Where students and community build relationships through food By Sonja Heyck-Merlin Mount Desert Island, Maine: What comes to mind? Maybe it’s catching the sunrise from atop Cadillac Mountain or sea kayaking in a lobster-buoyed bay? Or maybe whale watching, or biking Acadia’s famous carriage trails? Or maybe you roll your eyes, thinking about a $10
By Tim King Every seed in every packet that a seed company ships to a gardener or farmer is throbbing with biological vitality and a barely fathomable web of stories and culture. Take, for instance, the beautiful open-pollinated Swiss chard, called Heart of Gold, that Johnny’s Selected Seeds released in late 2022. The catalog describes
By Sam Schipani Zoe Shwidock and Nicole Heker had been working and apprenticing on farms for years when they decided they wanted to strike out on their own. They had a vision of growing local herbs for teas, medicine, and more to fill a niche for their community in Arundel. They had a problem though.
By John Bunker Photos by the author As many of you know, I have been tracking down, identifying and preserving the historic apples of Maine for quite a few years. I’ve driven all over the state, studied apples and old books, grafted trees, collected scionwood — and tried to keep track of it all. This
By Jacomijn Schravesande-Gardei, Associate Director of Crops, MCS Many of MOFGA Certification Services (MCS) clients know Joan Cheetham as the “very nice lady.” Unfortunately for all of us Joan is retiring. Over nearly 20 years, she has reviewed many client files and inputs and has also performed many inspections. The work of a certification specialist
South Paw Farm owner says despite grant funding farms are struggling By Dani Walczak Meg Mitchell, co-owner of South Paw Farm in Freedom, Maine, is tired of perseverance stories. The narrative of the hard-working white farmer personally overcoming obstacles to feed their community has started to fall flat for the farm owner of 15 years.
By Eesha Williams and Elizabeth Wood Photos courtesy of the authors After 20 years of organic vegetable farming, in 2022, we planted our farm, New Leaf CSA, near Brattleboro, Vermont, with cover crops and set out to see how farmers in other countries approach the challenges of farming. South Korea offered some great opportunities for
Maine farms develop indoor and outdoor set-ups for market-scale mushroom production By Holli Cederholm Courtney Williams of Marr Pond Farm in Sangerville, Maine, says that outdoor mushroom production is a way to manage marginal lands profitably. She and her partner, Ryan Clarke, branched into mushrooms in 2016 in order to gain “market access” to farmers’
How The Buckle Farm Streamlined Their Business for Profitability and Improved Their Wellbeing By Jennifer Wilhelm Husband and wife team Jim Buckle and Hannah Hamilton of The Buckle Farm worked “epically long days” to get their business up and running. Five years after starting their farm in Unity, Maine, they found themselves exhausted from twice-weekly
Twenty Years of Small-Scale No-Till Production in Northern Vermont By Holli Cederholm Over the past 20 years, Evan Perkins and Heidi Choate of Small Axe Farm have transformed their quarter-acre homestead garden on a south-facing hilltop in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom into a 1-acre market garden grossing over $230,000 in annual sales. In the beginning, the
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