By Jacki Martinez Perkins Fencing In the life of an organic livestock farmer summer brings one never-ending task: fencing. The winter frosts heave most posts loose of their moorings, the deer disregard the works of mankind in their quest for forage, and mother nature herself eats away at even the stoutest of materials. All this
By Laura Sieger This summer marks the Maine Heritage Orchard’s 10-year anniversary. It’s pretty wild that a decade ago Dennis Jones and crew were shaping the old spent gravel pit into a terraced, plantable landscape that would become the Maine Heritage Orchard. John Bunker and Russell Libby had campaigned for a space to be used
By Caleb P. Goossen, Ph.D., MOFGA Crop Specialist People are attracted to organic growing practices for all sorts of reasons, so I suppose it should not be a surprise that beliefs, practices and approaches between growers can sometimes vary widely. I’m occasionally presented with a question or statement made with the assumption that I use
By Roberta Bailey Lately the word currency has been rolling around with my thoughts. I like to think of money in terms of currency. A current is a flow of energy. In the case of money, it is compensation for human energy expended. We make products. We use our bodies and minds to complete tasks.
Interview by Holli Cederholm This spring, the United Nation’s body for assessing science related to climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), issued its sixth assessment report (AR6) on climate change since the group’s establishment in 1988. The report was announced to the world with a press release declaring: “Urgent climate action can
Keep it easy, motivating and enjoyable By Jennifer Wilhelm As a small-scale fruit and vegetable farmer, I spend hours each year planning for the growing season. When the ground is still frozen and daylight is at a minimum, when the seed catalogs flood my mailbox — harbingers of the color, smells and tastes to come
By Ivonne Vazquez Living in a cold climate requires ways to extend the growing season. One method, a cold frame, does not require too much space and can be tailored to your gardening needs, space requirements and availability of materials. What is a Cold Frame? It is a bottomless box, usually made with a glass
By Will Bonsall Water is essential to every biological process, so successful gardening depends on enough water being available at the right time. It may be in the soil or even in the plant tissues themselves, but it must be present and available. Without it you can load the soil with endless nutrients and they
By Emmanuel Brefo, Eric JB von Wettberg and Deb Heleba As you plan ahead for the fall, are you considering cover crops? Would you be more likely to plant a winter cover crop if it were also an early spring vegetable you can harvest, while also reaping the ecological benefits of a cover crop? Our
By John Bliss Imagine you are walking into your apple orchard on a beautiful June morning. The trees look good, but just to confirm your assessment, you glance down at a ring on your finger. The ring has a softly glowing orb of shifting colors, and you notice the colors blush from blue to a
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