John Augustus Sutter’s once-thriving farming community in California fell victim to the Gold Rush. Portrait of John Sutter by Frank Buchser, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/. The current high price of gold is wreaking environmental destruction in many places around the world, sometimes interfering with local people’s ability to farm and garden. This isn’t a new situation, as John
Genna Cherichello and students at Oceanside East High School prepare a meal incorporating school garden produce. One student who worked with Cherichello on gardening and cooking in the previous academic year went on to work as a gardener over the summer and enroll in Midcoast School of Technology’s Culinary Arts Program. Photo by Marina Schauffler.
Rosey Guest, harvesting tomatoes in mid-October in her unheated hoop house. All photos by Holli Cederholm. After the tomatoes are done, Rosey runs a fence down the middle of the house and keeps her layers in there for a month. They scratch for bugs and add fertility for the following season. Greens and tomatoes are
Robert Shetterly unveiled the latest in his “Americans Who Tell the Truth” series of paintings at a November 1, 2012, celebration of Russell Libby’s tenure as MOFGA’s executive director. Russell’s truth quoted in this painting: “We have to challenge the idea that contamination is just the price of living in the modern world. Our bodies
Provided by Dandelion Spring Farm and Straw Farm Lee Straw and Beth Schiller produce most of the food their CSA members might eat, at their two businesses located on the same farm in Newcastle, Maine. Photo by Keri Pickett, courtesy of Horizon Organics. By Holli Cederholm Dandelion Spring’s vegetable fields and Straw Farm’s rolling pastures
Joan Federman. Photo by Emily Horton. By Hannah Kreitzer Joan Federman attended her first Common Ground Country Fair in 1996, when she had just moved to Maine. She spent all three days soaking up information from presenters’ panels and workshops, nourishing a growing passion for sustainable, responsible local and global citizenry. Listening to people she
By Jane Lamb Agricultural challenges in Third World countries, particularly in neighboring Latin America, have long been a special concern of MOFGA members. Usually members work to improve food production for malnourished populations by various means, ranging from university-level research to sister city programs to just plain sharing of organic know-how. Board member Laura Merrick,
1996 Farmer to Farmer Conference Bill Spiller of Spiller Farms in Wells tells beginning farmers to diversify. “Don’t raise too much at first of any one item,” he told his audience at the Farmer to Farmer Conference in November. “This is hard. It takes a lot of expertise to grow many crops, but it seems
This year Jason Kafka, member-at-large of the MOFGA board of directors, will plant 3,000 pounds of seed potatoes. Last year he harvested three tons of potatoes and 7,000 row feet of alliums – not including the garlic. “Think about that with a hoe in your hand,” he says. When he ponders the growth of his
By Jane Lamb It’s one thing to strive earnestly for self-sufficiency – raising your own food, chopping firewood, reliving the rural New England tradition of thrift. It’s quite another when you add an aesthetic dimension that raises the whole experience to the level of art. Anyone who visits the Old Stage Farmstand on Route 5-A
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