food museum blog

Spring, Really?, Invades Summit Springs Farm, Maine

The greenhouse-from-Hell is up, fully up and running, and actually occupied by young seedlings as well as baby chicks.  What's not to like! For those of you who live near the Poland, Maine farm, there are still a few openings in the CSA program. ( Contact Sonya, summitspringsfarm@fairpoint.net)

Perhaps more importantly, the garlic ( above) is poking through its bed of seaweed, having finally tossed off the last (?) of the snow.  Don't know about you, but I prefer homegrown garlic, rather than the symmetrical, fully white, perfectly formed heads in wide distribution from our pals in China.

Glorious Grandiose Greenhouse Weathers Another Storm

The hard-working and frost-bitten farmers on Summit Springs Farm in Poland, Maine have reported in positively that the friggin' greenhouse they labored to erect last fall now is up and sporting  2 layers of plastic sheeting. The monstrous growing environment measures 100 by 30 feet.

Someday, maybe in July, plants will be thriving inside. Apparently it snowed for the umpteenth time just after the plastic was installed.

SSF Mainiacs Visit Fabled Indian Farm

The Summit Springs Farm-ers, ( you may recall their ongoing effort to erect a large greenhouse on their spread,) recently have returned to Maine after an incredible 5-week trip to India, and their spokesperson on all things ag, John Sayles, sent us this report:

" One of the most rewarding experiences of the trip was a visit to Navdanya, an organic research farm and seed bank about 10 kilometers outside the city of Dehra Dun in the Indian state of Uttranchal. The 20-acre site was founded in the 1980’s by Dr. Vandana Shiva, a scientist, environmentalist, and activist, “to support local farmers, rescue and conserve crops and plants that are being pushed to extinction and make them available through direct marketing.” The Navdanya website also notes that the farm is “actively involved in the rejuvenation of indigenous knowledge and culture. [Navdanya] has created awareness on the hazards of genetic engineering,  ( and)defended people's knowledge from biopiracy and food rights in the face of globalization.”

After looking through the small bookstore and administrative center, we walked around this unique farm with a guide. In small plots, different combinations of crops are grown together to see how they do. One plot may have carrots and onions together; another may have carrots, onions, and coriander (cilantro). Crop density is also studied. One plot of wheat has been intensively planted, and another less so, and another even less, but perhaps also interspersed with another grain or even another variety of wheat. Dozens and dozens of these plots cover the farm’s open spaces. Nearby is an orchard, and in the opposite direction is the seed bank.

We took a short walk down a tree-lined lane with bright green parrots flitting about overhead, to reach the seed bank, a modest rectangular building with an adobe appearance. We all took off our shoes and filed in. Over 300 varieties of rice are kept here in metal boxes, plus about 70 varieties of wheat, numerous other grains, and vegetable and fruit seeds. It is probably the most extensive private seed bank of its kind in all of India. The building itself, though, was much smaller than expected, quite modest, and decorated with lively paintings of flora and fauna on the walls. Outside, the spirit of experimentation and variety continued with the compost area. We saw four or five different composting methods being tried, everything from pit composting to compost bins with removable sides to elaborate composting trenches designed to make the worms happy.

  Our friend and traveling companion, Nicole, is an amateur herbalist and was thrilled to spend some time with the farm’s herbal guru. He showed us around his modest plots of medicinal and cooking herbs and also allowed us a peek into his rooms where he dries and prepares the herbs. All of this was followed by an excellent buffet-style lunch in the farm’s mess hall. We took a brief look around the farm’s library and bookstore and purchased a few books, including an Indian cookbook, before thanking our new friends and hitting the road for the drive back to our ashram in Laksman Jhula. The Navdanya experience was moving, inspiring, and thought-provoking. I would love to return for a longer stay and perhaps do some volunteer work there as a way to help this noble effort. "

For more information on the remarkable visionary Dr. Vandana Shiva, a physicist trained at the University of Western Ontario, click here.

(Pix by shaggy, baggy Farmer John who can be seen just above on the right.)

Summit Springs Farm, Maine , Redux--The Damn Greenhouse

The young couple struggling to erect the first-ever greenhouse on their farm in Poland, Maine have made considerable progress since we last looked over their shoulders. But this entry comes in the chill gray of the onset of winter, with the greenhouse not yet complete, and the duo in the dumps. Wisely, they have laid down the greenhouse struggle for now, and will readdress it come spring, perhaps with the aid of a nimble band of volunteers.

Summit Springs Farm--Garlic Salvation

I invite you to read the first entry in an occasional diary--that of a newly minted farmer, my nephew, John Sayles. ( NO, not that John Sayles.) Together with his wife, an experienced farmer, they are creating their own organic spread in Maine.   

October 2007

     Once we’d returned home for good from our season at Riverbank
Farm in Connecticut and taken a few days to unpack and organize some
things inside, garlic became our priority…getting beds ready, planting
the cloves, and mulching the beds.  We picked a spot on the western
side of the house, an area recently cleared and plowed by our helpful
neighbor and fellow farmer, Pete Bolduc.  The area was now carpeted with a
spray of weeds and grass, so we measured out what we needed--two 5-ft
wide, 100-ft long beds--and began weeding.

     We still don’t have a tractor, so we’d decided to try a
technique called “double digging” for the garlic.  Here’s how it
works:  You dig a trench about a foot wide and a foot deep across the
width of the bed.  The soil you remove goes into a wheelbarrow for later
use.  Once you’re a foot down, you then use a pitchfork to loosen the
next foot or so of soil.  Then, you move back another foot, and begin
digging your second trench, this time placing the soil you’re removing
into the first trench, then loosening the next layer, etc.  In this way
you move down the length of the bed, really aerating the soil and
preparing it for planting.  It’s a great idea, and while Sonya continued
to weed, I started digging.