Volume 25 Issue 13

A Great Opportunity for All of Us to Help Our Neighbors in the Wood Prairie Community.
Special Offer: FREE Organic Red Russian Garlic Seed.
Download FREE Classic Work on Soil & Civilization.
Notable Quote: John F. Kennedy on Farmers.
Recipe: Potato Pepper Spanish Tortilla.
Mailbox: Wood Prairie Carola Best.

This edition of the Seed Piece may be found in our Wood Prairie Seed Piece Archives. 

      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.

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.

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.

Click Here for our Wood Prairie Certified Organic Cover Crop Seed.

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

A Delicious and Healthy Meal.
Photo by Angela Wotton.

Wood Prairie Farm Quick Links

Organic Maine Certified Seed Potatoes for Market Farmers

Organic Maine Certified Seed Potatoes for Home Gardeners

Organic Winter Rye Cover Crop Seed

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