Abbey Verrier is one with an heirloom apple tree. Photo by John Bunker By Abbey Verrier For the past four years, I’ve spent my fall seasons driving through Maine’s countryside, one eye on the road and the other scanning the landscape, searching for apple trees. I started doing this while apprenticing with John Bunker and
By Alice Percy, MOFGA President The fair is 6-1/2 years older than I am, and I have enthusiastically attended almost every single one from the time I was a babe in arms. (I missed two, in the early oughts, because my father – Jim Torbert, the MOFGA-El Salvador Sistering Committee’s representative to the board –
Toki Oshima drawing By Grace Oedel Lately I have been wrestling with the dynamic tension between patience and action. How are we to balance the urgency that motivates us to do our work with the need for rest and rejuvenation? For farmers, the warm season flies by furiously with chores from before sunrise to after
Toki Oshima drawing By Jean English, Editor, The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener Ben Falk, in his keynote speech at the Common Ground Country Fair, called for a billion new gardeners, because “we have everything we need right here, right now” to re-establish the perennial-based, diverse and integrated food-producing ecosystems that were here for thousands
Erin Bibles. Photo by Betsy Garrold. By Betsy Garrold Erin Bibles and her husband, Brent, led a peripatetic life before settling at their Thorndike farm, Mélange Métairie (Mixed Small Holding). They met at the University of Arizona and moved to Oregon when Brent, a wildlife biologist, got a job at Oregon State University. Erin finished
New American Sustainable Agriculture Project graduate Jabril Abdi pauses in his corn field. Batula Ismail farms her plot in Lisbon. By Stowell P. Watters Photos by Greta Rybus Here is a nightmare we Mainers can only imagine: A group of men with assault rifles comes barreling across the savannah to demand that we part with
Nyla Bravesnow of Many Hands Farm in Thorndike picks rose hips. Many Hands focuses on homesteading and permaculture on 2 cultivated acres. Photo by Sue Smith-Heavenrich. By Sue Smith-Heavenrich If you visit Many Hands Farm in Thorndike, the first thing you notice is the abundance of flowers: sunflowers, coneflowers, beebalm and calendula. Lots of calendula.
Toki Oshima drawing. By Grace Oedel My husband and I recently moved in with my in-laws with the intention of farming family land. I wish I could say this was a smooth, easy process, but we all struggled. We were unused to what it meant to live together. We had differing expectations about how to
Halcyon Grange in Blue Hill has a state-licensed kitchen and bulk storage bins for grain. By Betsy Garrold Photos by the author What has sprung dance floors, a stage and nurtures local agricultural traditions? The Grange, of course. In Maine the Grange is seeing a resurgence of interest and relevance. As Maine continues to grow
Sam Mudge checks on his field of ‘Danko’ winter rye (right) and ‘Sirvinta’ winter wheat (left). Photo by Aube Giroux. By Holli Cederholm Grange Corner Farm, a MOFGA certified organic farm, stretches across 30 acres of old hayfields on a windy crest with panoramic views of the Camden Hills in Lincolnville, Maine. Sam Mudge says
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