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Companion Planting

‘Green Arrow’ peas are planted with two rows of ‘Nantes Fancy’ carrots on either side. Photo courtesy of Will Bonsall. By Will Bonsall Polycultures, intercrops, companion plants – all describe more or less the same idea: growing two or more different crops on the same plot at the same time, in a way that one

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Moray

Moray, a multi-level site in Peru with its lowest point 492 feet below the crest of the surrounding hills, is thought to have been the first agricultural experiment station in the world. Photo courtesy of Glenn A. Grube. At Moray, the various terraces have climates similar to those throughout Peru. Photos courtesy of Glenn A.

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White Runner Beans

White runner beans look and taste like lima beans, but are plumper and grow better in cooler weather. Top photo by Yaicha Cowell. Lower photo by Arika Bready. By Will Bonsall A few decades ago while I was helping an elderly farmer friend, Orlando Small, with his haying, he chanced to comment on his fine

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Critique

By Joann S. Grohman  “It’s surprising just how often common assumptions – by both scientists and the media – are wrong,” says Howard S. Friedman, distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California-Riverside, in the March 12, 2011, issue of ScienceDaily (www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110311153541.htm). Consider the belief that feeding grain to people, not cattle, means more

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Ewe Scorecard

Drawing by Toki Oshima. By Tom Settlemire, professor emeritus, Bowdoin College, and sheep producer, Brunswick, Maine Dr. Charles Parker, a good friend of many of us in the sheep industry, has a simple but very important guiding concept: We should be breeding sheep that are working for us; we should not be working for the

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Season Extension

By Roberta Bailey For the past four winters, I have eaten fresh kale and other greens every day from a growing bed in my attached greenhouse. Often I stop on my way to work and pick greens for lunch. If not, I stop on my return and pick part of supper. Just walking past the

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Estrogen Rich Dishes

Toki Oshima drawing Read the review: Estrogen the Natural Way By Roberta Bailey Of the three primary forms of estrogen, plant estrogen (lignans), appear to protect against breast cancer, while the other two stronger forms of estrogen promote cancer. Soy and flax are excellent sources of plant estrogen for menopausal women. Relief from meno­pausal symptoms

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Invasive Plants

Barrie Brusila of Mid-Maine Forestry showed Japanese honeysuckle, one of several potentially invasive plants in Maine’s woods, to fairgoers at the Common Ground Country Fair and showed how to remove the plant with a powerful tool. English photos. Invasive plants haven’t taken over Maine’s woodlands yet, so now is the time to control them, said

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Apple Calendar

By C.J. Walke Growing organic tree fruit can be a bit of a challenge, considering the various insects and diseases that like to call your fruit tree home and the relatively short efficacy window of organic control materials; so being attentive to stages of fruit development and biological cycles of pests in your orchard is

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Mago: Father of Farming

Drawing by Toki Oshima. By John Koster When the vengeful Romans plowed salt into the smoldering ruins of Carthage in 146 B.C., the conquerors left a message that the world gradually forgot: Farming, rather than maritime trade and commerce, had been the real source of strength in the city that once rivaled Rome for control

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