Ask MOFGA: Where Can I Buy Organic Animal Feed?
Maine Board of Pesticides Control Report: Bt Corn Registration Requests
Common Ground Country Fair News
Certification News: New Certification Services Board Member Tina Wilcoxson
MOFGA Notes

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Deerwood Farm and Gardens in Waterford, Maine. Photo courtesy of Brian Hendricks.

Features



Yes, You Can Grow Organic Rose Hips
By Sue Smith-Heavenrich
While I love roses, I have been intimidated by the idea of actually growing them myself. Oh, I see them blooming in other people’s gardens, rambling along the fences and climbing over the gates. And a number of wild bushes are tucked beneath the trees lining our road. Clearly they thrive on neglect – so why aren’t they in my garden?

Nicolas Lindholm selling blueberries at a farmers’ market. Photo by Jo Anne Bander.

The Best of Maine at Our Farmers’ Markets
By Jo Anne Bander
On any July or August morning, rain or shine, at a parking lot, town square or field  somewhere in Maine, trucks disgorge boxes, coolers and baskets of seasonal produce, artisan cheeses, smoked meats and fish and freshly baked breads and pastries. It is farmers’ market season, and for local farmers, residents and tourists, it is time to savor the best of Maine’s local food.

Representatives from Dakar, Senegal, at Terra Madre. Photo by Jo Anne Bander.

Photo by Carla Occaso

Kingdom Farmer Trades Tractors for Horses
to Avoid High Gas Prices
By Carla Occaso
Dairy farmer William Butler of Barnet Center, Vermont, decided the only way to keep farming was to sell three gas guzzling tractors and rely on mighty horsepower.

Sarah Faull of Mandala Farm with farm Fjords. Jean English photo.

Larry Lack photo.

Gardening for Monarchs
By Larry Lack and
Lee Ann Ward
Shortly after moving to St. Andrews, New Brunswick, five years ago, while visiting friends in Carleton County, we learned that the exquisitely beautiful Monarch butterfly, threatened in much of its North American range by over-development, chemical agriculture and habitat destruction, was also struggling in New Brunswick, where milkweed, its favorite and necessary food, has been eliminated from many farm fields where herbicides are used.

Gather Milkweed Seeds for Monarchs and Swallows This Fall
By Jean English
Collecting milkweed seed is a late fall tradition in our family.


Ten Things You Might Not Know About Dandelions
By Anita Sanchez
Whether you love them or hate them, dandelions are among the most familiar plants in the world. They're one species that just about anyone can identify at a glance, as familiar to humans as the dog. Dandelions are, quite possibly, the most successful plants that exist, masters of survival worldwide.

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Other Features

Daytripping: Farms & Gardens to Visit This Summer
Welcome to the 2007 Daytripping listing, an annual MOF&G feature. This year’s farms and gardens feature anything and everything you’d ever want to know about sustainable growing. Learn how to practice vermicomposting and permaculture; what it takes to raise Icelandic sheep and a Randall cow. And how do you grow celery successfully, anyhow? Visit free-range hens and root cellars. Learn about living off the grid.  And more!

Can a Healthy Lifestyle Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease?
By Lucie Arbuthnot
Is there anything we can do to lower our risk of getting Alzheimer's disease? This question was far from my mind a decade ago when I wrote in these pages about the pleasures of growing winter-hardy chicories in my Sanford, Maine, garden. But a decade ago my mother hadn’t been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and my life hadn’t changed forever.

Harvest Kitchen: Pancakes for Supper
By Roberta Bailey
Pancakes in one form or another are a part of every culture, including scallion pancakes or pa jun in Korea, German potato pancakes, Jewish potato latkes, Sephardic bimuelos, and Scandinavian pancakes in many forms – and so many more.

Three MOFGA Growers on Weed Control
By Jean English
Three MOFGA growers – Matt Williams, Dave Colson and Rob Johanson – told a large, enthusiastic audience about their organic weed control methods at a MOFGA-sponsored talk at the Maine Agricultural Trades Show in Augusta in January.

Michael Darre	Ted Sparrow

Layer Flock Management and Marketing
By Jean English
At the 2006 Farmer to Farmer Conference in Bar Harbor, Michael Darre of the University of Connecticut (and Extension Poultry Specialist for New England) and Ted Sparrow of Sparrow Farm in Gardiner, Maine, talked about poultry flock management and profitability.

Food Safety Concerns Are Leading to Solutions That Won’t Work for Small and Diversified Farms
By Russell Libby
Our cultural picture of a sustainable farm includes a mix of animals and crops, with hayfields and pasture and, often, intensively managed vegetables. However, if regulators continue down their current path, this won’t be an option for farmers for much longer.

Black Scurf (Rhizoctonia) of Potato
By Eric Sideman
If you have ever had lots of little black, irregular lumps on the skin of your potatoes that resemble soil but will not wash off, then you have seen black scurf.

Cottonseed as Protein, Moving Up the Food Chain
By Alex Owre
Once considered garbage and dumped in streams, cottonseed has long been used as cattle feed, fertilizer, and in countless industrial applications.

Ruminant Foraging Behavior
By Diane Schivera
I attended two sessions presented by Frederick Provenza at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) conference this January. Both concerned ruminant eating and foraging behavior and biological reasons for this behavior.

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News & Events
Organic standards, pesticides, GMO updates, crop production, sustainable farming, global warming, honeybees, mad cow disease, events in Maine and elsewhere.

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Letters
Beedy Parker: Roll Out the Compost
People are always asking me about rolling compost bins when we do home composting classes ...

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Editorials
Nicole Vinci: My Plants, My Teachers
Nicole Vinci was awarded the 2007 Campus Enrichment Award at Unity College in Maine for her dedicated work in the greenhouse there.
Russell Libby: True Costs
In an agriculture of life, the death of an earthworm is part of a cycle that creates the conditions for the growth of the plant, the animal and the human. Contrast that with the current approach to most agriculture in the United States.
Jean English: Growing Season
This spring, like every spring, has brought signs of hope and reassurance that humans are on the right track … in many cases.

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Reviews

Clicking on the link takes you to this issue's Book Review page, where the following books are reviewed.

Caterpillars in the Field and Garden, by Thomas J. Allen, Jim P. Brock and Jeffrey Glassberg
The End of Food, by Thomas F. Pawlick
The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible and
   Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers, by Edward C. Smith
How to Build Your Own Greenhouse, by Roger Marshall
Building Your Own Earth Oven: 3rd edition, by Kiko Denzer with Hannah Field
The Organic Lawn Care Manual, by Paul Tukey
Human Sacrifice, by James P. Moore

Resources

Clicking on the link takes you to this issue's Resources page, where the following are described.

How to Propagate
: Techniques and Tips for Over 1000 Plants, by John Cushnie
New Web Site Helps Manage Dairy Nitrogen
Anaerobic Digesters for Manure-to-Methane Evaluated
Soils Resource
Free Online Sustainable Ag Course

MOFGA Resources Directory – Click here to access additional links!