|
|
|
|
Wood
Prairie Farm
The
Seed
Piece Newsletter
Organic
News
and
Commentary
Thursday September 12, 2013

|
In This
Issue of The Seed Piece:
|
FREE Shipping
Harvest Help Offer And Then Digging Begins.
Potato Harvest Preview
- September's Sampler of the Month. We
have been wet now for almost two months running. This most recent wet
followed a
month of Maine-style-drought. That was preceded by another
two
months of wet. Northern Maine’s display of climate chaos
these
past 8-10 years appears as very stubborn patterns of mostly wet
accented by similarly stubborn periods of dry with little compromise
between the two.
We’ll begin
digging potatoes after this week’s current stormy stretch passes with
more rain on the way for today and tonight. Last evening we had our
first ever ‘Tornado Warning’ automated telephone calls from the NOAA
Weather Office in Caribou. Gratefully, no tornado landed in
these
parts. Investigators are now examining whether a tornado hit the
70-resident Oxbow Plantation, 25 miles due west of Wood Prairie Farm.
Since that storm cell was traveling east at 40 MPH, we again thank
Number Nine Mountain, our reliable protector six miles to our west for
again keeping us safe in its shadow. We had lots of wind and rain but
just one broken window and a few snapped trees.
Our well-drained sandy loam soil will eventually
dry and
then we’ll begin digging potatoes, it looks like maybe by Sunday of
this
weekend. Local schools close next week for the extended
three-and-a-half week “Harvest Break” after a half-day
Thursday.
By school’s close we like to have dug our seed plots, harvested some of
the three early varieties destined for September Potato
Sampler of the
Month, Dark
Red Norland, Yukon
Gold and Caribe.
It also gives us a chance to identify and repair any bugs we discover
in our equipment.
If you would like some good organic
eating potatoes for your kitchen, call us and
order a September
Sampler and we’ll ship it on the next rainy day
after the tubers are dug from our field.
If you place any order right now you will save big
with
our Harvest
Help FREE Shipping! Offer. But do hurry, because
the FREE Shipping
Offer on all our goods ends on Monday, September 16, at
Midnight.
What farmers in Northern Maine most need right
now is a
month or six weeks of dry weather to get the potato crop safely in and
get Fall
field work completed. We hope, wherever you are, that the weather holds
and that you harvest good and bountiful crops.
Jim
&
Megan Gerritsen & Family
Wood
Prairie Farm
Bridgewater,
Maine
(800) 829-9765
Click here for the
Wood Prairie Farm Home Page. |
OSGATA et al
v. Monsanto. Petition filed with US Supreme Court.
|
Interview
Covers Principles At Stake in OSGATA
et al v. Monsanto.
|
See You at This
Year's MOFGA Common Ground County Fair.
If you are in New England, you have
likely heard of the Maine
Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association’s
premier event, the Common
Ground Country Fair, held every year, the third
weekend of September. The Common Ground Country Fair is the
largest organic gathering anywhere in North America. This year’s three
day fair is the 37th Annual CGCF and it is coming up fast: next week,
Friday through Sunday, September 20-22. Don’t miss it!
Every year 60,000 people flood
through the gates to the three-day agricultural event held at MOFGA’s
beautiful Common Ground headquarters in the central Maine farming
community of Unity. Operations and logistics at the Fair are
handled by a modest group of MOFGA staffers aided by nearly 2000 Fair
Volunteers.
If you have already attended,
you know how unique the
Common Ground Country Fair is with its eclectic ‘Celebration of Rural
Living.’ You will enjoy hundreds of rural-themed activities,
demonstrations, workshops, speakers, booths, vendors, services, farm
animals, children’s fun, foods and the Organic Farmers Market.
Most especially if you have never
been to the Common Ground Fair, you must
make plans to attend. Once you do attend, we guarantee you
will want to come back. Since it is impossible to see
everything in one day, plan to attend for two or even three days. Find
the full Schedule of Events at the 2013 Common Ground Country Fair here.
Since the Common Ground Fair occurs
each year during Aroostook County’s potato harvest we don’t often make
it down. However, this year will be different. We will be at the Common Ground
Fair on Saturday, September 21, to participate in a Public Policy
Teach-In from 200-330pm, entitled ‘Maine’s GMO Labeling Campaign –
Where We Go From Here.’ On this Teach-in Panel:
Representative Lance Harvell (R-Farmington) and Senator Chris Johnson
(D-Lincoln), the two primary sponsors of LD 718, Maine’s recently
passed historic GMO Label bill; Laura Murphy, Vermont Law
School professor and legal expert on GMO labeling; Wood Prairie Farm’s
Jim Gerritsen, who helped MOFGA with its successful campaign.
Read the new two-part narrative
from the Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener newspaper on MOFGA’s
remarkable GMO Label Bill battle here.
Read
Jim Gerritsen’s Keynote Address at the 2010 Common Ground Fair,
“Thirty-Five Years of Watching the Maine Organic Community Grow,” here.
View Jim’s
2010 CGCF “Thirty Five Years”Address on YouTube here.
We hope to meet you on Saturday at the Common Ground Country Fair. See
you there.
Jim & Megan
MOFGA
Members Attend CGCF FREE! Click Here to Become a MOFGA Member Today. |
America's
Largest Organic Event. See you there.
|

Klari Baby
Cheese Pepper. Good pepper, good seed. |
FREE Seed Saving
Guides
Here are two valuable and concise seed-saving publications
you will want to print out for reading and future reference.
The first is written by our friend and
organic seed farmer, Roberta Bailey of Seven Tree Farm in Vassalboro,
Maine. It is entitled “Seed Saving on the Farm.”
The second is Bulletin #2750 from the
Maine Cooperative Extension Service, entitled, “An Introduction to Seed Saving
for the Home Gardener.” It is written by our
friend, Extension Vegetable Specialist Mark Hutton. Mark has
a background as a seed breeder.
Both pieces are helpful and compliment
one another.
Jim
Click Here
for Our Wood Prairie Farm Organic Vegetable Seed.
|
Notable Quotes:
Supreme Court Justice Story on US Patent Requirements.
As Justice Story wrote in 1817, to be patentable, an
invention must not be "injurious
to the well-being, good policy, or sound morals of society" and "a new invention to poison
people...is not a patentable invention"
Because transgenic seed, and in particular Monsanto's transgenic seed,
is "injurious to the well-being, good policy or sound morals of
society" and threatens to "poison people", it is not patentable.
The above
represents one of four legal arguments based on U.S. Patent law which
have been asserted in briefs by lawyers for the family farmers in Organic Seed Growers and Trade
Association et al v. Monsanto.
If the U.S. Supreme Court accepts our
Petition - filed last week - we will argue and prove in Court that
Monsanto's transgenic (GE) seed patents are all invalid. Thank you,
Justice Story.
For background on the 1817 case, Lowell v. Lewis, click
here.
|

Associate
Justice Joseph Story. Photo taken 1842. His
interpretation on patents has stood up for almost 200 years.
|

A Delicious
and Healthy Meal.
Photo by Angela Wotton. |
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 Potatoes for the Kitchen
|
Special Offer: FREE Shipping!
Harvest Help FREE Shipping! on All Orders. Hurry! Limited Time!
Everyone knows
farmers need help at
Harvest. So our Special Harvest Help FREE Shipping!
Offer is our
way of thanking you for your business and encouraging you to order
right now
- your FREE Shipping
savings can be huge! We
need the extra cash flow for the expense
of Fall Potato Harvest and if you act now you can save hundreds of
dollars with
FREE Shipping.
Place your order
now for any item in our
Catalog or on our Webstore and get
FREE Shipping
regardless of whether you want your order to ship
now, later this Fall, or
in the Winter or Spring. So, yes, this Special
Harvest Help FREE Shipping! Offer does apply to our
Organic Certified
Seed Potatoes and includes both home and Market Farmers. But don’t worry: FREE
Shipping also applies to our
Organic Kitchen Potatoes,
Organic
Grain Goods, Organic
Vegetable and Cover
Crop Seed – everything
we offer!
Please use Promo Code WPF1155. Special Harvest
Help FREE Shipping! Offer order will be
processed now and order must
ship by 5/9/14.
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 $300 shipping credit so you can
SAVE BIG if you
order NOW! Note: Subzero temperatures may
delay mid-winter shipping.
Questions? Call (800)829-9765! Special
Harvest Help
FREE Shipping! Offer ends Monday
September 16, 2013
at
Midnight so please call or
click today!
Click here for our Wood Prairie Farm Organic Seed
Potato Section
|

Wood Prairie Farm Potato Harvest.
Digging spuds with our Finnish Juko harvester. Watch
YouTube video (1:15) here.
|
Our Mailbox:
Debunking Propaganda, Top Kill Headaches, The Disconnect's Foundation
Debunking Biotech
Propaganda.
Dear WPF.
I just thought I would share this article, Pa. considers labeling law for
genetics that help achieve record yields of corn, soybeans.
It mentions increased corn and soy crop yields and attributes it to
genetic modification. PA had record rainfall this summer. I know from
my own garden that this was a great benefit to some plants and very
detrimental to others. I bought corn at local farm stands and it was
outrageously delicious. It seems to me that the increased yields would
be due to the increased rainfall. I'm not buying into this GM hype.
What are your thoughts on this Jim?
BH
World Wide Web
WPF Replies.
Yes rain and favorable conditions can certainly
increase yields. Monsanto would like people to believe that yield
increase is due to their gene-spliced technology. However, that claim
is false.
The real credit is invariably due to
the high quality seed genetics which have now come under the ownership
of Monsanto. In the last 15 years the Anti-Trust Division at the US
Dept of Justice has been asleep-at-the-wheel and allowed Monsanto to
gain monopoly control of seed when Monsanto went on a buying spree of
formerly independent seed companies. Through acquisition Monsanto now
controls, for example, the world's top corn genetics. If farmers want
access to these top corn genetics they must buy From Monsanto on
Monsanto's terms and that usually means purchasing seed "stacked" with
genetically engineered traits - whether or not the farmer desires to
utilize those traits. Monopolies have no place in a free market and are
a very real threat to our democracy.
Jim
Headaches From Top
Kill
Dear WPF.
I get atypical
headaches, sinus problems, and nausea only to discover they are using
top kill on the potato fields around here. Do you know what's in it?
It's disturbing to see the incredibly high cancer rate in the area.
JP
Presque Isle, ME
WPF Replies.
I'm no expert on the chemicals that America's
conventional potato farmers spray on their crops. That said, farmers
use a 'desiccant' to kill down potatoes at the proper time to allow
potatoes to thicken their skin for the rigors of harvest. We
use propane flame on our organic seed potatoes to arrest the plant
growth so the seed tubers will have higher vigor and give higher yields
in the next generation. Anyway, I understand conventional farmers
primarily use Sulfuric Acid in the West. In the East they mainly use
Diquat (renamed the cheery "Reglone"), cousin to paraquat. I would
guess Diquat is your problem. But here are some other possibilities. https://umaine.edu/potatoes/files/2010/03/Desiccants.pdf
Jim
Foundation of the
Disconnect
Dear WPF.
On rare occasions that I eat something
that is not organic, I get pretty sick from it. When I was 8 years old
my mom bought a no pest strip hanging thing that was supposed to kill
flies. Both of us, my mom and I developed headaches and we got rid of
that thing. That opened my eyes to the fact that for some people who
can tolerate them pesticides may be an inexpensive tool to control
pests. But for many of us who cannot detoxify these compounds rapidly,
they are a poison to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. That is
why I studied IPM and Entomology.....and then I heard the horror
stories about the pesticide use in Africa from my high school Biology
teacher who was herself from Kenya.
I was once checking a field for the
county extension service and a conventional potato grower sprayed me
(they thought it was real funny and laughed and laughed) with something
to kill the tops of the plants....I was so sick for 2+ weeks (no sick
time, just time without pay on that minimum wage job back in the 80's)
and 9 months later was tested in a pre hiring physical exam to have the
lung capacity of a 95 year old. Turns out the farmer sprayed me with
Paraquat...No one took it seriously, I was not sent to the doctor over
it, just lost pay and kidded A LOT about being a big wimp.
I
do think though that the foundation of this disconnect is that these
people do not get sick from the chemicals, at all. They may end up
getting cancer from them, but they do not get sick. I had a friend in grad school
and later we worked in ag in the San Joaquin Valley for about a decade
before he moved to NC to work for a different company. He was a
brilliant great guy who believed in organic farming, but could not see
how it could be made economical. He was always employed by companies to
reduce pesticide use - a big part of real IPM programs. But
he ran a lot of pesticide trials and did all of this sort of work. I
cannot be near a chemical without getting ill and he was among the many
that made fun of me. But he helped me a lot in going way back when,
despite all the teasing. I got a call about a decade ago from his
sister, he had died of cancer, but did not let anyone know he had it. I
was sprayed with paraquat and I am lucky I did not die right then and
there.
SF
World Wide Web
WPF Replies.
You provide very clear insight and
levelheadedness. You have knowledge the people need to learn. They are
not getting the understanding from elsewhere, certainly not from the
public and private institutions purportedly designed to make their
lives better. Thank you.
Jim.
|
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
|
|
|
|