I was drawn to organic agriculture over 20 years ago because I cared about the food I ate and where it came from. During my first season as a farmworker, on a MOFGA-certified organic farm, I realized that organic farming was about more than the tomatoes, hardy kiwis, and cabbage I was helping to produce. I became enchanted with the stories of the plants I weeded, watered, and harvested. I wanted to know about the seeds, who had saved them and why, and how could I save them, too. I wanted to know how each specific varletry was best prepared, how it had been prepared by generations of growers before me. Over my years in the field, during the long hours under the sun and in the rain, I forged deep connections, with the plants, and the land, and with the people both across the row and the market stand. Through farming, I cultivated a network of like-minded folks — who preferred bug-bitten kale to poison-sprayed “perfection”; who shared a reverence for soil; who traded labor and garden abundance and canning tips and conversations about the weather. Through farming, I built a community devoted to not only a common cause or an occupation, but a way of being.

And through farming, I found MOFGA. I am fortunate to be a part of this community and its dedication to spreading awareness about — and encouraging the use of — organic practices, whether on a commercial farm or in your backyard garden. The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener has long been an avenue for sharing information about organic practices and this issue is no different. In the pages ahead, you’ll read how such practices improve soil health (read about less familiar legume crops that fix nitrogen); support biodiversity (check out how to plan a pollinator-friendly herb garden); and strengthen climate resilience (find another installment of our gardening and climate change series).

What I love most about the articles to follow, and organic agriculture more broadly, is a sense of profound interconnectedness. In the article about legumes, for example, a team of researchers from the University of Vermont share how to diversify both your crop rotation and your dinner spread. An overwintered fava planting can provide nitrogen for the next crop while also yielding an edible green (yes, that’s in addition to the edible bean). But sharing this growing information, imbued with story and recipes, is about more than building soil or refining your crop plan. It’s also about honoring our connection to the land as what feeds us — in all the ways. Together, we’re participating in the traditions of agriculture, and by choosing to grow organically, we’re honoring the legacy of those that came before and who have yet to come.