Spanish Lit Scholar, Extreme Adventurer Turns Thin Layer of Topsoil into Thriving Four Season Farm

Barbara Damrosch and Eliot Coleman of Four Season Farm in Maine. Photo Credit: Four Season Farm.

Nothing is impossible - so says a rock climber with his head pitched back staring up an ugly face of granite, a kayaker caught in a squall, a skier pointing tips down a sheet of black ice – or a man who has done all of this and then taken up farming Down East where topsoil is barely deeper than the pine pollen on windowsills in May. After chasing adventure in the guise of a Spanish literature scholar with a taste for Chilean deep powder, cliffs and white water, Eliot Coleman got himself some acreage.

Of course a lot happened in between, but the story of Four Season Farm and how it came to be began with Coleman turning his quest for adventure away from situational adrenaline surges to another sort of challenge: to extract sugar carrots from a fir wood rooted on ledge.

It was late 1960’s when Coleman came back down to earth. A decade earlier the back-to-the-land how-to book, ‘Living the Good Life’, by Helen and Scott Nearing had emerged and became something of a bible among the younger set. Read More

Competition from the North Pushes Resourceful Rhode Island Hydroponic Farmer to Downsize and Diversify

A show of the diverse products offered by Absalona Greenhouse, a hydroponic farm based in Chepachet, Rhode Island. Photo Credit: Mark Phillips.

A job done right looks easy. Likewise Swiss chard that has celebrated five birthdays and boasts a girth of six inches looks normal at Mark Phillips’ Absalona Greenhouse Farm in Chepachet, Rhode Island. Twenty years now in the business of hydroponic farming, Phillips has mastered the art of soil-free growing. Of his accumulated knowledge what he didn’t learn from his plants themselves he mostly learned from listening to his gut rather than to opinions of others.

“I fell into it. I didn’t think I was going to work for myself,” said Phillips who earned an environmental studies degree in college. Unbeknownst to him his career was set in motion the day he took a job at a greenhouse the summer after graduating. But he took to the work and in 1990 decided to go into business for himself. Read More

Mycophilia Takes Root in Northeast as Pioneering Massachusetts Mushroom Farmer Grows Market for Organic Caps

Leo Mondragon of Forest Harvest Farm with a harvest of mushrooms. Photo Credit: Forest Harvest Farm.

There’s a mystery to mushrooms that’s missing from say carrots or kale. Devoid of chlorophyll, they lack the color we associate with health and vigor. In that ‘destroying angel’ and ‘death cap’ are names meant to quell appetites, it’s logical that some would never sample even the tiniest taste of wild mushroom. That said, few tastes delight more than oyster mushrooms sauteed in butter and seasoned with a splash of sherry, or a warm broth made of fresh hen-of-the-woods. Leo Mondragon owner of Forest Harvest Farm, an organic wild mushroom farm in Petersham, Massachusetts, knows this well and has made it his business to share the pleasure.

What grows on Forest Harvest Farm is mushrooms, some where Mondragon scatters their spores, and some where he can only hope to find them. Read More

A Primer on Soil – Agricultural Inputs and Their interaction with Soil Ecology

For most of us soil, or “dirt”, is something to get rid of, even to fear. Millions are spent on television ads to tell us how to fight dirt and win. A farmer’s relationship with the stuff that gets under fingernails, however, is starkly different. To reap a harvest and turn a profit, a farmer must work with dirt, or as one crop advisor calls it, “that black box we call soil.” All inputs, chemicals included, are applied to optimize harvests and net profit. But earth, from which seeds sprout, though seemingly simple in its brownness, is not a single entity; rather it is a complex ecosystem as full of mystery as the depths of the sea. Since it is from the earth that all terrestrial life springs, it is worthy to ask: what of crop plants, agricultural chemicals and this little known realm that absorbs them? Read More

UVM Farmer Training Program Teaches Students Sustainability Hinges on Financial Fitness

University of Vermont's Farmer Training Program class of 2011. Photo: UVM

If beer is a reliable indicator, rosy times lie ahead for American agriculture and those who like fresh wholesome food. As the 70’s gave way to the 80’s, doomsayers predicted that if the going trend of consolidation continued only 5 beer-brewing companies would exist by the 1990’s. But something happened and that something was the rise of the craft brewer. Today this phenomenon is happening again, this time with peas and carrots. At agricultural training programs cropping up at such places as the University of California, Santa Cruz, New York’s Groundswell Center for Local Food and Farming, Michigan State University, and now at the University of Vermont’s Farmer Training Program, one diverse student group after another is endeavoring to reinvent and reinvigorate farming. Read More

Bronx Educator Grows Organically Engaged Citizens

Stephen Ritz, Founder of The Green Bronx Machine

There’s a lot to the Stephen Ritz story. As told in rapid fire by the man himself the whole quickly disperses like an exploding star. He’s a kid from the South Bronx, the world’s oldest 6^th grader. As an athlete in a different life he spent time in NBA camps. For a spell he would consume two-dozen eggs a day. Yes, he has had a critical health issue – more than one even. “I would have eaten myself to death,” he says letting the words hang in the air. He is high energy. He is a teacher. He is a parent. He is the originator and driving force behind an agriculture educational project called The Green Bronx Machine. Read More

Organics: Are They Affordable?

It’s a statement that many of us have overheard or mumbled to ourselves; “Sure I’d like to buy organic and eat more healthfully- if I could afford to.” Some, like this writer, have rejoiced at a weighty organic heirloom tomato only to abandon it at the checkout counter when its price comes in at $4.00. By association organic = precious = expensive. Or does it?

Most of us are not economists, but we are aware that two variables dictate the value or price of any given commodity: supply and demand. The question then is how does the supply and demand of organic food measure up? The answer comes from trips to the store or farm and conversations with people who consider this question every day. Read More

A Look at the State of Honey Bees in Today’s Agriculture

Next time you help yourself to a handful of almonds – raw, salted, whole, slivered or blanched – make sure to give some thanks to a honey bee. And consider doing the same when you inhale the sweet smell of blossoms from the florist or in your garden. Honey bees after all don’t just bring us honey; they bring us most of the foods we eat. Their importance to agriculture cannot be overstated. As pollinators, honey bees and their kin in the family Apidae are the keepers of plant diversity worldwide. Read More

Problem Solving and Business Savvy Fuel Growth of 45-acre Sustainable Organic Farm in Rhode Island

The monument to the Rhode Island Red chicken speaks volumes. Not found in Idaho, Florida, California or other agricultural superpower states, the bronze plaque mounted on granite is located in Adamsville, a small village in Little Compton, Rhode Island. The Rhode Island Red, which originated in Little Compton, is so highly regarded in fact that one black-breasted rooster said to be a foundation sire is stuffed and on display at the Smithsonian Institution. That Little Compton, a peninsula located in the nation’s smallest state, produced such an exemplary egg layer may surprise some but likely not those familiar with Little Compton’s Wishing Stone Farm. Owned and operated by husband and wife team Liz Peckham and Skip Paul, Wishing Stone Farm is a highly productive 45 acre sustainable farm situated on that same sea stroked neck of land. Read More