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
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
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
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
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
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
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
By Jean Ann Pollard It was glorious! – the great Dvina river so still, so broad between its red banks of gravel and sand, and the grass and birch trees on the flat plain all around so green by contrast. And then there was the pungent scent of wood smoke, and we scrambled off the
By Roberta Bailey Onions are the beginning of almost every meal, a cook’s greatest ally. As a kitchen gardener I work hard to grow a variety of onions. Mesh bags of pungent bulb onions and braids of sweet Cippolini onions (the open-pollinated, Italian heirloom onion) hang from the beams, ready for the soup pot or
By Rhonda Houston (Tate) It’s a Saturday morning in late September. The remnants of a tropical storm have blown through, leaving crisp, new air, blue skies and a sun that can still warm, even in its post summer state. Entering a farmhouse through the back door, which is, after all, the only true way to
