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Friday,
August 26th, 2022
Volume 31 Issue 10
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In This Issue of The
Wood Prairie Seed Piece:
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This edition of the Seed
Piece may be found
in our Wood Prairie
Seed Piece Archives.
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Maine Fall
Upon Us.

Caleb Combining
Winter Rye on Wood Prairie Family Farm.
In this photo, earlier this month Caleb is driving
our 1973 ‘Massey Ferguson 300’ Grain Combine and
harvesting our rarely-available-elsewhere crop of ‘Aroostook’
variety Winter Rye. ‘Aroostook’ may
be the hardiest Winter Rye of all! It is renowned for
its soil-saving ability to grow at low temperatures
late into the Fall and then again early in the Spring.
Here in Bridgewater, it begins growing in Spring while
we still have patches of snow in our fields. In many
research trials, ‘Aroostook’ has proven to be the earliest
maturing Winter Rye. This makes ‘Aroostook’
Winter Rye especially valuable for Organic
No-Till planting of warm-season crops such as Corn
or Squash.
In the new Organic No-Till system, land has been
prepared for planting with a dense covering of
‘rooted-mulch’ - commonly tall Winter Rye killed with
the use of an innovative water-filled chevron-pattern
‘Crop Roller.’

Now, the field in this shot grew our crop of Organic
Seed Potatoes just last year. As
soon as a plot had been dug it was planted immediately
to ‘Aroostook’ Winter Rye and undersown to three types
of Clover - Organic
Medium Red Clover, Organic
Yellow Blossom Sweet Clover and Organic
Alsike Clover - plus Organic
Timothy Grass.
The lovely Brown-Eyed
Susan aka Organic 'Rudbekia’ Flowers you
see are volunteers from a perimeter planting last year
of annual Beneficial
Insect Flowers. Those Flowers were planted
to attract, nourish and sustain the Beneficial Insects
which helped keep in check harmful Insect pests that
aimed to feast on our Potatoes.
In this issue of the Seed Piece, back
by popular demand, we are renewing a feature we’ve
called Megan’s Kitchen Recipes. These favorite
Recipes will highlight simple and delicious dishes
which are centered around the bounty we may all
harvest from our kitchen gardens.
Also, please consider taking advantage of this issue’s
Special Offer
on Fall-planted Organic
Red Russian Garlic seed. This is a limited
availability item so please, do yourself a favor
and ORDER TODAY before we sell out.
Thanks so much! Stay safe & stay warm!

Caleb,
Jim & Megan Gerritsen & Family
Wood Prairie Family Farm
Bridgewater,
Maine
Special Offer!
Red Russian Garlic.
Orders for Organic
‘Red Russian’ Garlic Seed are NOW being
accepted!
Shipments begin mid-Sept 2022! Limited
Availability! Please order soon before we sell
out!
Special
Offer! Buy 5-Pounds and SAVE 10%
When we delivered the last Wood Prairie Seed
Piece our computer system buckled and
became overwhelmed with the tremendous response for
this superb Fall-Planted Rocambole, stiffneck Red
Russian Garlic.
We don’t want anyone to suffer because of our computer
mishap. So we’re repeating our Special Offer right
now! But PLEASE HURRY! We
are certain to SELL OUT SOON
on Red
Russian Garlic and we don’t want to
disappoint you. ORDER
TODAY! Thanks!
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Maine Tales. What's
the Matter with Nebraska? Circa 1911.
Watson
Settlement Covered Bridge.
This historic Covered Bridge spans the Meduxnekeag
River and is located in the outskirts of rural Littleton
close to the Canadian Border. Built in 1911
and 150-feet long by twenty-feet wide, it was one of
just nine Covered Bridges - and one of the youngest
- left in the State of Maine. Last year in
June, Caleb and Lizzi were married in a nearby huge old
Maine barn which has been re-purposed into a
spectacularly-stunning timbered wedding venue. We
passed by this beautiful bridge each time we drove from
our Wood Prairie Family Farm to the barn where the
wedding took place.
About forty years ago we got into a
tussle over Covered Bridges. Our friend had moved to
Aroostook County to raise sheep. He was from
Nebraska and after farming in the town next door to us he
eventually went back to western Nebraska to run a large
2500-ewe sheep ranch.
We kept a small flock of Rambouillet sheep at Wood Prairie
at the time and our friendship sprouted from our mutual
interest in the sheep biz.
Covered Bridge
Controversy
We never came to blows over Covered Bridges, but we also
never came to any reasonable conclusion as to why they
were invented. Covered Bridges were fairly common in
Maine and the snowy Northeast, but they were absent
in Nebraska. Why was that?
Was the heavy snow in Maine a factor? In the old days
before snow-plowing they ‘rolled’ the snow, so that horses
with sleighs and sleds would travel during Winter on top
of the packed snow. With a deep buildup of snow,
were Mainers worried a horse might slip off the bridge
into the icy waters below? Were horses scared by the sound
and sight of rushing water?
Our friend argued that in Covered Bridge-less Nebraska
it also snowed – though the wind blows the snow much
more there in the vast treeless expanse – and while that
country was dry they had at least some creek water which
rushed by, doing so without scaring Nebraska horses.
Modern Re-Discovery
Turns out the debate about the long lost reason behind
Covered Bridges has over the decades attracted a
surprising amount of conversation and speculation in
places far afield. There is now broad consensus and
confidence that we moderns have miraculously
rediscovered what our forebears understood,
unlocking why they went to all that trouble of building
Covered Bridges.
They were motivated by longevity and economy.
Here in the rainy and snowy Maine woods country everything
was built from lumber because wood was so readily
available and inexpensive. An uncovered wood bridge
would last ten, or possibly twenty years before needing
replacing. On the other hand a Covered Bridge,
offering perfect protection to wood joints and truss
timbers would last a century.
Frugal New England farmers understood it was in the end
much less costly, and way more practical, to build
right a single primary bridge every hundred years
than to build five or ten bridges on the cheap in need of
perpetual replacement.
So when Town Meeting rolled around every March, being
careful and accountable with the tax dollars they assessed
themselves, Maine’s rural citizens would vote to do
things right and appropriate funds for the tried and
true. That meant building Covered Bridges that would last
and be an investment in community.
Caleb, Megan & Jim
The
Sad Remains of the Watson Bridge. Less than a
month after their wedding day last Summer, the Watson
Bridge was destroyed by fire. Arson has been
suspected and the investigation by authorities is
ongoing.
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Megan's
Kitchen Recipes:
Roasted Garlic and Potato Soup
1 large garlic
head, unpeeled
6 T extra-virgin olive oil
2 bay leaves
1/4 loaf day-old baguette, cubed
3/4 tsp salt,
plus more to taste
1 medium red
onion, chopped
1 small carrot,
chopped
1 1/2 pounds Carola
or Baltic
Rose (Creamy
Mid Dry) potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2"
cubes
1/2 fresh ground pepper
3 c chicken or vegetable broth
4 ounces Fontina cheese, cut into 1/4" cubes
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Slice off top quarter of
garlic head. Place on aluminum foil, cut-side up, and
drizzle with 1 T olive oil. Add 1 bay leaf. Fold foil over
garlic. Roast in a baking dish until garlic cloves are soft
and golden brown, about 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, on a rimmed baking sheet, toss together bread, 2
T olive oil and salt to taste. Bake, stirring once or twice,
until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Set aside.
In a heavy-duty pot over medium-high heat, heat remaining 3
T olive oil. Add onion, carrot, and potatoes and cook,
stirring occasionally, until onion and carrot have softened,
8 to 10 minutes. Mix in 3/4 tsp salt and 1/2 pepper and add
remaining bay leaf. Add broth and 2 c water to vegetables,
increase heat to high, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to
medium-low and allow soup to simmer until potatoes are very
tender, about 30 minutes. Remove bay leaf. Squeeze garlic
head, from bottom up, to push out each clove into soup;
stir. Simmer soup for 5 more minutes.
Puree soup in blender. Whisk Fontina into soup over low heat
until cheese melts and is fully incorporated. Sprinkle soup
with croutons and serve hot.
Serves 6
Source: Country Living Magazine, February 2011 |

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Wood Prairie Family
Farm Photos.

Fixing What’s Broke on Wood Prairie Family Farm. Years ago when Caleb and
his older brother, Peter, were still young they would often
fret when some piece of our old farm equipment would break
down. So, we’d then again remind them, “We’re farmers. Our
job is to fix things that are broken.” They both had their
own tool boxes and they relished being given, say, a radio
which had been dropped one too many times and instructed, “Take
this thing apart for me, OK?” The farming life has
caused them both to become problem solvers. When they were
in high school they would drive snowmobiles around with
their friends through the woods and fields half the night
until someone’s sled blew up an engine. Then, with a tow
rope and the strongest sled still working they’d drag home
the busted sled and swap out or rebuild the engine. After
another night or two of repairing, they’d be back out in the
Maine woods on their sleds living the dream, all the while
becoming good mechanics through the hard knocks educational
system called Equipment Breakdown. In this shot Caleb (left)
and co-worker Justin weld a broken cast-iron piece from the
grain combine which broke down just an hour before Caleb
would have finished up combining all of our Aroostook
Winter Rye. It's a tricky job to weld cast
iron. It takes special cast-iron-welding-rods plus the
broken metal pieces must be ground and heated up just right
with an acetylene torch in order for the weld to hold and be
strong for the rough and tumble field conditions.

Amy Getting the Ground Ready for Next Year’s Crop of Organic
Seed Potatoes.
Hours ahead of a Summer Nor'Easter, Caleb's sister, Amy,
discs the last of next year's Potato
fields. Justin & Jim had already spread barnyard manure
on the fields. Then, Caleb had plowed and now Amy is
completing the last step of smoothing out the plow furrows
with our 92 HP Oliver 1850 Diesel pulling a 15-foot wide
John Deere "Tandem Disc Harrow" aka 'Disc.' By dark that
night - just ahead of the rain - Jim had seeded the field to
a combination of Organic
Buckwheat and Biofumigant Rapeseed cover crops.
This is rich soil which we have been farming organically for
almost 50 years. It has a high organic matter content of
about 6-7%.

What Cover Crop Growth Looks Like Ten Days After
Planting. In the warm Summer
soil, it took the large Organic Buckwheat seed just six
days to emerge after a perfect soaking rain. Executing
seeding just ahead of a rain gets a cover crop off to a
fast start and disadvantages weeds. The Organic
Buckwheat has the larger, lighter green
leaves planted in a row. Biofumigant Rapeseed, a
kissing-cousin to Biofumigant Organic
Oilseed Radish, has plants that are more
highly scattered. The Rape leaves are smaller and darker
green.
The Buckwheat sprouts and grows fast and will continue
with its rocket-like growth nursing along the
slower-growing Rape until warm-season-crop Buckwheat
is cut down next month by the first Fall frost. After that
frost, the hardy Rape will takeover and grow until the
cold weather of early November, when heat units will have
run out and growth will have ceased. Then, we'll plow down
our mat of Cover Crop right before the ground freezes
solid for the duration of the Winter.

Organic Crimson Clover – The Surprise Superstar of
our 2022 Beneficial Insect Flower Beds. This
Summer, the Organic
Crimson Clover we planted in the seed
mix for our acre of Experimental Beneficial Insect
refuges inside and around our Potato
fields did absolutely AMAZING! We’re thinking the
Crimson really appreciated all the rain we received this
Spring and the absence of weed completion. After getting
off to a fast start, the annual Organic
Crimson Clover, alongside Organic
Phacelia and Organic
Cosmos dominated the Beneficial Beds. This
year our Organic Flowers grew so lush that weeds never
had a chance. We had taken a page from the days back
when we used to grow Organic
Carrots commercially. We prepared the Flower
beds, waited seven days, then flamed the “Stale” beds
with our propane Flamer immediately before planting to
kill nascent weeds. Then we seeded right before a gentle
rain. This photo was taken this week and the Crimson has
remained in continuous beautiful bloom, attracting
Beneficial Insects which eat insect pests harmful to
Potatoes, for a full six weeks.

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Caleb & Jim & Megan Gerritsen
Wood Prairie Family Farm
49 Kinney Road
Bridgewater, Maine 04735
(207) 429 - 9765
Certified Organic, From Farm to Mailbox
www.woodprairie.com
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