Introduction and photos by Jean English; Recipes by Dusty Dowse On April 13, 2024, the MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee and the Maine Grain Alliance (MGA) held a hands-on workshop at MOFGA about corn and pupusas. Sistering committee member Karen Volckhausen began the event, noting that most sistering relationships pair a city in one country with
By Roberta Bailey Soybeans are an ancient food with many culinary forms. Most commonly used in the West are miso, a fermented soybean paste; edamame, the fresh green soybeans, served steamed and lightly salted; tofu, a curd made from soymilk; tempeh, the cultured ground soybeans and/or okara left over from making soy milk; and soy
By Jacki Martinez Perkins, Organic Dairy and Livestock Specialist There’s no way around it: At some point in Maine’s cyclical seasons, the grass stops growing and goes dormant. The need to feed hay to our herbivorous livestock during this time is crucial, and knowing what your needs are and what you’re buying is essential to
By Ethan Tapper The sky is bright and blue, streaked with clouds as thin as carded wool. I weave between stumps, bent like an elder, planting acorn after acorn. The patch cut is as still as the waters of a new beaver pond. The forest hangs limbo, a brief pause in its perpetual arc of
By C.J. Walke, Orchard Program Manager As summer rolls into fall, we start to see the bulk of the apple and pear varieties in MOFGA’s Maine Heritage Orchard in Unity beginning to ripen during September and October. In the fall, it always feels like such a long time has passed since the trees were blooming
By Jacki Martinez Perkins, Organic Dairy and Livestock Specialist I grew up not only in a different time but also in such a different world than most everyone else I know. My dad was a dairy farmer, and my mom was the only female large animal veterinarian in Maine at the time. By the time
By MOFGA Crop Specialist, Caleb P. Goossen, Ph.D. Today there are many more plant disease management products available to organic growers than in decades past, but it continues to be difficult for me to confidently recommend some of the newer products as “worth it” — especially when I’m talking with commercial growers that are relying
By Roberta Bailey Blackberries are the cruel temptresses of the berry kingdom. They promise sweetness yet they can make you bleed. The berries are so delicate. The thorns leave scars. There are always stories to tell, clothes to be mended. And yet, the berries can be divinely sweet and delicately flavored. The promise of more
By Will Bonsall Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, eating sprouts was all the rage, unsurprising since they are rightly reputed to be loaded with vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and easily digested proteins, far more than the unsprouted seeds. Many folks even went so far as to grow their own sprouts (many still do), sprouting clover,
By Tim King Non-native earthworms, Amynthas agrestis, were greeted with some hysterical, and inaccurate, media reports when they were first observed in appreciable numbers at the Viles Arboretum in Augusta, Maine, and several other locations in Augusta and in Portland a decade ago. Seemingly reputable news sources claimed that Amynthas worms, commonly called jumping worms,
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