Category: Farming

This week’s Forecaster includes an article on Portlander’s new found ability to raise chickens in the city. Paris Farmers Union on Auburn Ave is a source for buying baby chicks. Portland Adult Ed is offering Chicken 101 classes, however all three sessions are alredy fully booked. The Union is getting a shipment of 800 chicks and the classes are sold out, but the Forecaster reports that only “four residents have taken out applications for permits”.

The Monument Square Farmers’ Market on Wednesday has kicked off a little early this year. According to a post from Portland in a Snap, farmer’s from Sumner Valley Farm and Uncle’s Farm Stand were there on Wednesday and will be returning next week, 8:30 to 1:30.

Today’s Press Herald has a wrap up on Maine Maple Sunday. Reportedly, some sugar houses even ran out of syrup to sell. There’s a photo slide show on the Press Herald site for those of you who didn’t make it out this year to see the action in person.

The First Lady and students from the Bancroft Elementary School in DC will break ground for a vegetable garden at the White House. The garden has been the goal of the Eat the View campaign, organized by Scarborough resident Roger Doiron. According to a press release, Doiron and Eat the View now hope to reach “out to other people and identifying other high-profile pieces of land that could be transformed into edible landscapes. Sprawling lawns around governors’ residences, schoolyards, vacant urban lots: those are all views that should be eaten.”

A Gorham sugar shack, The Lockman Place, is now producing kosher maple syrup certified by Hechsher of the Vaad of Portland. Rabbi Akiva Herzfeld from Congregation Shaarey Tphiloh administers the kosher certification process for the syrup.

Not sure about the difference between cage-free, free roaming, and free range eggs? Then you might want to read Meredith Goad’s article in the Food & Health section of today’s Press Herald. In addition to the article there’s also a handy egg labeling glossary.

Today’s Press Herald published a pair of articles from the Bangor Daily News on downsizing in the organic dairy business. Hood has decided not to renew contracts with about a third of their organic dairies in Maine and asked the rest to decrease their output.

The farms being dropped by Hood are in Aroostook and Washington counties only, an area courted heavily by Hood just three years ago, when the organic boom was at its peak.

Hood ships Maine’s organic milk to New York to be processed and packaged and then returns it to Maine where it is sold as Stonyfield Farm Organic Milk.

Sunset Farm Organics in Lyman run by MOFGA board member Paul Lorrain provides “gorgeous greenery” and vegetables to a number of Portland restaurants (Street & Co, Fore Street, Flatbread, Local 188, etc) throughout the winter months, according to this new eGullet Forums post by johnnyd.
Photo Credit: John Dennison