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Barley Recipes

Toki Oshima drawing By Roberta Bailey “Simplify, simplify,” said Thoreau. I sit at my table and eat steamed kale and a barley pilaf. Outside the winter wind whips snow against my windows. Other than that, silence prevails. No radio, no stereo, no television fill my house with the sensational and negative news of the world.

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Currants

Ribes Species and White Pine Blister Rust – An Update, June 9, 2015 Over the past several years, interest has increased throughout the Northeast in growing and cultivating currants, gooseberries and other species in the genus Ribes for backyard and commercial fruit production. Stimulated by development of varieties that were either resistant or immune to

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Composting Tips

By Adam Tomash 1. Materials. Brown materials are high in carbon, green materials are high in nitrogen. Mix the two in rough proportions of 2 volumes of brown to 1 volume of green to achieve a C:N ratio of 25:1 to 40:1. Remember that different sources of nitrogen have differing amounts of nitrogen; e.g., alfalfa

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In The Orchard

In March and April, new wood was top-worked by bark grafting onto plum tree limbs at the MOFGA orchard. My mid-July all grafts were growing well. C.J. Walke photo. By C.J. Walke Spring Freeze In my last article, I wrote about shifting weather patterns and their effects on our fruit trees. I wrote that the

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What is Low Impact Forestry

Forester Sam Brown explains the principles of low-impact forestry at one of MOFGA’s Farm Training Project workshops. English photo. By Andy McEvoy Low-impact forestry (LIF) is about balance – of ecological systems and human society; nutrient richness and capital investment; timber stand improvement and human infrastructure. Humans need forest resources for heat, building material, paper,

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Regulations

By Cheryl Wixson Many certified organic farmers and producers seek to increase sales and market penetration through value-added food production or sales to institutions, supermarket chains and food processors. Markets for local, organic food are strong and growing rapidly, but licensing requirements, food safety regulations and liability issues must be addressed before a farmer can

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Beyond the Beauty Strip

By Mitch Lansky This year, 2012, is the 20th anniversary of the publication of Beyond the Beauty Strip: Saving What’s Left of Our Forests (BTBS). In it I pointed out such trends as the sale of big land parcels, heavy cutting and short rotations on industry-owned lands, and increasing mechanization. These trends in the forest

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Nutrient Dense Foods

John Bagnulo. Photo by Joanna Bagnulo. By Polly Shyka John Bagnulo is a naturalist and nutritionist. With a master’s in public health and a doctorate in food and nutrition sciences, he has a nutrition practice in Belfast and has taught nutrition for the past 12 years. He lectures widely on nutrition and health and has

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Acorn Bread

Processing acorns in a Davebilt nutcracker. Photo courtesy of Chris and Ashirah Knapp. By Chris Knapp In autumn, all over the world, something wonderful happens: The acorns fall. The oak seed, which once sustained the bulk of human civilization, is now largely ignored as a food. Not so at our Koviashuvik Local Living School, where

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Hazelnuts for the Maine Homestead

American hazel (C. americana) grows well in Industry, Maine. Yaicha Cowell photo. By Will Bonsall I’ve always loved filberts, those roundish nuts found in boxes of holiday mixes. They always tasted more substantial than the pecans and Brazil nuts, more evocative of northern forests. In fact, those European types (Corylus avellana) aren’t very hardy here.

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