Blog

Meet your Farmers, Part 1

Created: June 14, 2017

As you know, we can't grow 5 acres of MOFGA Certified Organic veggies, herbs and flowers without the help of awesome people!  And we are in luck to have four awesome people working for us both full and part time to help get it all done!  I want to share with you my recent mini-interviews with each of them.  Read on and get to know who grows your food at Ripley Farm!

 

 

May the Season Begin

Created: May 1, 2017

Happy May!  Here we are on the other side of a long winter.  The snow is gone, the birds are back, the grass is green, and we are ready for our ninth season farming at Ripley Farm! 

Do you take the winter off?

Created: February 11, 2017

"What do you do in the winter since you can’t farm?”  This is the most common question we get as vegetable farmers in Maine.  Sure our growing season is short with a frost-free period between the end of May and the middle of September.  Zone four, I believe it is called.

With highs in the single digits in Dover-Foxcroft in February this week, I wish I could show you pictures of us on the beaches of the Caribbean taking the winter off…

Celebrating the Meaning of CSA!

Created: January 6, 2017

What does CSA stand for?  C-ommunity S-upported A-griculture! 

Those three words mean a lot to us at Ripley Farm...

They mean local people coming together from Greenville to Hampden to Lakeview Plantation to Corinth and everywhere in between to support our farm. 

They mean friendship, smiles, warm hugs, and uplifting conversations week after week, year after year. 

They mean sharing good food with people who appreciate the hard work that goes into producing it. 

Thanksgiving for the Harvest

Created: December 1, 2016

I love the timing of Thanksgiving.  In the course of our year as farmers, we begin in the winter with planning the coming season, purchasing seeds and supplies, and repairing building and equipment infrastructure.  The first seeds go in the ground in May.  And then we’re off to the races. 

June: Plant, weed, plant, weed.
July: Plant, weed, harvest.
August: Plant, weed, harvest.
September: Harvest, weed, harvest.
October-November: Harvest, harvest, harvest, harvest, harvest, harvest…………

Cooperators of the Year 2016 event at Ripley Farm

Created: September 11, 2016

"We'll be there on Friday at 8am to start setting up," they said.  And they weren't kidding!  Just as our employees got here to start work that morning, several more cars rolled into the farm drive.  Soon after I could hear sounds of persistant banging on metal.  Sounds like they're working on the railroad, I thought to myself.  Clink, clink, clink... and I looked out of the window to see a white party tent being erected between our large hoophouse and the PYO flower garden.

Welcome Sara Moody!

Created: June 19, 2016

Super-farmer-mama?  It may appear from a couple of photos I posted to Facebook recently that I’m getting out in the fields and working all the time with a tiny baby strapped to my chest. 

Into the Spring of Things

Created: April 28, 2016

This spring has a very different rhythm for me.  Of course, at the farm, things are going just as planned.  The big list of “things to do” for April has been whittled right down.  All of our seeds have arrived on the farm and the first few of them like peppers, tomatoes and leeks are already showing their little faces.  The seed potatoes are piling up in our living room, presprouting prior to planting.  This week more lettuce heads will be sown.  The hoophouse has been rototilled again in preparation for planting those tomato seedlings in May.  Oh, and how

Putting it all on the table: Ripley Farm's 2015 CSA Season in Review

Created: January 21, 2016

I love doing this.  As you know I'm the one who takes most of the photos around the farm.  Its my self-appointed job to take a photo of every farm share that we put together during the Summer CSA.  Every week I whisk around repeating, "I've got to take the share photo," which I usually do admist a rush to get everything ready for the pickups.  I've been doing this since my obsession with photography took hold in 2013.

Havest Season 2015: Through the lens of the barrel washer

Created: December 14, 2015

I seriously did mean to sit down and write a new blog many times this summer. 

Okay, maybe after we harvested the 3000 heads of garlic and hung it to dry in our newly repaired shed.  Nope. 

Okay, maybe after hauling in the thousands of pounds of fall potatoes and winter squash.  Nope. 

Okay, come on, after the 20,000th pound of carrot, surely I would have done it then?  No, it just didn’t happen. 

Pages

Feedback