alongside the road. I later learned that they are bred for hunters. Less surprising were some huge housing developments. The farm is about 13 miles from Austin. A long driveway through growing fields leads from the road to the lovely farm house. Behind the house are typical farm buildings, which is where I found Gold, Ferreboeuf and their newborn baby, Izzy. The parents looked energetic but also a bit tired – no surprise with the birth of a baby and a huge move just behind them, all in less than two months! David and Katie Pitre bought Tecolote Farm in 1993 and started one of the first organic CSAs in Texas the next year. On the 65-acre farm, 6.5 acres are used for vegetables and 10 to 12 acres are pasture. At the high days of the CSA, to accommodate 350 members, they bought a couple of more acres suitable for vegetable growing from a nearby ranch. In 2014 Ferreboeuf worked at Tecolote. After that, when visiting her parents in Austin, she stayed in contact with the Pitres. In the past two years, the Pitres had stopped the CSA and were still selling wholesale but were thinking
The lovely farm house at Tecolote.
of retiring, so in the fall of 2019 they talked with Ferreboeuf and Gold about leasing the farm. That’s when the thinking and listing of pros and cons started for the Steelbow farmers, who at first thought the idea seemed a bit crazy. They wondered, do we stay in Maine or move our whole operation to Texas? Ferreboeuf said the decision was hard as they love Maine and had come here in the first place because farming is cool and doable in our state. They were MOFGA journeypeople, and they had great customers who became friends. Also Texas has far fewer younger farmers and much less of an organic farm community. However, they would be closer to family there (handy with a newborn!), they could grow year round, and the opportunity to lease Tecolote was too good to pass up. So Ferreboeuf boarded a plane with Izzy, and Gold and a friend rented a box truck and drove all their farming equipment and other possessions from Maine to Austin.
Soil, Climate, Weather and Pests
Left to right: Katie Pitre, Finnegan Ferreboeuf and Jason Gold (with Izzy) at Tecolote Farm.
Still Tied to the Northeast Remarkably similar, said Gold and Ferreboeuf, is sourcing their inputs and seeds. Small vegetable growers in Texas have no local fertilizer, compost or seed suppliers, so the couple still gets those items from places they used in the Northeast. Gold and Ferreboeuf plan to visit Maine in August, when things are slowest in Austin, and they plan to remain on MOFGA and Maine’s listservs and other outreach platforms so that they can stay connected with our farming community. Asked why they had hoped that MOFGA Certification Services could still certify them in Austin, they said they had loved working with MCS, which was easy to communicate with – and the reputation of MOFGA and the other Northeast certifiers is better than that of the big certifiers. The latter, said Gold, are just different, especially regarding hydroponics and animal welfare. He and Ferreboeuf believe that MOFGA is doing the right thing and is a good advocate for smaller farms. Katie Pitre told them that she and her husband always felt very tense during their organic inspection. Having people come onto your property and inspect it can feel intimidating, but Gold and Ferreboeuf always felt that MOFGA inspectors really want farmers to succeed, and they were never nervous about their MCS inspections. We wish the couple all the best with its new farming endeavor!
Growing crops in Texas is a lot different from growing in Maine. The couple started many of its seedlings on January 13 and started plowing in the third week of January, which was late due to the move. Their soil has a lot of clay but is not super heavy. The climate is very different. In Austin you can grow year round, but August is the most challenging month as it is just too hot. Only okra, melons and summer squash might still be happy. Instead of thinking about extending the season by keeping greenhouses warm, people in Texas work to cool their greenhouses with shade cloth, swamp coolers (evaporative air conditioners) and wet walls (walls with evaporative cooling pads). Lack of water is an issue for many Texas farmers. Tecolote gets water from a creek and a 4,000-gallon catchment system that was installed after a nearby housing development undermined its primary well. Gold said he needs to learn about the different pest situation. When they moved to Maine, they thought that pests would not be bad here. However, the flea beetle pressure was much worse in Maine than on any of the Texas farms where they had worked. Colorado potato beetle and hornworms are not so bad in Texas, either. Squash bugs and other shield bugs, however, can be bad, as can blister beetles, which defoliate chard and beets completely and leave their frass on everything. They are called blister beetles as people who are allergic to them get blisters as a reaction. Slugs, cutworms, cabbage loopers and grasshoppers can also be problematic. However, as Gold states, pests in Maine are like the farmers in Maine: They have a short window, so they have to use that as best they can; that is not the case so much in Texas. Gold and Ferreboeuf expect less disease pressure than in Maine. They never see blight in Texas, and the drier climate creates much less fungal pressure, but some mildew and mosaic virus diseases can be issues. Just as the growing season differs, so do weather patterns relative to those in Maine. Drought, tornadoes, hail and, in spring and fall, big rain and flood events can make farming challenging. A field planted to a cover crop
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 33
The Pandemic and the Ancient Apple Tree BY JOHN BUNKER
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agnificent, ancient apple trees can still be found scattered throughout much of Maine. Look for them behind old barns, next to abandoned cellar holes, along roadsides nestled in thickets, sometimes even beside a gas station or a convenience store parking lot. The ancient apple trees of Maine were spreading their branches and producing bountiful crops even before Maine joined the Union two hundred years ago. They are the survivors, the ones that lived through the summer of 1816 when there was no summer; they are the ones that lived through half a dozen famously cold test winters, including the brutal 1933-34; they lived through the hurricane of 1938, the drought of 1947, not to mention waves of gypsy moth, browntail moth, scab, fireblight, decades of acid rain, polluted water and everything else. As we struggle to make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic, we might consider looking at these old apple trees. There’s a chance that everything we need to know about survival, these trees have known for millennia. Here are a few tips gleaned from the trees themselves.
1. Don’t move. You don’t need to convince old apple trees about the value of “shelter in place.” They’ve been perfectly content to stand in one spot for 200 years. They’re well aware that everything you need in life is right here at home. They know that everything you need to learn you can learn wherever you are. If you’re willing to stay put, as the old jazz standard says, “you’ll see your castles in Spain, through your windowpane, back in your own backyard.” As Ram Dass liked to say, “Be here now.” Or as Gary Snyder put it, “Don’t move.”
2. Build community. The old apple trees are masters at creating community right where they are. They understand the value of deep roots. They are the ultimate collaborators. They know well the folly of competition. They share everything. They hoard nothing. Often I’ll come across one of these old trees with “perfect” looking fruit. It looks like it came from the grocery store cooler. Never sprayed, never pruned, never fertilized, living in a tangle of grasses, goldenrod, yarrow, milkweed, elderberries, alders, even white pine. How do they do it? At first glance it looks like they’re living in chaos. But they’re not. They’ve created a
community above and below ground with an organization so elegant and so complex that we humans may never understand it. It’s a balanced ecosystem. There they are living in harmony, sharing their fruit and everything else, feeding and healing one another, all the while communicating through their own solar-powered subterranean original version of the World Wide Web.
3. Waste not want not. You don’t need to tell old apple trees about being conservative. They don’t need a pandemic to get that. Apple trees are the true conservatives. They conserve everything. They put the so-called human conservatives to shame. Give them a dot of land, a scratch of soil, a few drops of water, a breath of air, and they will thrive. In times of drought, they simply slow down their growth; in times of plenty, they put on new wood and produce great crops of fruit. They’ve been living that way for hundreds of thousands of years. Not only that, surprisingly enough they don’t wreck the air and the water they use. They improve it and pass it along even cleaner than it was.
4. Eat local. To old apple trees, the local food system is the secure food system. They have no desire to obtain food from away. They prefer the fresh produce they can get right here at home. It’s always available, it’s good for you, and it has no carbon footprint. They are the ultimate local food geeks. They also compost everything: leaves, twigs, branches, bark, even old logs, uneaten fruit and the occasional squirrel or deer carcass. Nothing gets flushed down the drain or dumped into the river. It all gets grown right here and eaten right here. They are the ultimate organic gardeners participating in the perfect secure food system.
5. Grace and flexibility. The old apple trees are the epitome of grace and flexibility. Give them a heavy, wet, spring snow storm or a massive crop of fruit, and they just bend. There’s an old medieval saying, “The mo appelen the tree bereth the more she boweth to the folk.” We should all be practicing bowing these days. Bowing is far more graceful than shaking hands anyway. When the weight is too great, here and there the occasional branch gives way rather than taking down the whole tree. That’s just nature’s pruning. When a hungry bear or porcupine creates a mess up high, the tree sees it as a growth opportunity. The fallen branches and debris become compost, and by next year you’ll find all this fresh young growth up in the tree where it recently
An old apple tree at the Wooden Boat School in Brooklin, Maine. English photo looked like destruction. A few years later that young growth will translate into strong young branches and lots of fruit. When the weight is too great, the old trees simply lie down. Next summer one of the younger branches will rise to become a fresh new vertical trunk. The old stump eventually rots away, but the tree lives on. To the ancient apple tree, there’s nothing adverse about adversity. It’s just life. Would that we all could enjoy traveling less, enjoying our yards and
our neighbors more, tending our gardens, eating local and expressing grace in everything we do. If you look closely, you might see the old apple trees smile as they watch us bicker endlessly about who’s right, who’s wrong and who’s to blame. To the old apple tree, all facts are neutral. Bickering only distracts us from healing life’s inevitable wounds with new wood. As we rebuild civilization after the pandemic tide goes out, perhaps we could all take a few hints from the old apple tree.
Page 34 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Animal Pests in the Garden BY CALEB GOOSSEN, PH.D. Photos by Dennis Sidik
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he three most common mammal pests that gardeners ask me about are deer, woodchucks and small rodents. Woodchucks and small rodents seem to be able to find gardens anywhere, but gardening in town can mean freedom from browsing deer – although not always! In addition to the frustration of seeing your hard work disappear overnight, animal pests in the garden present a food safety concern: You don’t want unplanned manure showing up. Although gardeners with more grace than I can find peace in an unwritten agreement to grow enough food to share with their uninvited animal visitors, my experience has led to frustration that animals do not seem to be aware of the agreement and do not stick to just their share of the harvest.
Repel, Exclude or Reduce Upon seeing evidence of an animal interloper (ideally beforehand), management tends to fall into three categories: repellence, exclusion and population reduction. Of these, exclusion is often the most reliable when done thoroughly, but exclusion can be more difficult as the size of the animal decreases. Mice can squeeze through openings that are just larger than a quarter-inch. Fortu-
nately, the impact that you can have on the overall pest population in your vicinity increases as the size of the animal decreases: Mice don’t have nearly the traveling range that deer have. Similarly, woodchucks usually show up in the fall as young adults leaving their parents’ territory, so keeping your resident population in check tends to free you of their presence until the following season when that year’s litter sets off from neighboring families (which produce only one litter per year). Small rodents, however, can have many litters per year and build their populations much faster. Luckily many other predatory animals help check their population. To repel small rodents some people try planting a solid barrier of peppermint or using peppermint oil as an applied deterrent, but I can’t vouch for its efficacy – and peppermint can be hard to keep contained to where you planted it. While mice can cause havoc by getting into freshly planted seedlings, voles are often the rodents that cause the most damage in a garden or greenhouse. Gardeners typically have to trap and remove them from the area to deal with them. Voles love to run in “tunnels” through vegetation just above or slightly below the surface of the soil. All rodents like to travel along the length of something. Given those tendencies, keep paths and the garden perimeter trimmed low to
discourage rodents by making them feel more exposed, and place vole traps perpendicular (for snap traps) or in line with (for tunnel-style live traps) greenhouse walls or any long contiguous surface in the garden so that the rodents encounter the traps while traveling a normal path. I prefer peanut butter as a bait for mice, but voles are vegetarian and are more responsive to a small apple slice. (I’ve even used a beet slice successfully.) If I’m not sure what type of rodent is causing damage, sometimes I’ll set a trap with a small apple slice with some peanut butter on it. If you opt to reduce the resident population of woodchucks or deer, be sure to comply with state laws. You don’t need a license to shoot a woodchuck (or porcupine or red squirrel), and it’s open season for hunting them year round except on Sundays. Anyone can set a live trap anytime and relocate woodchucks, raccoons or skunks, but lethal trapping must abide by Maine trapping laws, which boil down to having a trapping license and trapping only in the appropriate season. A local wildlife game warden can link homeowners with a state-licensed animal damage control professional who will trap nuisance critters for a small fee. You cannot shoot deer out of season or without a license from the state, and the state limits the quantity you are licensed to harvest, but you can encourage local hunters to hunt your property to reduce the overall population pressure in the area. That approach can help turn your garden losses into free-range organic-fed protein, but it’s far from a guarantee that other hungry deer won’t appear in your garden the following season. Deer are best dealt with preemptively rather than scrambling to react to feeding damage. Methods of repelling or excluding deer rapidly lose efficacy when deer realize just how tasty your garden “salad bar” is. Compound that with the rapid transition that deer can make in the autumn, from feeding on diminishing summertime wild browse species to enjoying your tender crops, and an ounce of prevention truly is worth a pound of cure. By “training” local deer to avoid your fields, you have a better chance of keeping them away from your crops before they can do any damage than if you try to keep them out after they have caused harm – and gotten a taste for the crop. The gold standard for excluding deer
Anyone can set a live trap anytime and relocate woodchucks, raccoons or skunks. is a contiguous perimeter of metal deer fencing that is at least 8 feet tall. Installing these fences can be expensive, particularly if you need many gates, but ongoing labor is much less than maintaining temporary electric fences – and you can use the fence as a trellis for deer-resistant plants. Many farmers say that the peace of mind alone from installing a permanent deer fence was worth more than anything. Temporary electric fencing is probably the more common and second most effective approach for excluding deer, but the devil is in the details with electric fencing. Many people have preferred setups, swearing by added height, double-perimeter fences spaced far enough apart to make jumping over both difficult, or other complicated setups. In my experience a simple, single-perimeter, double course of polytape electric fence is usually enough – with a few important caveats. First and foremost is getting the fence up before local deer know there is something they want to eat within it. Second is training local deer to know that they don’t want to go anywhere near your electric fence. Do this by baiting the fence with creamy peanut butter, lightly smearing it on the top row of polytape fencing every 6 to 8 feet (with the power turned off during application). Imagining deer sniffing that peanut butter and getting a zap on the nose may seem a little cruel, but it can prevent the need for lethal controls. Reapply the peanut butter every few weeks to reinforce the training of local deer, as they’ll keep testing. Lastly, perform regular electrical fence maintenance. That usually includes ensuring a high enough output of the fence charger, mowing and/or weedwhacking vegetation that can grow up to touch and partially ground the fence (lowering its “zap”), and if conditions
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 35
Tip Broccolini: What’s in a Name?
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Without a contiguous perimeter of metal deer fencing that is at least 8 feet tall, these animals are likely to enjoy your crops. have been dry long enough, you may need to dump buckets of water on the soil around the charger grounding rods to ensure good electrical conductivity to ground. Remember that none of the above will stop hungry deer in the fall, after their wild food sources have diminished, if they already know that tasty greens are inside the electric fence. Regarding repelling and deterring deer, Andrew Smart, wildlife game warden for Unity, has seen success with a couple of tricks. First, simply attach a trash bag loosely to a fence post so that it can flap in the breeze. Smart says not to rely on such motion deterrents for more than a couple of weeks as deer soon get used to and ignore them. At the very least move them to a new location
or take them inside for a while and bring them back out later. Second, Smart suggested putting a radio out to make noise in the field at night. That kept deer out of his strawberries for at least two months. Smart and I have the same impression of odor-based repellents: They can be very effective if reapplied when needed (rain can wash them away), but regular applications of most commercial formulations can get too expensive for cost-effective control. Caleb Goossen is MOFGA’s organic crop and conservation specialist. You can contact him at cgoossen@mofga.org.
ast April I bought a peat tray of six seedlings labeled “sprouting broccoli” because no ordinary broccoli was available, and I transplanted the seedlings into my garden. I also had a packet of Piracicaba “non-heading broccoli” seed that I had bought a year or three earlier but had never grown successfully. Why not give it a try, too, I thought, and I started a six-pack of Piracicaba. By mid-June or so I began harvesting florets from my first planting of sprouting broccoli and a month or so later from my Piracicaba. We enjoyed our “broccoli” all summer and froze a good deal for winter dining. I was still harvesting enough small florets from the two plantings for a meal once or twice a week until hard frost in late October. Harvest from my two plantings started earlier, lasted much longer, was more abundant and tasted much better to my wife, Madeleine, and me than those of any other broccolis I have grown. Those were good reasons to grow Piracicaba and related vegetables again this year. Which brings us to the question: Just what was it that I grew? It turns out that seed catalogs offer a rather long list of “sprouting” or “nonheading” cultivars of broccoli – Di Cicco, Green Sprouting, Early Purple Sprouting and Italian Sprouting, to name a few. These sprouting broccolis grow into sturdy plants, often reaching a height of 2½ feet in my garden, and produce numerous smaller heads over an extended season rather than the single large head that one-cut standard
Photo by Jonathan Mitschele
broccoli typically produces. But what I grew last year was none of these. The photo I took in late summer of Madeleine, who is 5½ feet tall, standing next to one of my “sprouting broccolis” from the nursery offers a clue to its identity. The plant is about 4 feet high, nearly double the height of my broccoli plants. My unnamed nursery plants and my Piracicaba plants are examples of the so-called mini-broccolis or broccolinis, many of which are broccoli x gai lan (Chinese broccoli) crosses. The names mini-broccoli and broccolini (Italian for “little broccoli”) are rather ironic, for these plants exhibit what plant breeders term “hybrid vigor,” exemplified by the much greater size of my “sprouting broccolis” relative to their parents. – Jonathan Mitschele
Page 36 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
When Sourcing Meat, Know Your Farmer BY JACKI PERKINS
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ince entering into adulthood and having the responsibility of buying my own food, I have become cognizant of where that food comes from and how it is made or grown. I have not always found myself in situations where I could buy local or organic, but the source of my meat is my highest priority. When peers outside of the MOFGA community ask my opinion on meat, my simple answer is, “If you’re not raising it yourself, at least know your farmer.” Each species comes with its own unique set of issues, but they all essentially boil down to diseases, animal welfare and food safety concerns. For example global pork production has been affected recently by African Swine Flu (ASF). According to an article in Pig Progress, China’s pork industry was reduced 50% by the 2018-2019 outbreak of ASF. The U.S. Department of Agriculture website says that U.S. exports of pork to mainland China increased by roughly 167,000 pounds within the same time frame. Experts speculate that the Chinese pork industry will evolve to become more commercialized in order to meet this demand. These global factors keep U.S. exports to these areas high, affecting our nation’s supply and demand. Large-scale poultry and egg production, even in the organic industry, can be disturbing to witness. The withdrawal
of the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule by the Trump administration last year, which aimed to close many of these issues, was unfortunate because it had broad support among the organic community. Loose interpretation by certifiers of outdoor access and space requirements can leave birds confined in cages with only an outdoor patio. MOFGA Certification Services, a USDA-accredited certification agency, interprets the regulations differently, requiring that poultry carry out natural behaviors such as foraging, and have appropriate housing and healthcare. In the broader poultry industry, shipping norms allow for certain losses because of open-air travel and fluctuations in weather during travel. Slaughter facility regulations have improved since the 1906 publication of “The Jungle,” but capitalist pressures to increase production speed can allow for increased accidents. The Food Safety and Inspection Service, a division of USDA, runs a Salmonella Initiative Program (SIP) to test for dangerous pathogens in food production lines. The SIP will issue an inspection waiver to slaughter plants willing to do their own testing and submit their records to FSIS. This has the potential to increase processing speed in a poultry slaughter facility to 175 birds per minute, up from 140 birds per minute. This faster processing could lead to higher rates of employee injury and make it
difficult to detect defects on the chicken. The traditional role of inspectors is to provide oversight on the line to catch issues with carcasses such as signs of disease or fecal contamination. Removing inspectors from the processing line has the potential to impact food safety. Small-scale and backyard growers also have a responsibility to remain cognizant and educated on disease and parasite impacts, animal welfare and food safety concerns. Just because a farm is local doesn’t mean the producer has remained current on these issues. Consumers need to keep abreast of how local farms raise and process their animals, what their values are, and to find those that match their own values.
Letter Pandemic Exposes Deep Cracks in Monopolistic Meat Supply
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s large corporate meatpacking plants close across the nation, the pandemic exposes deep cracks in the nation’s monopolistic meat supply. Allowing a handful of multinational corporations to control the meat supply impairs the public safety during our hour of need. The combination – monopolistic control and sick laborers – does not work well to ensure production and public safety in a pandemic. During his 90-year lifetime, my father farmed in southern Minnesota. He watched as multinational corporations forced independent farmers off the land, replaced by industrial-sized factory farms. As 11 swine factory farms circled our
MOFGA remains a great resource to help find local foods and to learn how to grow your own. Check out mofga.org or contact MOFGA for more information. Jacki M. Perkins is MOFGA’s organic dairy and livestock specialist. You can contact her at jperkins@mofga.org or 802-5959866.
farm within a 3-mile radius, my father frequently proclaimed that “Small farmers will feed this country when it gets into trouble.” My father was right. The country is in trouble and small farmers are feeding this country – not multinational corporations. As America slowly emerges from this crisis, we must re-examine the sick dependency upon corporate titans to feed America and rely, once again, upon small farmers to feed America. – Sonja Trom Eayrs, Maple Grove, Minnesota (612) 743-1312 Sonja Trom Eayrs is a farmer’s daughter and rural advocate. Ms. Eayrs writes on behalf of Dodge County Concerned Citizens, a grassroots organization dedicated to preserving America’s independent farmers, while exposing the environmental, public health and monopolistic control of American agriculture by industry giants.
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 37
American Beech BY NOAH GLEASON-HART merican beech (Fagus grandifolia) has a reputation among foresters, landowners and loggers as a “weed” with exasperating persistence and limited value. In some ways beech deserves this label. It is a prolific sprouter; when you cut one down, countless saplings spring from the roots and stumps of the tree. These saplings benefit from the large, established root systems of their parent trees and can aggressively outcompete new seedlings of other species. Beech is also very shade tolerant; it can survive under a closed canopy with little light for decades. After a harvest removes upper canopy trees and brings light to the ground, these sapling spring into action and can form pure beech stands. Landowners and forestry professionals might view these attributes more favorably if beech had significant commercial value, but it does not. Some markets do exist for beech trees as mat and tie logs and as bolts for dowel production, but generally speaking, it’s a low-value species. The presence of beech bark disease in the Northeast exacerbates negative perceptions of beech. In the past, beeches were a large-diameter climax species with stunningly clear, silver bark and a lifespan of several hundred years. However, most of the beech trees you’ll see on a walk through the woods today are affected by beech bark disease and are smaller, have heavily pockmarked bark, and are clearly
in poor health. The interaction of an insect, beech scale, and a nectria fungus causes beech bark disease. The beech scale, a nonnative species accidentally introduced from Europe in the late 1800s, attacks the thin bark of beech. These wounds then serve as entry points for the bark canker fungus to take hold and impede sap flow through the tree. Some beech trees display a natural resistance to the disease, but most are extremely susceptible. Affected trees slowly succumb and rarely reach old age or grow to large diameters. Stress to the main stem initiates a strong sprouting response similar to the response after a beech tree is cut down. These sprouts are as susceptible to beech bark disease as their parents, so a cycle begins that leads to pure thickets of small-diameter diseased beech. Despite these challenges, beech still plays an essential role in the ecology of our woods. Beech is a prolific bearer of tasty nuts. You’ll often see claw marks on larger beech stems and bear baskets in tops of trees where a bear has pulled in branches to harvest nuts. The nuts are also a tasty treat for humans, if you can beat the squirrels to them! Beech thrive on a variety of sites and will grow and reproduce on soils that might not support other hardwoods. Finally, because it is shade tolerant, beech is well suited to the small-scale single tree disturbances common in New England forests before widespread harvesting began. Beech is also a useful resource on the farm or homestead – especially if we take
A beech tree severely affected by beech bark disease.
First flush of shiitake mushrooms on beech logs after a spring rain
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advantage of the characteristics of the tree, rather than try to fight them. On the farm where I live in southern Maine, we don’t actively promote beech, but we still have plenty of it in our woodlot, and we’ve found a variety of uses for it. We use disease-free beech bolts for small-scale, log-grown shiitake mushroom cultivation. Sources list beech as only a second-tier species for mushroom production because it may not be as productive as red oak, white oak and sugar maple. Beech bark is also relatively thin, so the bark may crack and fall off earlier than that of other species, drying out the log and reducing years of production. However, we’ve been quite satisfied with the yields we’ve seen, and in the third year of our project, we have yet to see any bark cracking. Most importantly, by using beech harvested while thinning mixed stands, or while harvesting groups of pure beech, we can leave more of our pole-sized oaks and maples to grow into valuable saw logs for future harvests. Beech is an abundant, high-BTU firewood. On the farm, we use firewood harvests as an opportunity to cull diseased beech and create gaps in the canopy to regenerate other species. By removing diseased beech and controlling sprouts, and leaving trees that appear to show resistance, we also shape the gene pool to ensure that resistant trees are the ones that reproduce. To increase our chances of regenerating other species, we timed our beech harvest in January 2020 to follow last year’s mast year for red oak. By happy coincidence, all indications are that we’ll also have a good seed year for white pine in 2020. We harvest groups of diseased trees together to bring more light to the ground and promote species, such as red oak and white pine, that are less tolerant of shade than beech. The beech stumps left behind will respond with aggressive root and stump sprouting, so we’ll need to go back to each of the gaps several times to cut sprouts and ensure that light reaches other seedlings. If other species don’t regenerate well, or if we do a poor job controlling beech sprouts, we may end up with another stand of pure beech rather than the mixed species stand we’d like to see. In that case we’ll harvest beech firewood from the same area again. This wouldn’t be an ideal outcome, but we’ll still be producing a renewable, homegrown resource. We can also put the aggressive sprouting tendencies of beech to use by har-
Postharvest view of a gap created during winter 2020 firewood cutting. Slash has been cut small and will decompose over the next few years; think of it as fertilizer for the next generation of trees. vesting small-diameter stems for ramial chips and biochar for our gardens and orchards. Inexpensive or free wood chips are often available from arborist companies, but ensuring that chips from tree companies are predominantly hardwoods – preferable to softwoods for ramial chips – can be challenging. To ensure that our mix is mainly from hardwoods, we chip several truckloads of beech saplings every year for our small orchard. The trees we cut will re-sprout, and we can come back in five or 10 years to harvest again. Similarly, the aggressive sprouting of beech would ensure a steady source of biomass for biochar production. We haven’t tried this yet but are interested in exploring biochar options in the future. I encourage woodlot owners and homesteaders to reimagine the role of beech in their woodlots. When you find large-diameter, clear-barked beeches, consider leaving them as disease-resistant seed sources for the future. In my mind, few things are more beautiful than a large, clear-barked, singlestemmed beech. We should work to regenerate other species in beech-dominated stands but recognize that diseased beech will remain a part of our landscape. Therefore, we should find creative and productive ways to put that resource to good use on our farms and homesteads. Noah Gleason-Hart is MOFGA’s lowimpact forestry specialist. You can contact him at forestry@mofga.org.
Page 38 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Reviews Edible Weeds on Farms: Northeast farmer’s guide to selfgrowing vegetables http://foundwith.care/weeds-as-crops By Tusha Yakovleva, 2020
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he 98-page free PDF discusses weeds as foods, outlines harvesting and marketing, and offers weed identification resources and recipes. The information was researched thanks to a grant from Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education.
Tree Leaf Fodder for Livestock: Transitioning Farm Woodlots to ‘Air Meadow’ for Climate Resilience https://projects.sare.org/projectreports/fne18-897/ By Shana Hanson, 2020
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his is the final report about a SAREfunded study of pollarding and harvest of tree growth at 3 Streams Farm in Belfast, Maine, to feed livestock. Pollarding is pruning drastically above browse height, cutting close to livestock headheight on top of a clear stem in order to harvest new growth every three to six years for fodder. This 1-acre demonstration plot of “air meadow” fodder production tracked labor involved, and dry matter consumed by a small herd of dairy goats as well as feeding preferences when other livestock sampled pollarded products. The report offers pollarding guidelines with species-specific comments.
Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter By Ben Goldfarb Chelsea Green, 2018 304 pages, hardcover, $17.95
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hinking about beavers makes me happy. I don’t know much about them: They haven’t flooded my back garden, my neighbors’ back field or forest, chewed my trees down, jammed the culvert and inundated the road. But I think they might help us manage
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water, given the weather shift in climate change. “Eager: The Surprising Life of Beavers” joyfully and defiantly tracks work being done to bring beavers back, sometimes with human help, into damaged landscapes that can’t hold water anymore. Apparently the whole U.S. territory was crawling with beavers when Europeans arrived, a landscape of cascading dams and wide, shallow beaver flowages, full of all the other aquatic creatures. In fact, I have observed this personally. My family and I camp in New Hampshire along a stream that runs out of the White Mountain National Forest, past a rich little farmed intervale, and plunges into the woods below. Some years ago the farmer didn’t get around to shooting the beavers that flooded the field, and we observed beavers building a long, zigzag dam across the top of a stream, flooding the land upstream. I realized then that the intervale itself, a broad, flat, fertile meadow, must have been created by beavers before settlers came. It must have been a great beaver flow, trapping all the mountain silt. Apparently these landscapes can be brought back when beavers return, bringing the water we need with them. Beavers have long been regarded as varmints, not tolerated by landowners and managers. This is still largely the case. But as our human encroachment keeps growing and our climate changing, we can’t count on having water where we want it: It runs off too
fast in the extraordinarily heavy rains we can get now; it floods us when the great, slow storms sit on us; snows that used to trickle into the watershed in the spring thaw now run off into the surface water all winter (while out West and around the world, mountain glaciers that fed dry summer land are disappearing). Groundwater is not replenished and runs out during droughts. Forests dry and are prone to wildfire. Beavers can help by creating landscapes that slow the flooding water, letting it percolate into the ground, stored for dry times. Beavers work like the old soil conservation pond building after the Dust Bowl, like permaculture water management with contoured berms on slopes. Beavers shape the land to manage the water. And beavers are free, except for management costs when they build where they annoy us. (Beaver works are always changing, the braiding streams shift, the beavers sometimes move on, and people want control.) Most of this book is about reintroduction projects out West, in places where water is scarcer, where overgrazing has hardened and desertified land, and the drying forest burns. Beavers are being considered for healing faltering salmon runs, replenishing municipal watersheds and agricultural groundwater, purifying runoff, catching silt. Cattlemen come around to tolerating beavers – previously regarded as rodents to be exterminated – to enhance their meager streams. In Europe and the British Isles,
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 39
another species of beaver is being reintroduced, hesitantly, after centuries of absence. The only mention of our well-watered Northeast covers traps for carrying off beavers and the “beaver deceiver” to prevent beavers from blocking ditches and culverts. Can beavers work for us, protect our watersheds? Can we work with them and their wayward ways, even in the populated Northeast, and be rewarded by cool, clear-flowing streams, yearround groundwater, flourishing wildlife (and lower the increasing DOT and municipal public works maintenance costs)? – Beedy Parker, Camden, Maine
neglected acres in the hills of central Ohio that he named Malabar Farm. From that point on Bromfield wrote and widely lectured on his conviction that only a diversified farm that did not depend on chemical fertilizers was a better system for farmers and the food they grew. He died just before Rodale and others codified these ideas into the “organic movement” that continues to grow in influence and popularity. Stephen Heyman’s new biography of Louis Bromfield reads like an engaging novel whose fictional hero has been inserted into America’s (and Europe’s) literary and agricultural history. Yet Louis Bromfield lived (and lived really well!). I hope this book will go a long way to restore his story as foundational and significant. – Eric Rector, Monroe, Maine
The Planter of Modern Life
Gardening with Emma: Grow and Have Fun:
Louis Bromfield and the Seeds of a Food Revolution By Stephen Heyman W.W. Norton & Company, 2020 https://www.theplanterofmodern life.com/
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ow is it that a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer living and working outside of Paris after World War I whose success – literary and social – was envied by his friends Fitzgerald and Hemingway is the same man who inspired Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson and Joel Salatin to proselytize on sustainable agriculture? This writer publicly fought the Franklin administration on behalf of America’s farmers during World War II and then hosted Humphrey Bogart’s second marriage to Lauren Bacall at his Ohio farm; the wedding was covered by newspapers and magazines around the world. He testified in Congress against the use of DDT and similar new pesticides in agriculture 17 years before the publication of “Silent Spring.” How is it that such a man seems forgotten today while those he worked and socialized with, along with those he inspired, live on in our memories as giants of their times? Louis Bromfield grew up in rural Ohio, then left for Europe in 1917 and become an icon of American culture over the next 40 years. He developed such a passion for sustainable agriculture that he gave up writing bestselling novels to plow his money and his time into restoring 600
growing. There’s an A-to-Z garden … asparagus and zucchini are the easy ones, but what do you plant for X? What about a rainbow garden? Or just the opposite: a garden of plants all in a single color? She includes a pizza garden – this is a book for kids, after all – and a garden for giants, filled with big beets, colossal cantaloupes and more. She involves all senses, with garden ideas for sound and touch. And for kids who love flowers, she adds advice on how to create a flower stand business alongside gardening how-to. Emma ends her book with a couple of chapters containing practical advice, from constructing raised beds to fall planting and building cold frames. What I really like, though, is the last page: My Top 10 130 Tomatoes. It’s Emma’s list of tomatoes that she grew one summer. Although Emma wrote this book for kids, I think parents – and beginning gardeners of all ages – will appreciate her no-nonsense “how to garden” approach. – Sue Smith-Heavenrich, Candor, N.Y.
with lambing in the spring, fall grazing for pigs (free range, of course) and chickens all year round – even in winter because, while most people think that’s when farmers rest, those farmers are busy cleaning the coop … or repairing barns and machinery, splitting wood and pruning the orchard. One of my favorite spreads shows the family perusing seed catalogs, and I love that Castaldo highlights a few fun heirloom varieties, including ‘Fish’ peppers and ‘Brandywine’ tomatoes. An important thread running through the book is the connection from farm to table. The farm family preserves chutneys, jams and sauces and bakes pies and bread (there’s a recipe if you want to try bread baking) for market. From pick-your-own to farmers’ markets to the larger food distribution system, farmers produce the food that keeps us healthy, writes Castaldo. In return, we can support the farm economy. She shows us a half dozen ways to support local farms, eat sustainably and protect our planet. – Sue Smith-Heavenrich, Candor, N.Y.
The Farm That Feeds Us:
Willie Knows Who Done It
A year in the life of an organic farm By Nancy Castaldo; illustrated by Ginnie Hsu Quarto Publishing, 2020 80 pages, hardbound, $18.95
By Hans Krichels Atmosphere Press, 2020. Available at BookStacks in Bucksport, Union River Book & Toy Co. in Ellsworth, all Sherman’s locations, Longfellow Books in Portland, and from Amazon and atmospherepress.com 208 pages, paperback, $15.99
A Kid-to-Kid Guide By Emma Biggs and Steven Biggs Storey Publishing, 2019 144 pages, paperback, $18.95
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he first thing you notice about this book is that it is bright! It’s filled with colorful photos and kid-friendly illustrations that invite you to explore the pages. The table of contents is laid out like square-foot beds, instead of liststyle, each chapter’s block labeled with what’s inside. At a glance you can see that there’s practical garden advice, fall and winter gardening tips, and a huge section with garden ideas for kids. Author Emma Biggs started writing this book when she was 12 because, she says, “kids have different ideas about gardening than grown-ups.” Adults like straight rows and no weeds, but kids’ gardens tend to look a lot messier. So Emma is an advocate for all kids to have their own plot where they can grow what they want – purple carrots, for example. A kid’s garden is more than a place to grow plants, she says; it’s also where they can explore insects, soil and wildlife. In the first chapter, Emma introduces annuals and perennials, intentional plantings versus those that come up on their own (also known as “weeds”), and why soil is more than dirt. She talks about sun requirements, watering, tools, and focuses on two important issues: weeds and insects. Emma’s approach to weeds is organic: pull them, mulch them or eat them – and she lists a few you can eat, including dandelions, Japanese knotweed, purslane and garlic mustard. She also highlights her favorite garden bugs, ideas for keeping pests in control, and how to plant for pollinators. Chapter two is where the fun happens. Emma shares more than a dozen ideas to help kids of all ages get
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ow wonderful to read a book that begins, “Hurrah for farms that supply us with the food we eat!” While some farms grow crops and some farms raise animals, the farm in this book does both. Divided into sections by season, “The Farm That Feeds Us” features a modern organic farm that provides food all year long. And it does so in a fun way. Want to know about chickens? Then it’s off to the coop where you’ll find out what chickens eat, how they lay eggs, and meet a handful of common types of hens. If you’re interested in farm machinery, check out the tractors and mowers, tillers and planters. In the orchards, readers are introduced to common fruits as well as beehives; on later pages you’ll meet diverse pollinators, from butterflies and moths to bumblebees and hoverflies. Author Nancy Castaldo introduces crops by season: peas and greens in the spring, heirloom corn for summer, cool weather crops to plant in late summer, and a harvest basket filled with squash and pumpkins in the fall. Of course there are pests, and these organic farmers implement a number of natural controls, including crop rotation, row covers and companion planting. Animal husbandry is featured by season as well,
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ans Krichels migrated to Maine to homestead in the ‘70s and learned to appreciate the rural, independent way of life here – along with the many characters who lived that life. He sold his woodcarvings at early Common Ground Country Fairs. His book of stories and poems comes from his years of taking notes about these people and places. While not the type of how-to farming or gardening book that we normally review here, “Willie Knows Who Done It” will entertain anyone who has experienced Maine as a native or adopted state. I especially enjoyed the story of a group of back-to-thelanders who tried to buy a rototiller together and share it. Such efforts quickly become complicated! A story about a sweater that traveled from a second-hand store in Maine to the far reaches of the United States, and the people it affected, is delightful. A poem that relates the fate of a flock of turkeys and a herd of deer to that of migrant families at the U.S. border leaves a lasting image of our time. Worth a read! – Jean English
Page 40 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Tip Lath for Weed and Moisture Control
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he older plaster walls in my 1850s farmhouse were made by spreading wet plaster on a framework of thin wood strips, or laths. I don’t know what folks shopping at Home Depot or the like buy lath for today, but I have hit on a way of putting it to good use in the garden: Placing lath strips on each side of a planted row of seeds, an inch or so apart,
Photo 1
helps minimize whatever close weeding needs to be done when seedlings emerge. The paired laths, held in place with a couple of bricks, also create a beneficial microclimate, which is even more essential for my gardens given the many days of strong spring winds from all directions. The laths keep soil moisture levels higher, so I lose fewer seedlings due to drying out. This is my process for sowing seeds and using laths: • I use my planting frame to position row markers in place. (Photo 1)
• I position pairs of laths against my row markers. (Photo 2) • I level the soil in the space between the laths, adding soil where needed to fill in low spots. • I tamp the planting area lightly and then • scatter seeds. • I cover the seeds with soil, scraping off the excess; and • I tamp again to compact the soil around the seeds. • I water the seed beds daily until seedlings appear, then as needed, and
Photo 2
remove the laths when seedlings are off to a good start. Wood lath is not cheap; when I wrote this in April 2020, the price at Home Depot was $13.98 plus tax for a 50-pack of 1/3-inch by 1 1/2-inch by 4-foot wood laths, but with a little care laths will last several years. Laths will work regardless of your row length, but if you plant in 4foot-wide rows, as I do, these laths are the perfect length. Take them up and store them in a dry place after seedlings are well up so that the laths don’t warp or start to rot. – Jonathan Mitschele
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 41
COMMON GROUND COUNTRY FAIR MOFGA’s 2020 virtual Fair: SEPTEMBER 25, 26 & 27 Joy Grannis Wins Common Ground Country Fair Art Contest
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strong combination of nature, nurture and determination led Joy Grannis to create the winning design featuring native bee balm (Monarda didyma) flowers and honeybees for the 2020 Common Ground Country Fair art contest. Grannis comes for a family of artists. Her uncle was a talented goldsmith, her grandmother was a screen printer, and her aunt is a sculptor – and everyone in her family, including her four sisters and one brother, is “really creative” – her brother as a woodworker and furniture maker, for example; one sister in health care, another in the food industry; “all amazingly creative,” says Grannis. Add to that several years of homeschooling in Pembroke, Maine, in Washington County. “I definitely think homeschooling played a huge role” in my creativity, says Grannis. She and her siblings “had some structure covering the basics, but we were encouraged to focus on what naturally drew us in. That was art for me, and writing and being outside.” The kids also had daily chores on the homestead, where the family raised all of its own vegetables as well as turkeys and chickens. “We were homeschooled until we decided individually that we wanted to go to school.” For Grannis that meant a 45-minute bus ride each way to Washington Academy in East Machias, where “I took art every year. They had a nice art program.” From there she went on to the University of Southern Maine, where she started as an art major and then switched to environmental planning and policy, earning a bachelor’s degree in that field with a minor in applied energy. She continued to study book art at USM at the same time, which was fun: “I could weave my interest in environmental studies into the books that I was making.”
Interested in Volunteering to Help with the Virtual Common Ground Country Fair?
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e are working with our volunteer Planning Team to make our first virtual Fair an engaging and vibrant event. If you have a skill or want to help but don’t have a lot of time, please consider a volunteer shift. Our specific volunteer needs will be posted soon on our website. Please contact Andrew Graham, MOFGA’s Common Ground Country Fair volunteer coordinator, at agraham@mofga.org or 207-5684142 to inquire about virtual Fair volunteer opportunities.
After graduation she worked in the sustainable building and energy field but decided to move back into art to meet her creativity needs. Living in Portland, she had been bartending at Isa Bistro in the evenings, which gave her time during the day to focus on art. That situation was “perfect,” she says, although as we went to press, she hadn’t been bartending since the COVID-19 virus shut down restaurants. Grannis now has her own garden and enjoys others’ in East Bayside, where “there are so many beautiful gardens in the neighborhood.” In fact she did her bee balm sketch by viewing her neighbor’s garden from home. Grannis herself grows several herbs – rosemary, sage, lavender and others – as well as a lot of native flowers and, in the shaded parts of her garden, hostas, phlox, irises and more. This year she is installing a few raised beds for a kitchen garden. Members of the MOFGA board of directors, staff and the Common Ground Country Fair Steering Committee selected Grannis’ design from among 66 entries from Maine residents or MOFGA members. This was the third time she had entered the contest. She recommends that those submitting designs “pay attention to the guidelines; it’s important to follow those rules. It does provide structure. It really worked for me. I thought about them a lot for the second one and even more for the third one. Think about the context your work
We rely on hundreds of volunteers, contributing in myriad ways, to produce MOFGA’s annual celebration of rural living. Whether you have a specific skill, experience in a trade or simply abundant enthusiasm and creativity, the Fair has a volunteer role for you.
Join the Common Ground Country Fair Planning Team
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e would love to have you join us as we plan the Common Ground Country Fair. This year, due to the coronavirus affecting our community, we are planning a virtual Fair. Every facet of the Fair is shepherded by volunteers who give their time and energy to this annual celebration of rural living. Our area coordinators
This year’s Fair poster is available for $10 (plus $4 postage). Order online at www.mofga.org or call the MOFGA office at 207-568-4142.
Enter the Art Contest for the 2021 Fair
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or details about entering the Common Ground Country Fair art contest, please visit https://mofga.org/TheFair/Poster. The postmark deadline for entries for the 2021 Fair is Monday, August 3, 2020. Hand-delivered submissions must be in the MOFGA office by Monday, August 10, 2020, at 4 p.m. The winning artist receives $2,500, an article in The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener, a one-year subscription to that newspaper, and MOFGA issues a press release about the selected design and artist.
will be in – on T-shirts, posters, and so on. Everyone will be viewing it.” Aside from that, she says to “draw every day; keep creating every day. Do what you love and something good will come out of it” – as it did with her watercolor and gouache bee balm work. Speaking of love, Grannis says that she loves the Fair. “You feel so comforted. Like the world is going to be OK.” The 44th annual Common Ground Country Fair is scheduled for September 25 to 27, when products with Grannis’ design will be available. Meanwhile, the 2020 poster is available at MOFGA’s online Country Store.
come from every walk of life to plan, organize and manage areas of the Fair throughout the year. They do so much to contribute to the design and production of this extraordinary celebration and are a great team to work with and know. As the Fair evolves, new opportunities arise, especially as we plan our first virtual fair. If you would like to take a leadership role in producing our big annual celebration of rural living, we would love to hear from you. Please contact Andrew Graham, MOFGA’s Common Ground Country Fair volunteer coordinator, at agraham@mofga.org or 207-5684142, or visit http://mofga.org/TheFair/Fair-Volunteers/volunteer-asan-area-coordinator.
About Bee Balm
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hile Monarda didyma supports honeybees, it also provides nectar for bumblebees, butterflies and hummingbirds, and caterpillars of some moth species feed on its foliage. Deer and other herbivores do not favor its aromatic leaves and stems. A member of the mint family, bee balm substituted for tea from China after the Boston Tea Party, and Native Americans used the plant, calling it Oswego tea. Also called wild bergamot, the perennial is easy to grow in a fertile, evenly moist soil. Give it plenty of space (18 to 24 inches between plants) to minimize the chance of powdery mildew.
Tami Colburn, Fair Assistant
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e are excited to welcome back Tami Colburn for her fifth season as our Common Ground Country Fair assistant. Colburn brings with her four full seasons of experience and a great work ethic and positive attitude. She will be answering phone calls for the Fair office and helping with many other tasks. Grateful to have you back, Tami!
Page 42 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
Janice Clark. English photo
Staff Changes at MOFGA
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OFGA is fortunate to have many longstanding employees. It makes us resilient and wise. We have a lot of depth and ability to back each other up when someone is away. This a big reason we have weathered some significant challenges and transitions through the years. One person in particular humbly kept us on track through more than three decades of MOFGA transitions. On April 28, 2020, MOFGA’s finance administrator, Janice Clark, wrapped up her service to MOFGA. We all miss her greatly. Janice started as MOFGA’s bookkeeper in 1989 after having served as an administrator at the Oak Grove Coburn school in Vassalboro. The end of that school was MOFGA’s good fortune. Janice worked in the Augusta office for 10 years, and some people wondered if she would want to make the transition and daily commute to MOFGA’s new home, the Common Ground Education Center, in Unity. Well, Janice was undaunted for another two decades, continuing to manage MOFGA’s finances, each year
STAFF PROFILE
Torie DeLisle
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orie DeLisle, MOFGA’s membership and development director, came to our organization from Skidompha Public Library in Damariscotta, where she was director of development. She and her husband, August (a MOFGA journeyperson and a 2018 recipient of a Russell Libby agricultural scholarship), own their 5-acre WoodHaus Farm on Duck Puddle Road in Waldoboro. Their diversified farm is dedicated to homesteading and heritage breeds, including Americana chickens, Navajo Churro sheep and Mangalitsa/ Large Black pigs.
Q. Did you grow up and go to school (including college) in Maine? Did you have a farming background before you and August started WoodHaus? A. I grew up moving around the country as a child, but moved to Maine with my family as a teenager. All of my mother’s family lives in Maine, and my mother was one of the early graduates of College of the Atlantic, so we spent summers and holidays here and I always thought of Maine as “home” even before we moved here full time. I lived on Swan’s Island throughout high school and spent summers as a sternman on a lobster boat. Then I went to Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, to study playwriting and set design. Farming is something I have always been attracted to, especially going to the Common Ground Country Fair as a kid. My family kept sheep for a few years, but I had no real experience with farming before diving in myself.
Q. You lived in Portland for a while, where you were the engagement manager for tech firm Big Room Studios. What brought you to Portland originally? Why did you move to Damariscotta?
breaking her advertising sales records, and making sure staff benefits were on track. She processed about 60,000 checks, arrived at the office at 5 a.m. approximately 6,000 times regardless of the weather, placed roughly 3,000 ads in MOFGA’s newspaper, managed finances for 30 Common Ground Country Fairs, and found joy in balancing books to the penny. While MOFGA has grown in every respect during Janice’s tenure, she served as a one-person finance department until just a few years ago. Janice provided love, laughter and sage advice to MOFGA staff and volunteers. People in every reach of MOFGA’s broad and diverse community know and love Janice. She assisted with projects whenever we asked, helped us navigate turbulent waters, generously offered moral support, reeled us back to common sense, and always ended her days with a smile and the reassurance that she’d be right back at it in the early morning. She also made an irresistible garlic dip! Janice is the kind of person we all want to be when we grow up, and we are so grateful to her for the tireless efforts that she has put in on MOFGA’s behalf. We all wish Janice the very best in her retirement!
A. I’ve moved around a lot! Before Portland, Maine, I lived in Portland, Oregon, where I succeeded in not earning a living in theater and discovered that I had a knack for project management and working in the tech industry. I knew that I wanted to move home to Maine, so I actually hired Big Room Studios to work on a project that I was in charge of for a large corporation in 2012, and by the following year, the company had convinced me to come work for it. When I moved home to Maine, I also met my future husband, and we discovered we both had this crazy dream to open a restaurant. Damariscotta was his hometown, and together we opened Van Lloyd’s Bistro, got married and bought our first flock of chickens.
Q. In addition to helping start Van Lloyd’s Bistro (which you later sold), you worked for Skidompha Library, served for a term on the Damariscotta Region Chamber of Commerce board, and directed plays with The River Company community theater. It seems you are deeply involved in life in Damariscotta. How do you like living in a small Maine community? A. I love it. I have traveled and lived many places, and there truly is no place like Maine. In our area, especially as farm owners, my husband and I feel involved and invested in our community and with our peers. We know that our contributions matter, and it’s a wonderful feeling to run into our friends and neighbors wherever we go.
Q. Taking on the MOFGA job at a time when our staff and programs have grown so much and so quickly seems huge. How do you manage it? How are we doing, developmentwise? A. It is certainly a challenge, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. MOFGA is lucky to be an organization with a very strong, longstanding base of
support. We’re also lucky that new farmers and foodies are moving to Maine and discovering all that MOFGA has to offer, and want to become members and supporters. It’s still going to be a big job to grow our membership base over time, but I believe that our mission is one of the most compelling out there. What could be more critical than healthy, local food and supporting organic agriculture?
Q. Was MOFGA’s Bread and Brews festival your idea? A. I wish I could take credit for Bread and Brews! It was actually Sarah Alexander’s idea, our executive director. I love working on big events like this, and it’s so amazing to see a festival come together and be enjoyed by so many people. Maybe it’s my background in theater. Bread and Brews is also special because it
Torie and August DeLisle. Photo by KJ Gormley
celebrates Maine agriculture and production, from grain to glass or from grain to loaf. While the 2020 event was canceled because of the COVID-19 situation, we hope next year to welcome back our beer vendors with even more special brews, and our partner, the Maine Grain Alliance, which will provide baking workshops and bread demos.
Q. We understand that your MOFGA family membership will take on new meaning soon. Do you want to say anything about that? A. Yes it will! My husband and I are expecting the birth of our first child in early July. We plan to have him/her ready for a MOFGA farm apprenticeship later this fall.
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 43
MOFGA hired Nicolas Lindholm as its organic marketing and business specialist. Lindholm has been a MOFGA volunteer, apprentice, board member and organic farm inspector and is a long-time certified organic grower. He has 28 years of direct work experience in managing and operating various agricultural businesses, including Blue Hill Berry Company and Hackmatack Farm. He started the Maine Seed Saving Network and wrote about seed saving for The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener. Our new operations director, Anna Miller, grew up in Maine and Massachusetts, attending the Common
MOFGA’S BUSINESS MEMBERS MOFGA salutes businesses throughout the state who have demonstrated their commitment to MOFGA’s work by joining our business member category. Check out our website, www.mofga.org, for hotlinks to theirs.
Accounting Austin Associates, Auburn, ME, (207) 783-9111, http://austinpa.com Marcum LLP, Portland, ME, (207) 352-7700, http://marcumllp.com
Nicolas Lindholm Ground Country Fair each fall and spending much of her childhood canoeing, camping and exploring the outdoors throughout the Northeast and Canada. She attended the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, earning her master’s with honors in human geography, with a focus on sustainable development and agriculture and the barriers to accessing healthy food systems among local communities. In
Scythe Supply, Perry, ME, (207) 853-4750, http://scythesupply.com Yarmouth Farmers Market, Yarmouth, ME, (207) 329-7735, http://www.yarmouthfarmers market.org
Auto Sales Lee Auto Malls, Cumberland, ME, (877) 315-9499, https://www.leeauto.com/
Auto Service & Repair Paris Autobarn, S Paris, ME, (207) 744-2169, http://www. parisautobarn.com
Banking Bangor Savings Bank, Unity, ME, (207) 948-5120, http://bangor.com
Agricultural Supplies & Services
cPort Credit Union, Portland, ME, (800) 464-0253, http://cportcu.org
Maremma Sheepdogs of West Sumner, West Sumner, ME, (207) 515-3582, katie0319. wixsite.com/mainemaremma
Farm Credit East, Auburn, ME, (800) 562-2235, http://www. farmcreditmaine.com
Coast of Maine Organic Products, East Machias, ME, (800) 3459315, http://coastofmaine.com Country Fare Inc, Bowdoinham, ME, (207) 666-5603, http://countryfareinc.com Envirem Organics Ltd, Unity, ME, 800-524-9411, http://www.envirem.com FEDCO, Inc., Clinton, ME, 207-4269900, https://fedcoseeds.com Fixit Farm, Sandy River Plt., ME, (207) 864-2971, http://fixitfarmmaine.com Grower’s Discount Labels LLC, Tunnel, NY, (800) 693-1572, http://www.growersdiscountla bels.com/ Harpswell Heritage Apples, Harpswell, ME, (207) 721-1121, http://hhltmaine.org
Clothing Angelrox, Biddeford, ME, (207) 602-6262, http://www.angelrox.com
Community Groups Alfond Youth and Community Center AYCC, Waterville, ME, (207) 873-0684, http://clubaycc.org
Maine Mathematics & Science Alliance, Augusta, ME, (207) 626-3230, http://www.mmsa.org The Carpenter’s Boatshop, Bristol, ME, (207) 677-2614, http:// www.carpentersboatshop.org University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME, 800-8004 USM, http://usm.maine.edu
Willow Pond Farm, Sabattus, ME, (207) 375-6662, https://www.willowpf.com/
Dulse and Rugosa, Rockland, ME, 207-812-0947, dulseandrugosa.com
Mouki Farm, Garland, ME
Wise Acres Farm, Kenduskeag, ME, (207) 730-6214, http://wiseacresfarm.net
Heating
Peacemeal Farm, Dixmont, ME, (207) 257-4103, http://facebook.com/pg/Peace meal-Farm-354089999252/ Queen Bee/New Elm Farm, Morrill, ME
Waldoberry Farm, Waldoboro, ME, https://www.waldo berryfarm.com/
Wolf Pine Farm, Alfred, ME, (207) 619-4272, http://wolfpinefarm.com
Food & Beverages
Dispensary, Maine’s Alternative Caring, Windham, ME, (207) 572-1603, http://macwindham.com
Smiling Hill Farm, Westbrook, ME, (207) 775-4818, http://www.smilinghill.com/
Food Studies Program at the University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME, 207-780-4490, https://usm.maine.edu/foodstudies Juniper Hill School, Alna, ME, 207-586-5711, http://www.juniperhill school.org
The Harraseeket Inn, Freeport, ME, (800) 342-6423, https:// www.harraseeketinn.com/
Little Ridge Farm LLC, Lisbon Falls, ME, (207) 353-7126, http://littleridgefarm.com
Headacre Farm, Owls Head, ME, (207) 701-1291, http://headacremaine.com/
The Goronson Farm, Scarborough, ME, (207) 3030371, http://goronsonfarm.com
Allagash Brewing Company, Portland, ME, 1 (800) 330-5385, http://allagash.com
Ocean Organics, Waldoboro, ME, (207) 832-4305, http://oceanorganics.com
Cohill’s Inn, Lubec, ME, (207) 7334300, http://www.cohillsinn.com
Health & Personal Care
Hancock Family Farm, Casco, ME, 207-831-1088, hancockfamilyfarm.com
Slow Rise Farm, Pittston, ME, (207) 242-5226, https://www.facebook.com/ slowrisefarm/
North Country Organics, Bradford, VT, 802-222-4277, http://www.norganics.com
Axis Natural Foods, Auburn, ME, (207) 782-3348, http://www. axisnaturalfoods.com
Wild Tilth Farm, Sullivan, ME, (207) 664-8818
Dandelion Spring Farm, Bowdoinham, ME, 207-3804199, dandelionspringfarm.com
Sheepscot Valley Farm, Inc, Whitefield, ME, (207) 549-3109, https://www.facebook.com/ SheepscotValleyFarm/
Consumers for Affordable Health Care, Augusta, ME, (800) 9657476, https://www.maine cahc.org
Birthwise Midwifery School, Bridgton, ME, (207) 647-5968, http://birthwisemidwifery.edu
Lodging Birchwood Lodge & Farmette, Camden, ME, (207) 236-4204, http://birchwoodcamden.com
Whistle Pig Farm, Mt. Desert, ME
Broadturn Farm Inc., Scarborough, ME, (207) 5104822, http://www. broadturnfarm.com
Schoppee Farm, Machias, ME, (207) 540-5504, http://www.facebook.com/ schoppeefarm
GrandyOats, Hiram, ME, (207) 935-7415, https://www.grandyoats.com/
Bates College, Lewiston, ME, (207) 786-6255, http://bates.edu
Grocers Associated Buyers, Barrington, NH, (603) 664-5656, http://assocbuyers.com
Horsepower Farm, Penobscot, ME
Farms
Six River Farm, Bowdoinham, ME, (207) 666-8135, http://sixriverfarm.com
Education
Anna Miller
Blue Hill Co-Op, Blue Hill, ME, (207) 374-2165, http://bluehill.coop Bow Street Market Inc, Freeport, ME, (207) 865-6631, http://bowstreetmarket.com Harvest Time Natural Foods, Augusta, ME, (207) 623-8700 Morning Glory Natural Foods, Brunswick, ME, 207-729-0546, http://www.moglonf.com Royal River Natural Foods, Freeport, ME, (207) 865-0046, http://rrnf.com Whole Foods Market, Austin, TX, https://www.wholefoods market.com/
Belfast CoHousing & Ecovillage, Belfast, ME, (207) 338-9200, http://mainecohousing.org
Johnny’s Selected Seeds Winslow, Fairfield, ME, 207-2385330, http://www. johnnyseeds.com
Pinetree Garden Seeds, New Gloucester, ME, (207) 926-3400, http://superseeds.com
2012 Anna returned to Norway, Maine, briefly volunteering in the local community gardens and farms. She then moved to New York City where she worked for the British Foreign Office for over seven years, managing its New York operations, including finance, HR, IT and estates projects. Miller says she is thrilled to return to Maine to join and support the vital work of MOFGA as the new operations director, and she looks forward to getting to know the community and exploring the beautiful state. Steve Mozes, our development coordinator, left us to spend more time with his family. The MOFGA team misses him and wishes him the best.
Stantial Brook Farm, Brooks, ME Steadfast Farm LLC, Parkman, ME, (207) 277-4221 Treworgy Family Orchard, Levant, ME, (207) 884-8354, http://treworgyorchards.com/ Two Loons Farm, S China, ME, (207) 441-4169 Peacemeal Farm, Dixmont, ME, (207) 257-4103, http://facebook.com/pg/Peace meal-Farm-354089999252/ Sani e Felici Farm, Union, ME, (207) 691-3161
Big Barn Coffee Co., Wiscasset, ME, (207) 882-6374, http://bigbarncoffee.com Coffee By Design, Portland, ME, (207) 874-5400, http://coffeebydesign.com Maine Grains, Skowhegan, ME, (207) 474-8001, http://www.mainegrains.com North American Kelp, Waldoboro, ME, 800-662-5357, http://www.noamkelp.com Rock City Inc, Rockland, ME, (207) 594-5688, http://www.rockcitycoffee.com
Furniture Owl Furniture, a wing of Geoffrey Warner Studio, Stonington, ME, (207) 367-6555, http://owlstools.com
Haymart LLC, Patten, ME, (207) 528-2058, http://haymart.com
Home & Garden Coyote Moon, Belfast, ME, 207338-5659, coyotemoonmaine.com Eldredge Lumber & Hardware, York, ME, (207) 363-3004, http://eldredgelumber.com Evergreen Home Performance, LLC, Portland, ME, (207) 3583706, http://www. evergreenyourhome.com ReVision Energy Inc, Liberty, ME, (207) 589-4171, http://www.revisionenergy.com Rosecliff Garden, Seal Harbor, ME, (207) 276-5661
Insurance Allen Insurance & Financial, Camden, ME, (800) 439-4311, http://allenif.com
Landscaping TREEKEEPERS LLC - Johnson’s Arboriculture, Camden, ME, (207) 236-6855
Legal Services BCM Environmental & Land Law, Concord, NH, 603-225-2585, nhlandlaw.com
Wanderwood, Nobleboro, ME, (207) 370-4086, http://wanderwoodmaine.com
Organizations Downeast Salmon Federation, Columbia Falls, ME, (207) 4834336, http://mainesalmonrivers.org Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation Maine Farmland Trust, Belfast, ME, 207-338-6575, http://www.mainefarm landtrust.org Maine Grain Alliance, Skowhegan, ME, (207) 2775335, http://mainegrain alliance.org The John Merck Fund, Boston, MA, (617) 556-4120, http://jmfund.org/ Waldo County Soil & Water Conservation District, Belfast, ME, 207-218-5311, http://www.waldocounty soilandwater.org Wild Maine Witches, Freedom, ME, https://wildmaine witchcamp.org/
Other Russell French Photography, Portland, ME, (207) 874-0011, https://www.russellfrench.com/ UniTel, Unity, ME, (207) 948-3900, http://unitelme.com
Professional Services The Rolfson Group, Albion, ME, 207-877-1067, http://www.rolfsongroup.com
Publications Taproot Magazine, Portland, ME, (802) 472-1617, http://www.taprootmag.com
Retreat Alcyon Center, Seal Cove, ME, http://alcyoncenter.org
Page 44 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
VOLUNTEER PROFILE
Rose Whitehead By Betsy Garrold
I
f ever there was a shining example of living gently on the earth, Rose Whitehead is it. From her recumbent tricycle to her off-grid house, she definitely is walking the talk in this community of both die-hard, back-to-the-land, aging hippies and younger folks who embrace the organic farming and homesteading lifestyle. Whitehead sees MOFGA as the “yes” in a world with too many “no to this, no to that” attitudes. She says, “We should say ‘yes’ to the future because that feeds our energy rather than drains it as we do this work.”
Whitehead first came to Maine in 1979 on her 10-speed from Michigan. “I was not dealing well with city life going to college in Lansing, Mich., and my great aunt suggested Maine as a better fit for me,” she says. She soon discovered the Common Ground Country Fair, then in Windsor, attending with the Marsh Island Morris Dancers. She worked at the Wooden Boat School in Brooklin and later was delivering boats from the West Indies in the 1980s when she found herself in Sweden and really liked the country. She applied to study fiber arts at Forsa Folkhogskola and was accepted even though she was technically an illegal alien. She says the Swedes treat their visitors much better than we do in this country. She eventually had a daughter in Sweden, and
The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association
when the time came to be deported, the government sent a policewoman to escort her onto the plane, which was very helpful. In 2013 Whitehead had her own booth in the craft tent. Now her two main contributions to volunteer work at MOFGA are co-coordinating YEZ at the Fair and joining the “rabble” that runs Farm & Homestead Day in June. She got involved as a YEZ parent when her daughter, Lilly, was in fifth grade at the Ashwood Waldorf School. Her whole class camped out and volunteered for the Fair weekend. Whitehead saw YEZ as a way to engage the next generation in
P. O. Box 170, Unity, Maine 04988 207-568-4142 / Fax: 207-568-4141 mofga@mofga.org / www.mofga.org MOFGA office hours 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. MOFGA BOARD OF DIRECTORS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE President: Beth Schiller Vice President: Stacy Brenner Treasurer: Logan Johnston Secretary: Jo Ann Myers Eli Berry Sam May David Shipman MEMBERS AT LARGE Jeremy Blaiklock Sam Brown Melissa Emerson Logan Johnston Todd Little-Siebold Anna Shapley-Quinn Ben Tettlebaum Annie Watson PENOBSCOT CHAPTER REPRESENTATIVE Galen Young SAGADAHOC COUNTY CHAPTER REPRESENTATIVE Jeremy Blaiklock
CONTACT INFORMATION FOR BOARD MEMBERS AND CHAPTER COORDINATORS: BERRY, Eli, 246 Youngs Hill Rd., Washington 04574 (242-5947; 1970eliberry@gmail.com) BLAIKLOCK, Jeremy (jeremy@seaflowerdesign.com) BRENNER, Stacy, Broadturn Farm, 388 Broadturn Rd., Scarborough, ME 04074 (207-510-1682) BROWN, Sam, 443 Smart, Parkman 04443, 277-4221 EMERSON, Melissa, PO Box 300, New Gloucester 04260 (926-4112; melissa@superseeds.com) JOHNSTON, Logan, Oaklands Farm, PO Box 26, Gardiner 04345 (582-2136) LITTLE-SIEBOLD, Todd, 266 Bayside Rd., Ellsworth 04605, tlittle-siebold@coa.edu MAY, Sam, 100 Vaughan Street, Portland 04102 (518-9087; 653-2260) MYERS, Jo Ann, Beau Chemin Preservation Farm, 1749 Finntown Rd., Waldoboro, 04572 (832-5789; yupik@midcoast.com) SCHILLER, Beth, Dandelion Spring Farm, 961 Ridge Rd., Bowdoinham 04008 (380-4199; beth@dandelionspring farm.com) SHAPLEY-QUINN, Anna, 120 Stream Rd., Monroe (525-3323); anna.shapleyquinn@gmail.com) SHIPMAN, David, 94 Maple Ridge Rd., China 04358 (923-3114; kirship@gmail.com) TETTLEBAUM, Ben (ben.tettlebaum@gmail.com) WATSON, Annie, Sheepscot Valley Farm, 163 Townhouse Rd., Whitefield 04353, 549-0011, sheepscotvalleyfarm@ gmail.com YOUNG, Galen, 1281 Southgate Rd., Argyle 04468 (394-4677; galen.the.beekeeper@ gmail.com)
STAFF Executive Director Sarah Alexander Deputy Director Heather Spalding Operations Director Anna Miller Database Manager Kaitlynn McGuire Administrative Assistant Jennifer Morton
COMMON GROUND COUNTRY FAIR Director April Boucher Coordinator Anna Swanson Fair Assistant Tami Colburn Common Kitchen Manager Wendy Watson COMMUNITY EDUCATION Director Anna Libby Educational Programs Coordinator Hillary Barter Landscape Coordinator Jack Kertesz Low-Impact Forestry Specialist Noah Gleason-Hart Orchard Coordinator Laura Sieger FARMER PROGRAMS Director Ryan Dennett Agricultural Specialist – Downeast Maine C.J. Walke Agricultural Specialist – Northern Maine John Chartier Agricultural Specialist-Southern Maine Dave Colson Farmer Professional Development Specialist Anna Mueller New Farmer Programs Specialist Bo Dennis Organic Crop & Conservation Specialist Caleb Goossen Organic Dairy & Livestock Specialist Jacki Martinez Perkins Organic Marketing and Business Specialist Nicolas Lindholm COMMUNICATIONS AND OUTREACH Director Katy Green Community Engagement Coordinator Andrew Graham Southern Maine Outreach Coordinator Lucy Cayard Publications Editor Jean English Designer/Website Manager Tim Nason MEMBERSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT Director Torie DeLisle Development Manager Laura Miller Grants Manager Karen Stimpson FACILITIES Buildings & Grounds Director Jason Tessier Buildings & Grounds Assistant Don Pendleton Shop & Equipment Manager John McIntire
MOFGA CERTIFICATION SERVICES, L.L.C. STAFF Director Chris Grigsby Associate Director of Crops Jacomijn Schravesande-Gardei Certification Specialists Joan Cheetham, Laurah Brown Dairy Certification Specialist Katie Webb Specialist/QA/QC Corinne Wesh Inspector Julie Trudel Operations Assistant/Information Management Grace Keown Operations Assistant Marta Laszkiewicz MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE Bob Burr • Ben Campo • Bob Lenna Ben Tettlebaum
A wool water bottle carrier shows off this volunteer’s talent in the fiber arts. English photo
Rose Whitehead on her bike at the Common Ground Country Fair. English photo
having its own value-added, small businesses in Maine – and that next generation is involved in many ways, as evidenced by Lilly’s volunteering ever since she attended the Watershed School in Camden. Now living in Portland, Oregon, Lilly travels to Maine each year to volunteer at the Fair. April Boucher, Fair director, says, “Rose is a volunteer coordinator during the Common Ground Country Fair and throughout the year at MOFGA. She matches her interests in supporting our community, youth and sustainability initiatives with her volunteer roles as a Youth Enterprise Zone co-coordinator and a member of the Farm & Homestead Day rabble. Her dedication is inspiring, and it is common to see Rose bicycling to MOFGA, well over 30 miles one way, to go to meetings and volunteer. I’m very thankful to have Rose on the Fair
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 45
Planning Team.” Whitehead’s business, Whitehead Fiber Fabrication, produces many items, from baskets to slippers, using a variety of fiber arts. This is what drew her to Farm & Homestead Day. Nancy Rosalee, another dedicated MOFGA volunteer, said to her one day, “You need to help us with this.” Last year Whitehead taught how to make baskets from the invasive plants and how to use a hanging loom to make a rag rug. Whitehead says this last project was a cross between Swedish and Navaho methods of weaving. Farm & Homestead Day is specifically about imparting handson skills. Whitehead says it feels like the right fit for passing knowledge to the next generation – an example she sets with her entire way of life.
CONDOLENCES to the family and friends of … John Bradstreet, who died in March. He and his wife, Donna, who predeceased him, were longtime Common Ground Country Fair Planning Team members who helped organize memberships at the entrance gates at the Fair.
Note: Due to COVID-19, please check the events page at www.mofga.org for updates on all events. Weekly beginning in June: Farm Training Projects in locations around Maine. Workshops give apprentices and other beginning and aspiring farmers the chance to visit other farms, learn from farmers about their areas of expertise and to network. Throughout the summer: Gather & Grow Homestead Tours. Join us for a series of tours of Maine homesteads, gardens and more. We’ll learn new skills, see beautiful places and enjoy the company of other MOFGA members and friends. Entrance is by donation. Throughout the summer: Daytripping – Farms and gardens to visit this summer. See the Daytripping feature in this issue of The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener. Monthly – Farmer to Farmer in the Field: MOFGA presents monthly farm tours with farmer-tofarmer discussions addressing advanced-level crop and livestock production topics. These evening workshops, free and for experienced producers, are hosted on innovative organic farms around the state. No registration required.
June June 11, 4 p.m. – MOFGA’s Common Ground Radio Show; an hour on local food and agriculture on 89.9 and weru.org June 14, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. – Organic Orcharding Workshop: Pests and Diseases of the Orchard. Saco. $55; $40 for MOFGA members. MOFGA’s agricultural specialist C.J. Walke on caring for your orchard through the summer, with a focus on dealing with insects and diseases prevalent in Maine.
News from the Sagadahoc MOFGA Chapter
T
he Sagadahoc MOFGA chapter supports community projects through sales of baked beans, cider and switchel at the Common Ground Country Fair. In 2020 it granted a request for $500 from Merrymeeting Gleaners to commission a painting for their van that delivers produce from area farms to many locations. Artist Michael Brinka previously did an interesting painting in the Brunswick Hannaford’s eating area. This gleaners’ trailer includes a CoolBot refrigeration unit and is used to store food donated by
Nancy Sullivan, who died in April. Nancy and her husband, Bob, who predeceased her, volunteered for MOFGA for many years, primarily at the Common Ground Country Fair – all three days, year after year. “Bob made all of us laugh, day after day,” recalls Janice Clark, who just retired from MOFGA. Nancy started when our offices were in Augusta, where she wrapped and shipped orders from the Country Store after the Fair.
June 20 – On hiatus: Farm & Homestead Day at MOFGA. See you on June 19, 2021! Check mofga.org for updates about a potential plant swap for 2020. June 27, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. – Poultry Processing workshop, MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center, Unity. $75; $65 for MOFGA members. You will be guided through a safe and humane process for turning live birds into oven-ready roasters. We’ll discuss poultry management, equipment, and food safety concerns. June 27-28 – Women’s Chainsaw Safety Course, McDougal Orchards, LLC, in Springvale, Maine. $150 (scholarships available). Hosted by Forest Stewards Guild in cooperation with MOFGA. Register at https://foreststewardsguild.org/ event/womens-chainsaw-safety-course/
July July 9, 4 p.m. – MOFGA’s Common Ground Radio Show on 89.9 and weru.org July 23, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. – Rabbit Processing, MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center, Unity. $75; $65 for MOFGA members. Rabbits are a great source of protein for your homestead. They are small, easy to handle and require minimal effort to process. Learn the basics of rabbit processing and acquire the skills to harvest your own.
August August 1, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. – Organic Orcharding Workshop: Growing Nursery Stock and Bud Grafting, with Seth Yentes, North Branch Farm, Monroe. $55; $40 for MOFGA members. Bud grafting is a great way to start your own fruit trees and many ornamentals. August 13, 4 p.m. – MOFGA’s Common Ground Radio Show on 89.9 and weru.org
local farms. “The festively painted trailer will also advertise the work of the gleaners and share the message of sharing with our neighbors,” says Sue Sergeant, co-chair of the Sagadahoc chapter. The chapter also funded two requests from a teacher who created effective, successful raised bed vegetable gardens at the Georgetown School. Members of the local community helped build the beds, and the Sagadahoc chapter had previously donated $500 for a mantis tiller and $500 for wood for the beds. In 2020 the chapter gave an additional $200 to help build more raised beds, as the kids use the vegetables they grow in the cafeteria and take extras home. Chapter member Jon Hentz will work with the Georgetown School. The same teacher also works for the South Bristol schools and received $500 to start raised bed gardens there, where the community is contributing labor and, possibly, local logs to be processed with a portable sawmill. The $500 will be used for materials to fill the beds, tools for gardening and any other needs. Rosemary
August 23, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. – Growing and Arranging Flowers, Lost & Found Flower Farm, Dresden. $75; $65 for MOFGA members. Learn about growing flowers for cutting and sharing all season long, including best varieties for cutting, tips and tricks for seed starting, management strategies in the field/garden and best practices for harvest. Plus hands-on instruction on creating beautiful arrangements using flowers from the farm.
September September 10, 4 p.m. – MOFGA’s Common Ground Radio Show on 89.9 and weru.org September 12, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. – Growing Mushrooms Outdoors, MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center, Unity. Fee: $55; $40 for MOFGA members. Mushrooms are delicious nutritional powerhouses and a great addition to the homestead garden. Learn about growing mushrooms on logs; practice inoculating logs harvested from MOFGA’s woodlot. Please bring a bagged lunch. When registering, please note whether you can bring a mallet/hammer and cordless drill. Contact events@mofga.org with questions.
George Sergeant (left), co-chair of Sagadahoc MOFGA; Kelly Davis (center), Merrymeeting Gleaners coordinator; and Sagadahoc MOFGA chapter member Anne Schneider Hentz of Sagadahoc MOFGA will volunteer at the South Bristol gardens. Sagadahoc MOFGA has built and continues to build benches for MOFGA’s grounds and helped with garden beds at Bath Housing Authority.
baking contest, treats, and tons to learn about apples and so much more. Get your unknown apples identified. $4; $2 for MOFGA members. October 24 to 26 – Nose to Tail Pork Processing workshop, MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center, Unity. Covering all the basic techniques of humane slaughter, carcass preparation, breakdown of major components and demonstrations of sanitary fresh and preservative processing using the entire animal. $350; $300 for MOFGA members for three full days of instruction; materials and meals included. Registration opens on June 1.
November November TBD – Cider Brewing November 5 to 8 – Low-Impact Forestry Weekend, Unity November 12, 4 p.m. – MOFGA’s Common Ground Radio Show on 89.9 and weru.org November 13 to 14 – Chainsaw Safety, Unity November 14 to 16 – MOFGA’s Farmer to Farmer Conference, Hutchinson Center, Belfast
September 25 to 27 – Common Ground Country Fair. Join us for MOFGA’s first virtual celebration of rural living. See mofga.org for details as they become available. Interested in helping? Email volunteers@mofga.org.
October October 8, 4 p.m. – MOFGA’s Common Ground Radio Show; an hour on local food and agriculture on 89.9 and weru.org October 10 – Common Ground Country Fair cleanup day October 18 – Great Maine Apple Day, Unity. Celebrate the diverse array of tree crops that grow in our backyards in Maine. Workshops, educational displays, cider pressing, pie
December December 3 – Kitchen Licensing, MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center, Unity. $55; $40 for MOFGA members. For farmers and others interested in home-food processing for resale. Covers licensing requirements, food safety, and liability insurance, with presentations from UMaine Cooperative Extension food science specialist and representatives of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. Local experts with food processing businesses will answer product-specific questions and share tips. December 10, 4 p.m. – MOFGA’s Common Ground Radio Show on 89.9 and weru.org
Page 46 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — June – August 2020
and working with people. Training provided as is room, board and $12 per hour with a guaranteed 30 hours and more as needed. Well paid off-farm work available in the area. Position to begin in the summer. Please call 207441-6705. Thanks from the Welch Family at Full Circle Farm
MOFGA members are entitled to one free ad per issue: limit 100 words and two insertions for the same product or service per year. Non-member rate is $.20 per word, with a minimum rate of $4.00 per ad. Numbers count as words; your name, address, and phone number are free. Payments must be made in advance. Maine Exchange is open to individuals and businesses. Repeat or running ads must be resubmitted each issue. Deadlines: Spring issue Jan. 31; Summer issue - April 30; Fall issue - July 31; Winter issue - Oct. 31. Send ads and payment (made out to MOFGA) to P.O. Box 170, Unity ME 04988 or email ads to Lucy Cayard at lcayard@mofga.org.
For Sale REFRIGERATED 6X12 SHED, WELL INSULATED, compressor included, built on skids to be movable. Includes an additional 4x4 entry room, roof overhang and new floor, and FRP paneling on the interior. Was used to age cheese. Also for sale, custom built cold smoker designed and built by Maine Wood Heat Co. Made for smoking cheeses, but can be used for smoking meats or any other products. Firebox included. Please contact Amy for pricing and more info 207.858.5096. LONG ESTABLISHED FARM AND RETREAT/WORKSHOP CENTER. Includes: restored farmhouse, guest apartment with sauna and meditation room, large ceramics/multiple arts studio with group workshop space,
showroom, office and 4 guest studio spaces. On 50 acres of inspiring land with woods, fields perennial and herb gardens. Additional land and price negotiation for appropriate buyer/collective. See “Opportunities Page” on www.starflowerfarm studios.com for more details. If, after studying the website, you find you share the center’s earth honoring philosophy, call 207-525 3593 or squidge @midcoast.com for a conversation. To schedule a visit contact Buck Sawyer at Moon Harbor Realty 207-542-7970 buck@moonharbor.com CERTIFIED ORGANIC FARM FOR SALE BY OWNER. 55 Knox Ridge South, Knox, Maine. Quiet, scenic, country location, perfect to start your own self-sufficient lifestyle. Excellent property for raising beef, sheep or goats. Property includes 52 stall tie-up barn, heated machine shop, 2 livestock holding barns with water, chicken coop. 25 acres total, 15 tillable acres for vegetables or crops, 10 acres untillable pasture. Includes 5
bedroom farmhouse with attached 2 car garage. Property is next door to a New Holland dealership, 5 miles from the MOFGA fair site, 7 miles from Unity College and 20 minutes to Belfast. Asking price $275,000.00 call 207-6490206 or email jmthomp4@gmail.com
Help Wanted SEASONAL FARM HELP WANTED. A long established cert. organic vegetable grower is seeking an experienced individual to assist in growing high quality organic produce from May 1 to October 1. The working conditions are excellent. No housing provided. The typical work week is 5 days and the pay checks are issued weekly. Please send your resume and two letters of recommendation to P.W. Curra, 80 Curra Rd,. Knox, ME 04986. FARM AND PROPERTY MANAGER. Organic farm in Vassalboro with Farm stay and rental units. You would need good skills in simple repairs, farm work,
Opportunities THE FAMILY SUSTAINABILITY STAY: a 3-day custom learning vacation. Enter into a ready-made sustainable living system where we will work with you each day on skills of your choice. You may weave a basket, build a rocket stove, or make your first batch of sauerkraut. Your kids might make bows and arrows, start a fire with friction, or twist tree bark into string. Every Family Stay program includes: harvesting food from the garden, cooking over a fire, grinding flour and baking bread, enjoying a solar shower, and ideas for integrating this experience into your own life. Koviashuvik Local Living School, http://www.mainelocalliving.com, (207) 778-0318
June – August 2020 — Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener — Page 47
