"To dwell in the garden, even in memory, is to experience ecstasy—to be ravished, as the flower is ravished by the velvety bee." from The Earth Knows My Name by Patricial Klindienst

Dear Organic Gardeners,

The epic rains in the Northeast have finally abated. Here in Maine, where I live, and with the collaboration of Joe Gonzalves, trial hundreds of Seeds of Change varieties every year, it has been a challenging gardening season, to say the least.. If it wasn’t for the diversion swale that we dug around the upper contours of our gardens, with the intention of getting us into the garden a little earlier in the spring, I feel like the entire enterprise would have succumbed to the flooding and just rotted and floated away. As it was, heavy downpours flattened corn, onions and other plants to the ground, while the incessant cool wetness caused fungal diseases on many of the beans, lettuce and greens.

Remarkably, as the sun shines again and we can get back into the garden without sinking up to our ankles, there is much that has tolerated the wettest summer in memory and it seems that we’ll have crops of most things after all. What now thrives in the garden is a testament to the diversity of cultivars we planted there. Where a drought-tolerant variety of bean failed, a disease-resistant strain succeeded. Where one of our corns lodged in the soupy soil, another stood tall and produced. If we had suffered a drought it might have been a different set of varieties that survived, but we would have production none-the-less.

As we’ve gotten back into the field to assess the situation and prepare expired beds for fall planting, we have noticed, however, that even though most of the crops survived, some of the insect-pollinated crops have shown poor, or almost no, fruit set. We’ve talked to gardeners in the area who have had similar experiences, while others report normal crops. It leads to us to wonder whether the rain held back the pollinators, which seem abundant enough now, or whether they were simply absent in early summer due to the global pollinator crisis known as Colony Collapse Disorder. It is truly disheartening to see over a dozen hills of squash survive being flooded out for days at a time only to reveal plants with one or no maturing fruit, or a twenty foot bed of fava beans that had thousands of flowers yield four, yes exactly four, beans. While none of this is a life and death issue for us, it does give one pause to contemplate what might happen to the food supply we rely upon if our pollinator populations do truly collapse. We’re already making plans for more spring flowering perennials to attract and host these most important of insects.

	Bees on the Farm An intern project on sustainable beekeeping brings buzzing hives of pollinators to our fields... Read More >
	Farmhouse Gardens A garden redesign project creates a new social space at our Farm… Read More >
	Late Summer Fertility Increased fertility will help your garden to finish the summer strong… Read More >

At the Seeds of Change Research Farm and Gardens, one intrepid intern is taking the pollinator issue seriously. Lindsay Dozoretz has started three top-bar beehives that are now thriving in the rich diversity of the farm ecosystem. She graciously shares her enthusiasm for the project and her newfound knowledge about bees in this edition of the Cutting Edge. Lindsay has also collaborated with fellow intern Scott Chaput on a biodiesel project to help wean the farm off of fossil fuel. Scott shares some thoughts on the project and some good resources to learn more about brewing your own fossil-free fuel.

While the Farm Crew is working hard to increase the sustainability of the day to day operations at the farm, they are also reaching out to the greater community with a project to distribute the voluminous production from the Farm to those in need in a nearby town and to help reconnect local residents to their “foodshed.” Farm Field Coordinator Kelle Carter fills us in on this exciting project and other goings on at the farm. I’ve had the pleasure this time around to review a recent book by Patricia Klindienst entitled The Earth Knows My Name; Food, Culture and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans, which so poignantly demonstrates the transformative power of deep-rooted food traditions, even as they travel between continents.

Also in this edition, Research Director Richard Bernard talks about a project to transform the somewhat neglected landscape around the Seeds of Change farmhouse, and Seed Production Manager Joel Reiten, shares some tips on late summer fertilization to maximize yields in the garden.

May you be both inspired and informed,

Scott Vlaun
Editor

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