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MOFGA Journeypersons

MOFGA’s Journeyperson Program provides hands-on support, training, and mentorship for people who are serious about pursuing careers in organic farming in Maine. The program is designed for farmers in their first three to five years to further develop the skills they need to farm independently and successfully.

2023 First-Year Journeypersons

Meet our current first-year MOFGA Journeypersons
A farmer kneels in front of the wooden frame of a building with a golden retriever.

Ferme Louis

Lex Godin

Two people smiling holding up bottles of orange hot sauce.

Farthest Field Farm

Alyssa Adkins and Nathan Broaddus

Two farmers looking at the camera.

Bas Rouge Farm & Forge

Glenn Roberts and Ivonne Vazquez

3 Level Farm Creamery

3 Level Farm Creamery

Solomon Heifets

A farmer smiling above a pile of leeks.

New Spoke Farm

Janelle Plummer

Two people smiling wearing winter gear.

Marpa Farm & Nursery

Clark Heijbroek

A farmer stands between rows of flowers holding a handful of dahlias.

Suncatcher Flower Farm

Krysten Powell

Two farmers and a toddler stand, smiling, in front of a Christmas tree field.

Piper Mountain Christmas Tree Farm

Molly Livingston and Jesse Jimmerson

Power Family Farm

Power Family Farm

Justin Power

2023 Second-Year Journeypersons

Meet our current second-year MOFGA Journeypersons
head shot of two smiling farmers

Folklore Farm

Daniel Cunningham and Lizzie Meier

farmer kneeling with black sheep

Meadowsweet Farm

Eliot Van Peski

farmer smiling with flowers in backgrounf

Tiny Roots Farm

Becky Deering

head shot of two smiling farmers

Top Blossom Farm

Sydney Gross and Timothy Hourihan

Slow Rise Farm

Slow Rise Farm

Katherine Mahaffey

two farmers smiling in front of a bike rack

Wild Few Herb Farm

Nicole Hecker and Zoë Swidock

farmer smiling, holding mushrooms and child

Fat Ash Stump Sprouts

Sy Schotz

Farmer smiling in a herd of sheep.

Verdure Farm

Heidi Duncombe

farmer in flower crown smiling holding a bouquet in front of farm stand

Little Red Flower Truck

Molly Friedland and Caleb Hawkins

farmer smiling sitting in front of barn.

Birch Bog Farm LLC

Tracyn Thayer

Two farmers smiling with child in woods

JessiWayne Farm

Jessi and Wayne Chmielewski

Farmer in straw hat holding lettuce.

Foxfire Farm

Marc Cavatorta

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The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association

Mailing Address:
PO Box 170
Unity, ME 04988
Physical Address:
294 Crosby Brook Road
Unity, ME 04988

Media Inquiries:
Contact Jennifer Wilhelm [email protected]

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Ferme Louis is a small diversified vegetable and berry farm practicing organic-adjacent and sustainable agriculture. They seek to close the gap between people and the things that they eat by providing wholesome, nutrient-dense food at a fair price.

Learn more about Ferme Louis on their website or Instagram.

Farthest Field Farm is Freeport’s newest community farm. Focusing in their first years on value-added products, they grow the vegetables for their line of four flavorful hot sauces and will soon offer tomato sauces, salsas and other delectable pantry delights. Future years will see a winter CSA, seedling sales, a tree nursery, and celebration of community through farm events centered around dance and music.

Learn more about Farthest Field Farm on their website or Instagram.

Bas Rouge Farm & Forge is a small acreage diversified farm located in Orono, Maine. Glenn Roberts (he/him/his) and Ivonne Vazquez (she/her/ella) are the husband-and-wife team and farm partners. The farm is named for their two Beauceron dogs (aka “Bas Rouge”). Glenn is a service-disabled United States Marine Corps veteran; Ivonne is Hispanic/Latina of Puerto Rican descent. Both partners have a passion for the land they steward and to living sustainably within this landscape. What began as a homestead over a decade ago has transitioned into a small farm with three enterprises: native plants nursery, culinary mushrooms and blacksmith forge. They are in their second year of farming.

Visit their website, or follow along on Instagram or Facebook. 

3 Level Farm Creamery is part of a diversified multi-family farm community and maintains a herd of dairy goats. The milk from their goats is used to make small-batch artisanal aged cheeses, yogurt and other dairy products. They work closely with their neighbors to improve soil health and build community.

Visit their website. 

New Spoke Farm currently grows mixed vegetables, herbs and some flowers on a quarter acre of leased land in Gray. They use no-till and organic methods only. They get produce on the tables of Mainers through a CSA, two farmers’ markets and wholesale channels to local small grocers.

Visit their website or follow them on Instagram. 

Marpa Farm & Nursery is a human-scale, low-impact operation located on 20 acres of unceded Wabanaki land in Richmond, Maine. The main products they sell are native and edible perennials, shrubs and trees. They also grow seed for Fedco.

Clark first began co-creating with nature in Findhorn, an intentional community in the north of Scotland, where he grew up. At a young age, he got his green thumb from his mum who was a gardener there for 20 years, and she from her grandpa, a Dutch orchid grower. Clark worked in a plant nursery in the Caribbean for a few years and on three different organic farms in Maine until finally the conditions were right and he could create Marpa Farm & Nursery with his wife Steph, who has deep roots in Maine.

Visit their website, or follow them on Instagram. 

Suncatcher Flower Farm grows cut flowers on leased land on Wabanaki territory, today known as Brunswick, Maine. Farmer Krysten Powell works in communion with the land, using regenerative and restorative practices to grow bountiful and beautiful flowers for the community. The farm grows primarily for wholesale accounts, local grocers, florists and other farms.

Visit their website, or follow them on Instagram. 

Piper Mountain Farm is a Christmas tree farm located in Newburgh, Maine. The 30-acre farm was started in 1978 and taken over in 2022 by Molly and Jesse. As the new owners, they are excited to modernize the entire operation and implement more sustainable practices, as well as grow the farm into a year-round business that supports their love for both the community and environment.

Visit their website, or follow them on Instagram or Facebook. 

Power Family Farm is a small-scale, sustainable and diversified vegetable farm, completely free of pesticides and chemicals. They utilize a deep-mulch, no-till system and have built their farm using human-scale farming with no tractor, no digging, and hand tools. They believe in building community through connecting with nature and their neighbors through building soil health, growing healthy vegetables, and feeding other families like theirs. They also raise goats and chickens, and feel grateful to be doing so in Maine, where they believe it is possible to avoid big box stores altogether through being a part of connecting with the greater farming community at large.

Visit their website, or follow them on Instagram or Facebook. 

Folklore Farm is a small-scale vegetable farm located in Cherryfield, Maine. Picking up where the previous farmer left off, Daniel Cunningham and Lizzie Meier took over the stewardship of the farm at the beginning of the 2021 growing season. They produce over 40 varieties of vegetables using organic and sustainable farming practices. It is their mission to help strengthen local food systems in Washington County and make nutrient-dense food more accessible in their communities. Their produce is distributed through their local farmers’ market in Milbridge, their CSA, and the Maine Seacoast Mission’s Downeast Campus food pantry. This season, they are looking forward to applying for MOFGA Organic Certification and beginning to host some on-farm gatherings for our CSA and community!

Learn more about Dan and Lizzie by visiting their Facebook.

Eliot Van Peski has been farming and gardening in Waldo County, Maine, since childhood. He is drawn to the work by a visceral urge to help living things thrive, whether they be sheep, soil microbes, trees or people. A background homeschooling and homesteading led to Eliot’s first farm apprenticeship, at age 15, at Villageside Farm in Freedom. He first got to know Meadowsweet Farm a couple years later, in 2015, working with previous farmer Sumner Roberts tending Sumner’s grass-fed beef operation. Two years after that, as Sumner was retiring, the opportunity came for Eliot to purchase the farm and settle in for the long haul.

Today Meadowsweet Farm produces grass-finished lamb, beef and sheepskins. These are marketed year-round at the Belfast Farmers’ Market and also as wholes, halves and quarters direct-to-consumer. Long-term plans for the farm include many acres of silvopasture and tree crops, which may become an important enterprise in their own right as well as complementing the livestock. Another big goal is to begin slaughtering and butchering all of Meadowsweet’s meat on-farm, though there are many regulatory obstacles so it may be a tough one to achieve. Eliot continues to manage the workload alone, full-time, but may soon begin to seek additional labor.

The farm has no social media and very minimal online presence. Eliot would love to hear from you; you can reach him at 207-338-4840 or by email.

Tiny Roots Farm is a MOFGA-certified mixed vegetable and microgreen farm in Litchfield, Maine. Working on ½-acre, they use no-till, bio-intensive practices with a focus on soil health. They are going into their third year and participate in two Southern Maine farmers’ markets, wholesale accounts, offer a CSA, and have a self-serve farm stand on the farm.

Learn more about Tiny Roots Farm by visiting their Facebook.

Timothy Hourihan and Sydney Gross farm together as Top Blossom Farm, where they live off-grid in a 30-foot yurt, nestled on a hilltop in Dresden, Maine. Founded in 2018, their mission as farmers and homesteaders revolves around prioritizing the health of our soils, animals and plants on the farm and community, in addition to maintaining a flourishing, balanced ecosystem, and minimizing their carbon footprint. Timothy and Sydney sustainably grow and cut flowers and orchard crops, while also raising a flock of Jacob’s sheep, geese and chickens. Stop by and say “hi” at their farm stand right off of Route 27!

Find out more about Top Blossom Farm on Instagram. 

Katie Mahaffey and Nathan Dore manage 19 acres of certified-organic wild blueberries in Pittston. In 2020, they started producing “slow fruits,” small-batch dried fruit snacks using 100% Maine grown fruit.    

Find out more about Slow Rise Farm on their website.

Wild Few is a small medicinal herb farm located in Arundel, Maine, that seeks to connect herbalists with quality dried plant material from just down the road. Zoë and Nicole have chosen over 20 varieties of herbs to cultivate on their 1/2 acre their first season and are looking forward to learning what this new piece of land loves to grow! You can find their dried herbs at New Morning Health Food Stores, Meetinghouse Farm, and various farm stands in Southern Maine.

Follow along with Zoë and Nicole on Instagram. 

Their farm occupies land stolen from Penobscot Nation, to which Sy’s partner and their children belong. They hope that their tenure here will mark this land’s return into close relationship with Penobscot people, who have stewarded it since time immemorial.

Wild plants are the basis of their farm ecosystem. They are raising sheep, dairy goats and laying hens, planting new and stewarding existing fruits, nuts, and medicinal plants, and establishing coppice and pollards in the woods.

On leased fields in Monmouth, the Katahdin sheep of Verdure Farm graze and forage their way through an intensive rotational grazing system. Heidi has been working with livestock throughout central Maine for the past five years and is embarking on her first season operating independently. She is committed to using management practices that increase soil fertility, enhance biodiversity and supplement the farm’s ecosystem, all the while producing happy and healthy lambs. On any given day, you can find Heidi moving fence lines and chatting with her ovine coworkers.

Learn more about Heidi on Instagram.

The Little Red Flower Truck is a flower farm and floral design business located on the coast of Wabanaki Confederacy land (in so-called Ellsworth, Maine.) Their mission is to use sustainable and regenerative farming practices to produce quality flowers and floral products to serve the greater Downeast and Acadia region. They grow specialty cut-flowers three seasons a year and sell to local florists, cater to custom events and weddings and offer weekly summer CSA flower shares. Together they converted a ’93 Toyota pick-up into a mobile design studio/delivery vehicle/pop-up flower shop. Why flowers?! Flowers are food for our souls, hearts and minds. Flowers spread joy and promote healing. Giving someone (or yourself!) flowers acknowledges their worth and says “you deserve joy, you deserve beauty, you are loved!” Flowers nourish and diversify our ecosystems and feed our pollinators, who hold the key to our food security.

Keep up with the Little Red Flower Truck on Instagram.

Birch Bog Farm LLC was established in March of 2021.The farm is owned outright and sits on 16 acres in total. It was formerly the Woodward Organic Cranberry Farm, established in 1996. Birch Bog Farm is a majority woman-owned (Tracyn Thayer) family-run business that produces MOFGA-certified dry-harvested organic cranberries (certified since 2002) on 2 acres of irrigated bog in Albany Township, Maine. There are  small raised-bed gardens, bees and chickens on the property which are not certified organic, but are cared for using organic practices. Free-range humans of various ages, a pair of dogs and a pair of cats also call the farm home.

Find out more about Birch Bog Farm on their website.

JessiWayne Farm is a small diversified family farm in West Newfield, Maine, focused on salad mix and cut flower production for farmers’ markets, restaurants, independently owned grocery stores, and a small CSA. 

Learn more about JessiWayne Farm on their website, Facebook or Instagram.

Foxfire Farm is a small-scale diversified farm in Palermo, Maine, committed to growing healthy and nutritious food for the surrounding community. They grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables for wholesale and farmers’ markets using organic and regenerative practices.

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