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Harvest Kitchen Summer Heat

Toki Oshima illustration By Roberta Bailey When I was a child, my family went out to eat at a restaurant once a year, on Mother’s Day. We went to Howard Johnson’s. I always got fried clams. I know it was due to socioeconomics, but I also think people went out to eat less in the

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Not Out of the Woods Just Yet

The author in an old growth forest in Montville with a big (carbon-rich!) tree. Photo by Nelson Sánchez Oyarzo Resources About Carbon Offsets “The Nature Conservancy Makes a Bet on Carbon,” by Forests for Maine’s Future, Aug. 23, 2018 “A Landowner’s Guide to Carbon Offsets,” by EcoTrust “Vermont Forest Carbon: A Market Opportunity for Forestland

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Agriculture in El Salvador

Juan Luis Avilés Moreno at the Common Ground Country Fair with (left to right) interpreters Jan Morrill and Christa Little-Siebold and (right) MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee member Karen Volckhausen. English photo Avilés Moreno (center) talks with Will Bonsall about grain processing at the Fair. Jim Torbert, interpreter and MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee member, is on

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Tip Aspirator Seed Cleaner Demonstrated at Seed Swap and Scion Exchange

Among the piles of screens, sieves, fans and motorized contraptions that we’ve cobbled together over the years to clean seed on our farm, the aspirator seed cleaner we built based on Real Seeds open source plans (https://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedcleaner.html) is one of the more efficient and versatile processing tools at our disposal for dry seeds. A vacuum

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Building the Mycorrhizal Connection

Toki Oshima illustration By C.J. Walke As spring rolls into summer, we should see young, month-old fruitlets on our trees, slowly swelling with growth in the sunlight of our longest days of the year. Nutrition for that growth is centered in the soil, where we look to build a biologically active ecosystem for soil microbes

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Hay Mulch and Other Low tech Adaptations for Home Gardens

Drawing by Toki Oshima By Joyce White My garden area in Stoneham’s stony foothills is ringed with trees, mostly ash and maple, that have grown very tall during the 21 years I’ve lived here. Their roots have grown very long, too, reaching beneath the soil of the whole garden area. Because of those roots and

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Worldwide Agricultural Travel Through IFOAM and WWOOFing

Pakaraka Farm raises beef, sheep and pecans. Mustering the sheep at Pakaraka In addition to working hard in the farm fields at Pakaraka, I played duets with my host, Jeanette (right), every afternoon. By Amy LeBlanc Photos courtesy of the author. If you had asked me 20 years ago if I would be traveling, and

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35 Years of Harvest Kitchen

Drawing by Toki Oshima By Roberta Bailey Happy Anniversary to me! This spring marks the 35th anniversary of my time writing this column. My entire adult life has evolved around the full flavors of homegrown food straight from the garden, pantry and root cellar. I have never thought of myself as a fancy cook. Instead, I feature

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The Maine Forest and the Perfect Storm

When forests are left to grow, they continue to sequester carbon. English photo By Peter Hagerty When my wife and I moved to Maine in 1974, I went into the woods logging with a team of horses named Barney and Nick. Since that first winter we have always had big horses on our farm. In

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