Tag: Winter

Strategies for Handling a Hay Shortage

By Jacki Perkins As I am writing this, winter deepens and spring is still a far off dream, and the effects of last summer’s drought will begin to be felt. For anyone buying hay last season, it was a study in budgeting: both for pocketbooks and rations. Short of selling livestock to anyone with enough

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Harvest Kitchen Mushrooms The King of Umami and More

These shiitake mushrooms grown by Toshio Hashimoto of Rumford won a judges’ award in the Exhibition Hall at the Common Ground Country Fair. English photo By Roberta Bailey Mushrooms have come into the spotlight lately. They are strutting their stuff. Once they were thought of as just another white food, flavorful and filling but void of much

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Spinach Downy Mildew

Downy mildew on winter spinach in a high tunnel. Photo by Eric Sideman By Caleb Goossen, Ph.D. Winter-grown greens have increased dramatically in popularity, and subsequently in ubiquity, over the past couple of decades. We are miles beyond the era of my grandmother’s childhood in northern Vermont, where the “hungry period” set in during the end of winter

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Harvest Kitchen Turmeric for Flavor and Health

Turmeric grown by students at the Troy Howard Middle School in Belfast and entered in the 2018 Common Ground Country Fair Exhibition Hall. By Roberta Bailey High tunnels have changed the cycles of Maine’s local food systems, extending our live food harvests to year-round bounty. Along with cucumbers, greens, sweet potatoes and tomatoes come the

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Low Energy Food Storage Solutions

Warm air from an attic is blown through this cabinet to dry produce. The drying cabinet setup. Warm air from the basement keeps plants in the coldframe from freezing. A small, well insulated box in the garage stores root crops. By Eric Evans My wife, Laura, and I love to eat the fruit and veggies

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Harvest Kitchen Hot Ferments

Illustration by Toki Oshima By Roberta Bailey Kimchi, kombucha, sauerkraut, fermented vegetables, kefir, yogurt, sour beers and ciders – live probiotic ferments are all the rage these days. Add hot sauces to that list as well. As a condiment lover and, particularly, a fan of hot peppers, I am excited. I love the full pepper

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If You Can Keep It You Can Eat It

Vegetables ready for storage – some fermented, some as harvested. We store carrots, beets, rutabagas and celeriac in wooden boxes with damp spruce wood shavings. The uniform boxes stack and keep out rodents. The boxes also were sized to hold Mason jars. How we store our year-round supply of produce By Anneli Carter-Sundqvist Photos by

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Root Cellars and Ginger

Ginger is an increasingly popular crop to grow and store in Maine. Polly Shyka and Prentice Grassi of Villageside Farm in Freedom grew this ‘King Yai’ ginger, which earned a Judges’ Award in the Exhibition Hall at MOFGA’s Common Ground Country Fair. English photo. By Roberta Bailey I have lived with a root cellar my

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Harvest Kitchen Winter Baking with Eggs

Toki Oshima drawing By Roberta Bailey Our farm is nestled up against a low ridge that parallels the Kennebec River. The soil is deep and virtually rock-free. We do get a bit too wet in spring with that river-bottom clay, but we never have to water. On the backside of the ridge is a meandering

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