Category: Farming

Maine Farmers Planting Early

| Posted in Farming

The Maine Sunday Telegram interviewed several farmers about how the early warm weather is impacting when they plant.

Spring arrived three weeks early this year, and it is driving some farmers a little bit crazy. Bamford and some other adventurous growers are throwing out all the tried and true farming maxims and betting one of the earliest, warmest springs in memory will continue.

They are hoping that they will be able to deliver strawberries, swiss chard and even corn to markets a little bit earlier than the competition.

America's Best Farmers' Markets

| Posted in Farming

The Portland Farmers’ Market made it onto the Travel + Leisure list of America’s Best Farmers’ Markets. Steve Corry is quoted in the intro to the article.

“When I plan my restaurant’s menu, it’s not just my choices going into the dishes, it’s the farmers’,” Corry says. “It’s their menu as much as mine.”

Today’s was opening day for the Wednesday market and Delicious Musings was there with camera in hand to capture the start of the season.

I did not realize how much I had been aching for the return of a weekly outdoor farmers’ market until I saw a post this morning on Facebook by the Portland Maine Farmers’ Market it would be returning to Monument Square today. Let the weather be as fickle as it likes, let the wind blow, the temps rise and fall, and rain away (I should add snow since flakes were reported over the weekend)…The farmers are in town with their goods, bees are buzzing about, black flies (ugh) have set up a welcome center at your nearby pond, and summer is imminent.

See additional reporting on the Farmers Market in the April 27 edition of the Portland Daily Sun.

America’s Best Farmers’ Markets

| Posted in Farming

The Portland Farmers’ Market made it onto the Travel + Leisure list of America’s Best Farmers’ Markets. Steve Corry is quoted in the intro to the article.

“When I plan my restaurant’s menu, it’s not just my choices going into the dishes, it’s the farmers’,” Corry says. “It’s their menu as much as mine.”

Today’s was opening day for the Wednesday market and Delicious Musings was there with camera in hand to capture the start of the season.

I did not realize how much I had been aching for the return of a weekly outdoor farmers’ market until I saw a post this morning on Facebook by the Portland Maine Farmers’ Market it would be returning to Monument Square today. Let the weather be as fickle as it likes, let the wind blow, the temps rise and fall, and rain away (I should add snow since flakes were reported over the weekend)…The farmers are in town with their goods, bees are buzzing about, black flies (ugh) have set up a welcome center at your nearby pond, and summer is imminent.

See additional reporting on the Farmers Market in the April 27 edition of the Portland Daily Sun.

NYT: Backyard Farms in Central Maine

| Posted in Farming

The New York Times has published an article about Backyard Farms, a Maine-based hydroponic tomato farm in Madison that operates a 42-acre greenhouse.

When it was built three years ago, the company’s first 24-acre greenhouse in Madison was already the largest building in Maine. This second connected greenhouse, completed last year, brought the total area under glass to some 42 acres, or roughly the size of 32 football fields. Even in the depths of winter, a million tomatoes ripen indoors to harvest each week, snipped from their vines by workers in T-shirts and shorts.

Maple Syrup, Breakfast Challenge and Vegetarian MRW

| Posted in Events, Farming

Today’s Press Herald includes an article about this year’s maple syrup season,

Warmer-than-normal days and cold nights are combining to create ideal conditions to get maple syrup season off to one of its earliest starts ever, said Keith Harris of Harris Farm in Dayton.

a piece about next week’s Incredible Breakfast Cook-off,

The Porthole’s eggs Florentine, smothered in a smoky bacon cream sauce, will be the chefs’ entry into the Incredible Breakfast Cook-off March 5 at the Sea Dog Brewing Company in South Portland. Their version of the breakfast classic has “always been a hit” with customers, no matter where they worked, Cross said.

and a listing of all the vegetarian options to be found on the Maine Restaurant Week menus.

Maple Syrup Season

| Posted in Farming

Tuesday’s Portland Daily Sun hus published reports on the early start to the maple syrup season,

“We’re usually getting started to get ready to go tapping this time of year, but normally the sap is not ready to run for another week or so,” said Lyle Merrifield, president of the Maine Maple Producers Association, whose family was out gathering sap Monday at Merrifield Farm. “It seems like the weather changed so quick on us that we’re tapping; things are ready to run right now.”

and on new taps that are gentler to the trees,

In a shift from the traditional spout size of 7/16-inch diameter, producers like Lyle Merrifield of Merrifield Farm in Gorham have advanced to a spout that fits a 5/16-inch hole. The reason is to extend the life of trees.

This year’s Maine Maple Sunday is scheduled to take place March 28.

MOOMilk

| Posted in Farming

According to a blog post on Eat Maine Foods, MOOMilk, a new brand of organic milk sourced from Maine farms, will start appearing on store shelves this weekend.

Produced by 10 Maine family organic dairy farms in Washington, Aroostook, Penobscot and Kennebec Counties, the milk will be trucked by Schoppee Milk Transport of Holden to Smiling Hill Dairy in Westbrook for processing, then distributed by Oakhurst Dairy of Portland and Crown O’ Maine Organic Co-op of Gardiner. That makes it the only organic milk available in Maine that is produced, trucked, processed and distributed exclusively by Maine family businesses.

Local Food Online

| Posted in Farming

MPBN talked with the creators of Maine Food Trader and soon to be launched Farm Fresh Maine about how their websites can connect people with locally grown food.

Farmfresh for ME, she says, will be targeting consumers in the Bangor area, as well as in Downeast Maine. “I know that a lot of the consumers we’ve talked to can’t get to the farmers’ market during the hours that it’s open, or want to see what’s available online in the comfort of their own home, so I think that interest has grown.”

Ag Show, Eating Advice and Barbecue

| Posted in Cooking, Farming

Today’s Press Herald has a report from the 69th Annual Maine Agricultural Trades Show

The annual event brings together a mix of agricultural producers: grass growers, maple syrup makers, alpaca breeders, woodland owners and florists. The crowd is equally diverse, with attendees as likely to be sporting dreadlocks and hand-knit organic woolens as John Deere caps and Carhartt work boots.

an interview with Dr. Peter Knight from True North in Falmouth on how to eat right

“With kids, I find that parents are afraid to change things in their kids’ diets,” Knight said.

The fear, he said, is based on a mistaken belief that little Johnny “won’t eat anything else.” There’s typically some validity to this statement, but it can be overcome by introducing the child to a wide variety of whole foods, allowing the child to select food at the farmers market, and gardening together as a family.

and an article on indoor winter barbecuing with Dennis Sherman from DennyMike’s CUE Stuff.

“Tell that writer that indoor barbecue is an oxymoron,” he said. “There is no such thing”

We laugh. We both know that Davis is correct. But Davis doesn’t live in Maine, where the long months of winter can make true-blue barbecue fans go into withdrawal.