Winter's Last Hurrah.

Unloading Organic Rock Fertilizer on Wood Prairie Family Farm.

     With snow in the air last week Caleb used our Clark Forklift to unload eight tons of Organic Rock Powder Fertilizer blend in tote bags from our friends at Lancaster Ag Products. Using soil and leaf testing to guide us, we fine tune the fertility levels in each individual field where we’ll be growing this year’s crop of Organic Maine Certified Seed Potatoes. Our aim is to reach full soil mineralization and achieve maximum nutrient density which makes for the very highest quality Organic Seed Potatoes.

     That load of Organic Fertilizer was delivered to our farm all the way from Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania by Sammy Soltzfus, son of LAP founder Reuben Stoltzfus. When Sammy left at midnight, it was Spring in Lancaster County. By the time he crossed the Penobscot River and ventured into Northern Maine he was back into Winter and it was beginning to snow. Here, Caleb is unloading with the Clark forklift and Sammy is putting away his load-ratchet-straps.

     After joining us for a late noontime meal of fried eggs and fried Potatoes, Sammy was anxious to head back south before the snow picked up. His timing was perfect and by the time he got down to Bangor the snow had changed over to rain. What Sammy skillfully dodged was our latest Aroostook County half-foot of new snow.

     Who would have thought snow and the tail-end of our Winter would become the theme in this week’s Wood Prairie Seed Piece? In this issue we share some chilly Farm Stories about farmlife in Maine’s frozen North. Also, we have a Special Limited Time Offer for a FREE Wood Prairie Organic Potato Blossom Festival. Plus a fun NEW! “Potatoes: Beginner’s Starter Guide” Podcast (31:00) from Gardening Educator Jill McSheehy and More!

     As you must know by now, we’ve had our Organic Farm for almost 50 years. Wood Prairie Family Farm is 100% Organic and we always have been. So, you can count on us for ALL your Organic needs, including Organic Seed Potatoes, Organic Sweet Potato Slips, Organic Vegetable Seed, Organic Herb Seed, Organic Flower Seed, Organic Cover Crop Seed, Organic Fertilizer, and Tools and Supplies.

     We’re grateful for your friendship and business. Thank you so much!

Bridgewater, Maine

 

Pallets of Organic Seed Potatoes Awaiting Their Turn to Ship. Because by all measures the prime Spring planting season for Potatoes across the USA represents a relatively narrow window, it takes a surprising amount of planning and maneuvering for a small family farm to be able to keep up with the flow during the peak shipping tsunami of March and April. To the greatest extent possible, we try to organize our work-year so our crew – that’s those in our family and the neighbors who help us – can focus intently on keeping up with your many thousands of orders we ship during the March/April rush. The clock starts ticking when we work hard to plant Potatoes on-time in May, to enable us to harvest on-time in September. This timing allows us to suberize (wound healing) our Seed tubers in October. Immediately after suberization, we quickly drop the temperature in our underground Potato storage down to the perfect long-term-storage temp of 38ºF. Then in November we begin cleaning, sizing and pre-grading our entire Organic Potato crop. That way we can finish grading in January, ahead of the northward march of Spring, which begins in the deep South. After grading we like to put up major orders prior to that March/April crunch-time window. In this shot, pallets of Organic Seed Potatoes in our underground storage have been stretch-wrapped and placarded. They await their turn for the trip of their life, an all-expenses-paid road tour to a warmer clime somewhere south of us.

  Cardinals Takes Up Winter Residence on Wood Prairie Family Farm. For the first time ever – after waiting nearly 50 years – this Winter we have had a nesting pair of Northern Cardinals take up residence on Wood Prairie Family Farm. In this photo you can see the brilliant, bright-red male as seen from a window in our office. His mate is usually close at hand, though she is quite a bit more muted in color. Because the snow had piled up nearly to the top of her office window, this week Megan had to shovel the snow back so that her feathered friends could regain access to their buried window bird feeder. In addition to the Cardinals, Megan has been supplying Sunflower seeds to Evening Grosbeaks, Mourning Doves, Blue Jays, Nut Hatches, and Chickadees. Mainers value loyalty. The small and easily recognizable Black-capped Chickadee was named the Maine State Bird back in 1927. Chickadees stay around Maine all Winter, just like the rest of us.