By Jean English Tom Hoerth of Bath ate a handful of raspberries, “big, full, really nice berries.” Locally grown berries … Maine berries … on the 27th of March this year! Hoerth says that he still has to pinch himself to believe that he has 1800 raspberry plants going in his greenhouse, located in Wiscasset,
By Jean English Keeping a vegetable garden is like keeping a family: Both need continuous care and nourishment if you want them to thrive. In the case of the garden, that means keeping up the weeding and/or mulching now, and keeping bare spots planted. If you’ve planted all of the lettuce, spinach, carrots and other
By Eric Sideman, Ph.D., Director of Technical Services, MOFGA Tunnels and greenhouses are now being used widely to produce early and often blemish free tomatoes. However, high humidity is difficult to avoid under plastic, and it creates an ideal environment for fungal diseases that can spread very quickly and cause widespread damage. Two common diseases
The Ecologist Provides Overview of “Slash and Burn” Control in the UK By Diane Schivera Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) has other common names: hoof and mouth disease, aftosa (other diseases with similar symptoms use this name) and apthous fever. It is an acute, highly contagious disease caused by one of the smallest, filterable viruses
Toki Oshima drawing By Roberta Bailey I have such gratitude toward Jean Ann Pollard. She has been a guide and inspiration to me in the kitchen since 1987, when she published The New Maine Cooking. Until then, I would go to the garden or the root cellar, choose vegetables for the day, then thumb through
By Roberta Bailey Who can resist the smell of a rose on the coast? The smell of beach roses, Rosa rugosa, pulls up a lifetime of memories for me, but the memories of sitting on sun-warmed rocks using my teeth to scrape the bright orange flesh from ripe rosehips are the strongest. To this day,
Toki Oshima drawing Strawberry Plugs & Varieties By Sue Smith-Heavenrich If you get to the Common Ground Fair this year, look for the strawberry alley crops. Last fall, Jack Kertesz put in a few beds of strawberries between young apple trees in MOFGA’s demonstration orchard. He thinks that growing strawberries between newly planted trees might provide
Keith Rose, Pat Hopkins and Dalene Dutton (left to right) work closely together to ensure that the IPM program at Camden Hills Regional High School is observed. During the 2000-2001 academic year, pesticides were used only for one infestation of whitefly; the rest of the school, indoors and out, remained pesticide-free. English photo. By Jean
By Eric Sideman, Ph.D., MOFGA’s Director of Technical Services Wheeling great quantities of potatoes or lugging boxes of squash to their winter storage site gives the greatest sense of self sufficiency and satisfaction to gardeners. Going down to get a bit for dinner on a January night and having to sift through a mass of
By Roberta Bailey Every season has its soups. In summer, soup is light, often fruity or chilled. Autumn brings us corn and tomatoes and minestrone. In winter, soup is at its best; slowly cooked beans and grains and root vegetables offer warmth and satisfaction. And spring is a fickle time, one day a dark onion
