Archives: Resources

Rice

by Linda and Takeshi Akaogi In the Sept. 2008 issue of The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener, Cheryl Bruce reported on efforts by Linda and Takeshi Akaogi to grow rice on their small farm in Putney, Vermont. In March 2008, the couple received a SARE Farmer Grant to evaluate the viability of rice production in

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Forest Management

by Mitch Lansky A thousand-year forest management plan. Am I joking? After all, the United States is only a little over two centuries old. We live in a world of rapidly changing technologies where, in just a decade or so, people have started using personal computers and cell phones on a wide scale. It is

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Terra Madre

Maine is Part of the Scene by Jo Anne Bander Artisan cheeses, jarred artichokes, colored salts, smoked meats, chocolates: Artful displays of such foods at 600 stalls in the Turin, Italy, Lingotto Fiere exhibition center for the seventh Slow Food Salone del Gusto could have been viewed and tasted at any Italian-flavored food show that

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Sunflowers Fuel a Maine Dairy Farm

Sunflower seed is planted in rows 30″ apart using a tractor-mounted corn planter and cultivated several times with mid-mounted sweeps. These plants were growing at UMaine’s Rogers Farm. Rick Kersbergen photo. by Polly Shyka If the pinecone is Maine’s state flower, then the sunflower, a native, useful, generous and beautiful plant, should be the national

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Tips Fall 2003

Organic for Kids – Seven Tips for Buying Organic Foods 1. When starting out, focus on organic alternatives to the foods your family eats most. 2. Try to add one new organic item to your cart each week. 3. Learn to read the USDA organic labels: 100% organic – may carry the USDA Organic seal

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Whodunits

By Eric Sideman, Ph.D. The causes of some garden tragedies are obvious, while other causes are mysterious. When Colorado potato beetles eat every leaf and your potatoes never get larger than golf balls, there really is no puzzle to solve. But sometimes gardeners don’t know what went wrong, and they chalk some problems up to

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Fatty Acids

By Jean English Fatty acids are straight chains of carbon (C) atoms that have hydrogen (H) atoms attched. The beginning of the fatty acid is a methyl (CH3) group, and the end is a carboxyl (COOH) group. The carbon atoms are numbered from 1, at the beginning, to n, at the end. Omega-3 fatty acids

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The Benefits of Raising Animals on Pasture

Drawing by Toki Oshima By Diane Schivera Editor’s note: Our understanding of the benefits of raising animals on pasture continues to accumulate, so Diane Schivera has updated this article that she originally wrote for the Dec. 2001-Feb. 2002 issue of The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener. Grass feeding benefits the health of the grazing animals;

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Black Cohosh

Black cohosh leaves and flowers. English photos. In the early ’80s, while studying the native medicinal plants of North Carolina, I first met black cohosh. I found it growing wild in the Appalachian Mountains. Its 4- to 5-foot-tall, white flowering spires (racemes) were stunning to come upon in the grand forests. I immediately took a

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Grow Your Own Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes are propagated by suspending a tuber in a glass of water or burying one part-way in sand or other porous media; letting shoots grow from the tuber; then rooting the shoots. Illustration from Sweetpotato Culture and Diseases, Agriculture Handbook No. 388, USDA Agricultural Research Service, 1971. By Roberta Bailey Sweet potatoes can be

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