Archives: Resources

Why We Need Cows

Joann Grohman and her Jersey cow, Jasmine. and Should not Worry about Their Carbon Footprint or Methane Contribution By Joann Grohman The cow, that enduring nursery icon, has been losing fans lately due to misinformation being spoken in the highest places. Some of this character damage may be deliberate; much is due to city dwellers

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Prince Charles Royal Patron for Sustainability

Entrance to Duchy Home Farm, the organic farm of HRH Prince Charles. Robert Taylor photo. Farm manager David Wilson and the author in the Veg Shed at the Duchy Home Farm. Robert Taylor photo. David Wilson checks an apple tree planted between rows of vegetables. Prince Charles agreed to take responsibility for 1,000 of some

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Epicurean Delights

Toki Oshima drawing. By Roberta Bailey Have you been through the Exhibition Hall yet? Common Ground Fair’s Exhibition Hall is a hall of marvels. You walk from the hustle and bustle of the fairgrounds into the cool quiet sanctum of mellowed wooden timbers and high ceilings. The outside world falls away. You focus on rows

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How to Grow Crabapple Trees

A crabapple tree produces fruit that are, generally, under 2 inches in diameter. The trees can serve as pollinators, feed wildlife, flavor cider, and can be used to make jelly. Illustration from “Handbook of Plant and Floral Ornament from Early Herbals,” by Richard G. Hatton, Dover, 1960. Who can resist the beauty of a crabapple

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Claire Ackroyd

The unstoppable Claire Ackroyd. Photo courtesy of Shannon Commeau. By Rhonda Houston (Tate) Spending any amount of a warm, dewy, June evening on the interstate is my idea of punishment. Exiting the interstate on the Hogan Road in Bangor and pushing past every large car dealership north of Portland while swerving around recently licensed, teenage

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Moldy Grain

By Jean English If the grain or feed that you buy for your animals is green or blue/green and stinky, it’s not good. That was the bottom line of LeBelle Hicks’ talk at the Maine Agricultural Trades Show in Augusta in January – and it was what people in the audience, who had inadvertently purchased

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El Salvador

Salvador Cruz understands the importance of maintaining soil fertility organically. Photo courtesy of Karen and Paul Volckhausen. Pineapple plants are good perennials for a permaculture-based farm because they help hold the soil and produce a crop in the second year. Photo courtesy of Karen and Paul Volckhausen. Papaya is one of the crops that thrives

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Organic Matter

By Eric Sideman, Ph.D., MOFGA’s Director of Technical Services It always amuses me to think back to when I was young and, like most, I understood very little of what my parents did. Now that I am an adult, most of their former actions make sense. Sometimes they had good reasons for their behavior and

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Animal Health

By Diane Schivera Last winter MOFGA hosted two presentations about livestock health care that were well received by and very helpful to growers. One was presented by Dan Leiterman and by Paul Dettloff, D.V.M., from Wisconsin; the other by Henrietta Beaufait, D.V.M., from Albion. Beaufait will be speaking at MOFGA on a continuing basis throughout

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Solanum Tuberosum

By Jean Ann Pollard Once upon a time Maine was covered by ice a mile high. Every school kid knows that. What most of them don’t know is that even on the fringes of North America’s ice sheet, and in the cold, high Andes of Peru, a nutritious root vegetable called the potato provided people

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