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Wood
Prairie Farm
The
Seed
Piece Newsletter
Organic
News
and
Commentary
Friday,
September 04 2015
Volume 22 Issue 18
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In This
Issue of The Seed Piece:
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National
Heirloom Exhibition.
'Harvest
2015 Catalog' Headed to a Mailbox Near You. As of this week,
our new Harvest 2015
Catalog is in the mail so please keep an eye out.
Of
late, all of our work lists – apparent on any organizing clipboard –
have contained the significant division: Before NHE &
After NHE.
This weekend we’re off to California to attend - for our
first
time - the
5th Annual National Heirloom Exhibition.
The “Before
NHE” tasks have included digging early potatoes (See video elsewhere in
this Seed Piece),
killing early potatoes, and combining wheat.
Within days of returning from Santa Rosa, schools in our area will be
closing down for the annual Potato
Harvest Break. When schools
close, we’ll have our full crew - until Columbus Day - and that’s when
we’ll begin working at harvest.
Crops are looking good here
in Aroostook County. We hope, wherever you are, your
growing season has gone well and that a bountiful harvest awaits you.
.
Jim
&
Megan Gerritsen & Family
Wood
Prairie Farm
Bridgewater,
Maine
Click here for the
Wood Prairie Farm Home Page.
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Vandana Shiva.
Speaking from our experience of having heard her speak, we suggest you
go to great lengths to hear Vandana at this year's National Heirloom
Expo.
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National
Heirloom Exhibition Entices Vandana Shiva to Make Multiple Public
Presentations.
Dynamic, world-renowned good food and social
justice advocate Vandana
Shiva will be the headliner
at next week’s National
Heirloom Exhibition in Santa Rosa,
California. This year’s Fifth Annual Expo will run for three days beginning Tuesday,
September 8.
Vandana is arguably the world’s leading spokesperson on critical issues
of food and seed sovereignty, and justice for citizens and farmers
Attendees will have three opportunities to hear the articulate Vandana
speak at the Expo in the Sonoma Fairground’s Finley Hall. She
will provide
the kickoff Keynote
Address on Tuesday evening beginning at 7:10pm.
Then, on Wednesday evening, Vandana will be part of a Seed Summit
panel.
Finally, Vandana will appear
the last evening, Thursday, on a finale panel entitled, Reclaim Your
Seed Heritage, Reclaim Your Democracy: Monsanto Seed Patents and
Farmers, Where Are We Now? This closing event panel will
be moderated by organic food and farmer advocate, Lisa Stokke ,
co-founder and director of Food
Democracy Now! Joining Vandana on
the panel will be Dave
Murphy, co-founder and Executive Director of Food Democracy Now!,
and Wood Prairie Farm’s Jim
Gerritsen, President of
Organic
Seed Growers and Trade Association.
At last year’s National Heirloom Expo,
over 18,000 people
attended
and enjoyed the annual heirloom-themed pure food celebration.
Expo activities include massive displays of over 4,000 varieties of
fruits and vegetables, scores of demonstrations and talks, old-time
music, hundreds of exhibitors and vendors, Farmers Market, Fiddle Contest,
Giant Pumpkin Contest and much, much more.
In addition to speaking on the panel with Vandana Shiva, Jim will be
giving a talk on Thursday morning at 11:30am in Finley
Hall.
Jim’s talk is entitled, How
Real Organic is As Risk, Strong Standards Under Threat.
Throughout the 3-day Expo, Wood
Prairie Farm will have a booth in the
Vendor’s area. We will be selling our Organic
Maine Certified Seed Potatoes, our Organic
Vegetable Seed, T-Shirts
and more.
We know you will not be disappointed if
you can make it to this year's the Expo - Please come by our booth and
say ‘Hi.’
Jim & Megan
Click
Here for our Organic State of Maine Certified Seed Potatoes
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Special
Offer: Harvest
Help FREE Shipping On All
Orders! Hurry! Limited Time!
Farmers need help during harvest and that’s a
fact. If you
will help us by placing your order NOW
we’ll return the favor by offering you FREE Shipping on
that order!
•
FREE
Shipping can bring you huge savings! We need the
extra cash flow for the expense of Fall Potato Harvest. If
you act NOW you can save
up to hundreds of dollars with FREE Shipping!
•
Our
Special Harvest Help FREE Shipping Offer is our way of
thanking you for your business and loyalty and to encourage you to
order at this time.
•
FREE Shipping ANYTIME!
Place your order now for any
item in our Catalog - or on our Web Store (www.woodprairie.com)
- and get FREE Shipping
regardless
of whether you want your order to ship now, later this Fall, or in the
Winter or Spring.
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So, yes, this Special Harvest Help FREE
Shipping! Offer does
apply to our Organic Certified Seed Potatoes and includes seed potatoes
for both home gardeners and Market Farmers.
But don’t worry: FREE
Shipping also applies to everything,
including our Organic
Kitchen Potatoes, Organic
Grain Goods, Organic
Vegetables and Organic
Cover Crop Seed, Organic
Vegetable Seed and more!
In short, get FREE Shipping
on everything we offer!
Please use
Promo Code WPF470. Special Harvest Help
FREE Shipping! Offer order will be processed now and order
must ship by 5/6/16. Order may not be combined with other
offers or deals. Special
Harvest Help FREE Shipping! Offer is for retail orders
only and is limited to a maximum
$250 shipping credit so – farmers - you can SAVE BIG if you place your
order NOW! Please Note: Subzero transit
temperatures may delay mid-winter shipping preferences. Questions? Call
(800)829-9765! Special
Harvest Help FREE Shipping! Offer ends 11:59 p.m. Eastern,
Monday, September 7, 2015
Please
call or click today!
Click
Here for our Wood Prairie Farm ‘Organic Potatoes for the Kitchen’
Section.
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Organic Potatoes & More. Shipping is FREE for a
limited time.
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Early Harvesting of Seed Potatoes
on Wood Prairie Farm. These Seed Potatoes are headed to
Santa Rosa to be sold at our Booth at the Expo next week.
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New Video of Digging Potatoes with Green
Tops.
Last week – right before Wednesday’s 2 1/2” rain
storm
event – we harvested modest amounts of ten varieties of organic Maine
Certified Seed Potatoes. After sorting, sizing, bagging and
cooling, we shipped the sacks of Seed Potatoes out ahead of us to Santa
Rosa where they will be sold at our Wood Prairie Farm booth at the
upcoming National Heirloom Exhibition.
Last week the potato plants were still growing and the tubers still
sizing, so the potatoes have “green tops.” We dug carefully
by
hand to prevent damage to the tender tubers.
Catch all the potato field action in this
short You Tube Video (2:01)
we made of the harvest process. You’ll also get a chance to
hear
the mix of songs from the tractor radio tuned into our local Country
Classics radio station up in Presque Isle, Maine.
Jim & Megan
Click
Here for our Organic Maine Certified Seed Potatoes.
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Farmer’s Workshop: Build Yourself a Bedlifter.
If
you are handy at welding and fabrication – or have a friend who is – it
is not difficult to build a Bed Lifter. The Bed Lifter is a versatile
harvesting aid mounted to a tractor by the three-point
hitch which
raises and lowers it into the soil. Heavy buckets full of
concrete help with down pressure.
In the Bed
Lifter, the angled bottom blade is called the “spade” and it does all
the work of lifting up the soil and crop. Harvesting of crops is made
dramatically easier
when the soil is fluffed up by the Bed Lifter. Once you use a
Bed
Lifter, your life will be better and you will wonder how you ever got
along without one.
About twenty years ago, we
fabricated our Bed Lifter following a design from one owned by a friend
in Vermont. We made ours from used “grader blades”
that were gifted to us from the generous fellows at the Town Garage in
Bridgewater. Grader blades are the replaceable wear plates
bolted
to the bottom of heavy-duty dump truck-mounted snow plows.
“Road
Graders” also utilize such replaceable grader blades. If you
can
find them, grader blades are an excellent resource. Note that
grader blades are made of cast iron and will therefore need special
welding rods designed for welding cast iron. Do build your
Bed Lifter extra
heavy duty!
In operation we always
take it slow and easy – medium throttle in low gear with one foot
always near the clutch. By design, the spade digs deep.
In
our glacier-deposited country one never knows what unseen “ledge”
(bedrock) or boulder may be lurking hidden below the soil surface with
a
maniacal secret mission to trash invading farm equipment.
We designed
our Bed Lifter to be 6 ½ feet wide to work with our
six-foot-centered tractors. This width allows us to lift a
single
four-row-bed of carrots or, alternatively, a
double-three-foot
row of parsnips, beets, onions or – as the You Tube video in the
article above shows – potatoes. If your planting beds or
tractor are narrower than our set up then, you would want to scale down
the Bed Lifter
down.
Jim
Click
Here for Our Farm-Direct Certified Organic Fresh Vegetables.
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Homemade
Bedlifter. Indespensible for lifting beds of carrots,
parsnips, etc. Tape measure is extended to 3' for scale. |
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Recipe: Potato
Pepper Spanish Tortilla.
1 T olive oil, plus more for serving
1 lb Yukon
Gold potatoes, sliced 1/4" thick
1 pepper, ribs and seeds removed, thinly sliced
1 medium
onion, halved and thinly sliced
Coarse salt
and ground pepper
8 large eggs
1/4 c chopped fresh parsley
1/2 tsp hot sauce
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a medium skillet, heat oil over medium
heat. Add potatoes, pepper, and onion; season with salt and pepper.
Cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are
crisp-tender, 14-16 minutes. Uncover, and cook off excess liquid, about
one minute.
In a bowl, whisk together eggs, parsley, hot sauce, 1/2 tsp salt, and
1/2 tsp pepper. Pour mixture over vegetables in skillet, and gently
stir to distribute evenly. With the back of a spatula, press down on
vegetables so they lay flat and are submerged.
Bake in oven until set, about 15 minutes. To unmold, run a rubber
spatula around edge of skillet to release tortilla; invert onto a
serving plate. Drizzle with oil. Serve hot or room temperature.
Megan
Click
Here for Wood Prairie Farm Organic Vegetable Seed.
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A Delicious
and Healthy Meal.
Photo by Angela Wotton.
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Our Mailbox: Fall
Planting Texas Tips and Varieties For Fall Planting.
Fall Planting Texas
Tips.
Dear WPF.
Hi Megan,
You people are heroes. Fighting for
what is right against big business.
Here's how I plant Fall potatoes: I used to just
put them
in the ground and then the rains came and the tubers rotted. Now when I
get them, I put them in trays and mist them with water. They stay in a
dark closet for about three weeks.
At the end of
three weeks they usually have sprouted. If there are some dead potatoes
or sick ones or rotten ones I take them out of the tray.
Then I leave the remaining healthy potatoes for
about
another three weeks. At that point they usually have grown cute web
like rootlets on the bottom side of the potato.
Next I take the trays out in the sun and let them stay
outside
day (full sun) and night for a week. I don't know what that does to
them physically but it seems to pep them up and make them resistant to
disease.
Finally I put them in the ground. It
doesn't matter what side is up or down. I have used no herbicides or
pesticides or fungicides or other such stuff and in over 40 years I
have never had trouble with blight, beetles, or viruses.
The yields are big and they come on
fast. All the best.
BP
Seabrook, TX
WPF Replies.
Thank you so much. You are a good
teacher Old-timers have also swore greened-up Seed Potatoes resisted
disease.
Megan
Varieties For Fall
Planting.
Dear WPF.
I live in western Pennsylvania, Zone 5. I am interested in
planting this Fall, what would be a good variety that you have to plant?
KE
WWW
WPF Replies.
In
planting Fall potatoes you will want to select short dormancy varieties
such as Reddale, Onaway or Adirondack Blue which will sprout/grow
sooner than later. One customer in southern MI has done this Fall
planting for years. She is careful to use plenty of straw over the bed
as insultation from Winter's cold. The safest practice is to
keep seed
potatoes inside at room temperature in the dark until they break
dormancy and sprout. Then, after you see growth, plant away.
Good luck.
Jim.
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Wood Prairie Farm Quick
Links
Jim
& Megan Gerritsen
Wood
Prairie Farm
49
Kinney Road
Bridgewater,
Maine 04735
(800)829-9765
Certified Organic, Direct from the Farm
www.woodprairie.com
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