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The Wood
Prairie Seed Piece
e-Newsletter
Organic
News
and
Commentary
Friday,
September 8th 2017
Volume
25 Issue 13
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In This
Issue of The Wood
Prairie Seed
Piece:
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Work
Behind. Work Ahead.
Life on an
Acadian Farm in Northern Maine, Circa 1942. A
great shot taken by documentary photographer John Collier in northern
Aroostook County - where the land is more rolling than down here in
central Aroostook in which we're a notch or two less rolling.
Our township - TD R2 - first got
electricity 23 years ago, the month Caleb was born. Up until then we
had an outside hand pump similar to what the little girl was struggling
with. When it was -30oF in January a pot of boiling hot water got
things moving. We'd pump by hand 40 gallons of water a day for our
livestock and domestic use.
Our nearest Bridgewater neighbors, Bud
& Myreta Shaw, first got grid electricity in the late 1950s. Up
until then they hand pumped even more water every day for their
moderate herd of cattle.
The original unmachined
cedar-tree-poles holding up the 1950s power lines were only replaced
about a dozen years ago.
We remember well that the first thing
we installed after getting electricity was a submersible pump for the
well!
Fall is here. A week
from now school’s close for Potato Harvest recess and we’ll begin
digging our potato crop. We hope everything has been growing
well wherever you are.
.
Caleb,
Jim
&
Megan Gerritsen & Family
Wood
Prairie Family Farm
Bridgewater,
Maine
Click here for the
Wood Prairie Family Farm Home Page.
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A Great Opportunity for All of
Us to Help Our Neighbors in the Wood Prairie Community.
We have recently begun partnering with leading
Review community platform, Trust
Pilot. After watching Trust Pilot for
a couple of years, at the recent Direct Gardening Association
conference held in Portland, Maine, Jim attended a great session by
Trust Pilot’s Jim McDougal who it turns out was a graduate of Maine’s
Colby College. The two Jims quickly got together and the
result is we’re now up and running with Trust Pilot and actively
collecting Reviews which are posted online.
Our Trust
Pilot team – after having worked with many hundreds of companies - has
marveled at the swift and overwhelmingly
positive flood of Reviews to come in since we
started up ten days ago. We’ve been pleased, too, but not
surprised. As we explained to our team, the reason for our
farm’s success is we have the best customers in the world! Read
our Reviews and you’ll see what we mean by your
warm words of support.
Please Help!
Now we have a
special favor to ask each of you. Please help your fellow
customers learn how different varieties grow in each of your
States. Please leave a Review
(Click on Orange Button at top of page) - as many as you
like! Be sure to mention your State and do let us all know
how our various organic potato, vegetable and cover crop seeds have
performed in your garden. |
Thank you
all so much!
Caleb, Megan and Jim
Please
Click Here for Our Organic Wood Prairie Maine Certified Seed Potatoes.
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Trust Pilot
Reviews. Helping neighbors and friends know
which varieties grow best locally. |

Hard Neck
Rocambole Garlic. Ours is phenominal for planting or
eating.
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Special Offer:
FREE
Organic Red Russian Garlic Seed.
We have some of the best ever Organic
Red Russian Garlic and it’s now
ready-to-ship! Our Rocambole garlic is top quality seed
designed to plant in the Fall – even here in Maine with our brutal
winters – or it can be used to cook with right away in your own
kitchen. Please place your orders now before it is all
gone!
Here’s our savory
deal. Get some FREE
Organic Red Russian Garlic Seed (Value $24.95) when your
next order totals $99 or more. FREE
Organic Red Russian Garlic Seed Offer ends 11:59 PM on
Monday, September 11, 2017, so please act right away! Offer
good while supplies last.
Please use Promo Code WPFF412. Your order
and FREE Organic Red
Russian Garlic Seed must ship by December 5, 2017. Offer
may not be combined with other offers. Please call or click today!
Click
Here for for Wood Prairie Certifed Organic Vegetable Seed |
Download FREE Classic
Work on Soil & Cultivation.
One of our favorite in-depth articles about the
importance of soil stewardship is Conquest
of the Land Through 7,000 Years by W. C.
Lowdermilk's. Nearly four decades ago we secured
our copy in the form of a printed booklet available from our local
office of what was then called USDA’s Soil Conservation Service (now
NRCS).
Dr. Lowdermilk's personal
report of a larger study serves to provide important historical linkage
to the 125-year-old organic farming revolution. Organic
farming originated as a reform movement begun in reaction to alarming,
developing ‘modern’ mainstream farming practices whose failings were
already becoming apparent to wise and visionary soil stewards.
Taking proper care of the soil
is as critical as it is age-old and wise. Proper soil care removes
excess carbon from the atmosphere – where it causes climate chaos – and
sequesters it in the soil where it belongs as increased organic matter.
For over a century, soil-based regenerative organic farming has been
leading the way. The preface to Dr. Lowdermilk’s powerful
article tells the fascinating story.
Jim
Preface
Conquest of the Land through
7,000 Years’ is Dr. Walter Clay Lowdermilk’s personal report of a study
he made in 1938 and 1939. Despite changes in names of countries, in
political boundaries, and in conservation technology, the bulletin
still has significance for all people concerned with maintaining and
improving farm production.
Lowdermilk studied the record of agriculture in countries where the
land had been under cultivation for hundreds, even thousands, of years.
His immediate mission was to find out if the experience of these older
civilizations could help in solving the serious soil erosion and land
use problems in the United States, then struggling with repair of the
Dust Bowl and the gullied South.
He discovered that soil erosion, deforestation, overgrazing, neglect,
and conflicts between cultivators and herders have helped topple
empires and wipe out entire civilizations. At the same time, he learned
that careful stewardship of the earth’s resources, through terracing,
crop rotation, and other soil conservation measures, has enabled other
societies to flourish for centuries.
Much of what Lowdermilk learned and wrote about land use and soil
productivity began with his pioneering research work in China, where
his wife was a Methodist missionary. Following the communist Chinese
uprising in 1927, Lowdermilk and his wife returned to the United
States. While he was earning his Ph.D. at the University of
California-Berkeley, he continued soil erosion and watershed management
research for the Forest Service. In 1933, he joined Hugh Hammond
Bennett at the just-created Soil Erosion Service as the assistant
director and later became the assistant chief of the Soil Conservation
Service, predecessor to the Natural Resources Conservation Service. As
assistant chief, Lowdermilk held primary responsibility for developing
the research program of the agency. The trips described in this
bulletin inspired his work Palestine: Land of Promise, which proclaimed
that through proper care, the land could once again support a large
population.
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One of the
Great Lessons of History. Taking good care of the soil is
not optional. |
Notable Quotes: John F.
Kennedy on Farmers.
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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
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A Delicious
and Healthy Meal.
Photo by Angela Wotton.
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Mailbox: Wood
Prairie Carola Best
Wood Prairie Carola Best.
Caleb, Your seed is the best! Three
sources of seed Carola, spacing is 60" x 14-16". Approaching full row
closure today on August 31st from a July 4th planting. You can see some
legume companion crops, mostly Field Peas and Chickling Vetch are
showing. Your seed has consistently been the strongest plants and with
no skips.
MF
Monroe, ME
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Wood Prairie Farm Quick
Links
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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