Shaun Keenan and Benji Knisley have been managing Sand Hill Farm in Somerville for seven years. Jane Lamb photo. By Jane Lamb “If you don’t have to buy fertilizer and pesticides, why are organic strawberries more expensive?” ask many first-time customers coming to pick their own at Sand Hill Farm in Somerville. “Just go into
By Jean English Jamie Graeger leads an amphibious life. For three-week stints, he is at sea with the Merchant Marine; during alternate three-week periods, he is firmly grounded, raising certified-organic garlic, gathering and boiling maple sap, and raising nursery stock for Fedco Trees. You might expect his life to be a see-saw affair, and to
By Norma Jane Langford If you’ve got a green thumb and a green house, and you’re near a city, and there’s snow on the sidewalk, you’ve got the makings of a profitable small business. Pricey urban restaurants will pay almost anything for fresh green-and-white nasturtium leaves, chocolate mint, and red impatiens, and ethnic restaurants will
By Russell Libby What do you do when you keep running into the same farmers while you’re delivering to the local restaurant trade? Often, you work hard to try to build better connections with the chef so that you can be sure that your produce is in demand. However, when your competition is mostly your
Provided by Dandelion Spring Farm and Straw Farm Lee Straw and Beth Schiller produce most of the food their CSA members might eat, at their two businesses located on the same farm in Newcastle, Maine. Photo by Keri Pickett, courtesy of Horizon Organics. By Holli Cederholm Dandelion Spring’s vegetable fields and Straw Farm’s rolling pastures
1996 Farmer to Farmer Conference Bill Spiller of Spiller Farms in Wells tells beginning farmers to diversify. “Don’t raise too much at first of any one item,” he told his audience at the Farmer to Farmer Conference in November. “This is hard. It takes a lot of expertise to grow many crops, but it seems
By Jane Lamb It’s one thing to strive earnestly for self-sufficiency – raising your own food, chopping firewood, reliving the rural New England tradition of thrift. It’s quite another when you add an aesthetic dimension that raises the whole experience to the level of art. Anyone who visits the Old Stage Farmstand on Route 5-A
Juniper Edge Farm in Brunswick is a Forever Farm. By Jo Anne Bander Driving by the pastures, farms and orchards of rural Maine or along the more urban Route 90 in Rockport, a simple green and white round sign saying “Forever Farm” catches the eye. A program of Maine Farmland Trust (MFT), each sign designates
Human power! From left to right: apprentice Kate Harris with rake, manager Jon Ault with shovel, and apprentices Brenna Peak and Jim Church with a broadfork and pick mattock. Photo courtesy of Long Meadow Farm. By Holli Cederholm Long Meadow Farm, located in West Gardiner, Maine, demonstrates a sustainable agriculture system based on low-input, low-tech
Gloria and her husband, Gregg, raise many animals – including almost 50 organic milk cows. “Our goal is a totally organic herd,” says Gregg. Jane Lamb photo. By Jane Lamb It’s one thing for back-to-the-landers to come to Maine to start a new life, as many of MOFGA’s founders did more than 25 years ago.
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