Tag: Eliot Coleman

Interesting Information: The Good Life: The Movement that Changed Maine

Interesting Information:  May 4, 2014

The Good Life:  The Movement That Changed Maine

 

Friend Marsha Smith (founder of the immensely successful Citizens for a Green Camden group here in Camden, Maine) sent me this post at least two weeks ago.  I treated myself to reading it this morning.

Lo and behold, the little gem is not just about reading, it’s a very different kind of internet presentation to tell a story.

I knew many of you would enjoy this experience.

It will take you 20 to 30 minutes, depending on how involved you get with the text.  So ENJOY!

This site operates differently–just keep scrolling down, as instructed, and click on each chapter as it comes to you.

 

The Good Life: The movement that changed Maine.

 

The story starts with Scott and Helen Nearing–who spawned a back-to-the-land movement back in the 1970s.  They, in turn, helped spawn Eliot and Sue Coleman’s work on an adjacent farm–now known as Four Seasons Farm.  Eliot Coleman went on to pioneer growing/harvesting greens/tomatoes/etc. in hoop houses in the middle of the Maine winter.  That marriage broke up, and Eliot Coleman is now married to the horticulturist Barbara Damrosch, who has written about food for The Washington Post for many years, has written numerous books, and is a mainstay of MOFGA–the Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association.  I heard her speak a few years back and found her to be an engaging speaker.

 

Turkey Tracks: Golden Brook Farm

Turkey Tracks:  May 20, 2013

Golden Brook Farm

Old friend and former neighbor Gina Caceci visited last weekend, and I think we talked nonstop for three days.  It was so good to see her.

One of the things we did was to go up Howe Hill to Golden Brook Farm to get some spring greens–which are filling Susan McBride Richmond’s hoop houses now.

These spring greens are the best spring tonic I know.

Susan and her husband Chris added two more BIG hoop houses this year, and no one is more delighted than me.  I have so loved watching Susan and Chris, little by little, work on their house, their barns, and their land.  Truly, Golden Brook Farm is a real farm, selling beautiful produce, eggs, and seasonal turkeys.

Here are two of the four hoop houses.  Eliot Coleman of Maine pioneered the ability to grow food year round in Maine’s winter in these hoop houses.  That book is, I think, FOUR SEASONS GARDENING.  You can’t sprout seed in the darkest winter months, but you can plant fall crops and harvest and eat them all winter long–with the help of interior coverings.  The back hoop house is the newest one and was installed just a few weeks ago.

Golden Brook Farm hoop houses

Here’s what the inside of a working hoop house can look like.

Inside Susan's Hoop House

Look at this lush planting of pea shoots–a favorite spring green in Maine:

Hoop House Planting bed 1

Or, this one–a kind of cabbage:

Hoop House Planting Bed 2

Here’s Susan herself.

Susan McBride Richmond

One day last summer I walked into one of these hoop houses that was filled with ripe tomatoes, basil, and other herbs.  I have remembered the rich heady smell for all this past long winter.  Warmed ripe tomatoes, basil, and herbs…  What a treat.

I planted Sun Gold cherry tomatoes myself and augmented with cherry tomatoes from Susan’s crop.  I cut them in half and dry them and have them all winter for salads or just to eat.  They’re so sweet they taste like chewy candy.

Think what you might be able to do in YOUR yard with even a much smaller hoop house.  They come in all sizes, and some are on sliders so they can be moved to new dirt while the old dirt recovers.  You can often find used ones.

Here’s a picture of the back side of the forsythia hedge that lines the road outside the farm.  It’s spectacular, even from the back side.  Forsythia in Maine lasts for weeks and glows against the sky or with the light on it.  We know spring has truly come when the forsythia blooms.

Forsythia Hedge