Twenty Years of Small-Scale No-Till Production in Northern Vermont By Holli Cederholm Over the past 20 years, Evan Perkins and Heidi Choate of Small Axe Farm have transformed their quarter-acre homestead garden on a south-facing hilltop in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom into a 1-acre market garden grossing over $230,000 in annual sales. In the beginning, the
By Tim King Robin Kerber, the Maine Department of Education Farm and Sea to School coordinator, says energy to build on past successes for farm and sea to school relationships has been accelerating the last several years. One indicator of that, she says, is growing participation in Maine’s Local Foods Fund. In the 2021 school
By Sonja Heyck-Merlin Photos courtesy of Mark McBrine Monday is pasta night at Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston, Maine. And it isn’t SpaghettiOs or canned ravioli. There are two kitchens and two dining halls on the sprawling hilltop campus where on clear days Katahdin can be seen looming in the distance. One facility is
By Tim King When Kim Patnode and Christopher Hahn came separately to 3 Level Farm in South China 11 years ago, they were acquainted with each other but had no idea what the future would bring. Hahn had just purchased the 143-acre farm, formerly known as French Farm, and imagined it supporting multiple enterprises, more
Bringing More Organic Herbs, and Herb Growers, to Maine By Sonja Heyck-Merlin The 25 members of the Meeting House herb growers collaborative talk enticingly about their plant medicines: whether it’s the sticky, resinous calendula buds or the tufts of crimson bee balm flowers reminiscent of an ‘80s rockstar hairdo. They’re equally passionate about the unassuming
By Holli Cederholm Morgan Cameron paints animal portraits in oil, and has a special love for horses. As a child, Cameron, now 30, spent her summers and afternoons on her grandparents’ 100-acre farm in Dover-Foxcroft getting to know an array of animals that became inspiration for her artwork, including dogs, cats, cows, rabbits and her
By John Bunker The orchard community suffered a terrible loss this past winter when orchardist, author and educator Michael Phillips died unexpectedly one night out in his northern New Hampshire orchard. Many of us in Maine knew Michael from his regular visits to teach workshops at MOFGA. Others who never had the good fortune to
By Danielle Walczak Each early spring for the past 15 years, Eli Berry has walked Crystal Lake Farm & Nursery looking for invasive plants. The non-native species stand out like sore green thumbs among the brown and gray field edges of the farm which he runs with his mother, Sharon Turner. Things look different now
Family Farming at Silver Valley Farm By Sonja Heyck-Merlin In August of 2021, Horizon Organic, owned by the French company Danone, terminated its contracts with 14 organic dairy farms in Maine. Silver Valley Farm in New Sharon was one. Horizon gave them 12 months to find a new buyer; later it extended that by six
By Sonja Heyck-Merlin A farm is the sum of decisions. Long-term strategic and on-the-fly decisions. Decisions that induce arguments and ones requiring risk. They can be based on emotion. And some decisions are rooted in childhood experiences — as is the case with the owners of Moodytown Gardens in Palmyra, Maine. Johanna Burdet, or Jo
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