Last January, the big commercial greenhouses at Half Moon Gardens in rural Thorndike, Maine, looked anything but green. Engulfed in deep snow, the tunnel-shaped poly-film structures at the end of an asphalt drive off Route 220 seemed more like an outpost in the Antarctic than a year-round garden center. But a walk inside the center's main entrance and showroom brought the tantalizing, spring-like fragrance of moist, fertile soil.

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Grassland Farm spans roughly 300 acres in Skowhegan, Maine, and as its name implies, more than half the land is open acreage used for rotational grazing and haying to feed Garin and Sarah Smith’s certified organic dairy herd. The Smiths purchased the farm – which also includes 120 acres of woods and a 14-acre homestead site with a farmhouse and tie-stall stanchion barn – from Sarah’s father, Robie Leavitt.

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When Gabrielle Gosselin and Nate Drummond left their jobs and friends in New York City in 2006 to apprentice at Sandy and Paul Arnold's Pleasant Valley Farm in Argyle, New Your, they were, like most farm apprentices, on an information- and skill-gathering mission. During that growing season, their ambitions began to come into focus. By paying close attention to details of the Arnolds' diverse and profitable market vegetable operation, the couple saw the many challenges and rewards of the lifestyle and profession of farming.

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A Wrinkle in Thyme Farm in Sumner, Maine, takes its name from Madeline L’Engle’s book A Wrinkle in Time, which, said co-owner Marty Elkin, was influenced by the emerging knowledge of quantum theory. L’Engle used the quantum term tesseract to move characters into another dimension, a sort of time warp.

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Paul and Sandy Arnold of Pleasant Valley Farm (118 South Valley Rd., Argyle, NY 12809; arnold.pvf@gmail.com) were the “Farmers in the Spotlight” at MOFGA and Maine Cooperative Extension’s 2010 Farmer to Farmer Conference in Northport, Maine.

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Treble Ridge Farm in Whitefield is a MOFGA-certified-organic, diversified farm – and one of an increasing number of MOFGA farms to include, in various ways, multiple generations and a supportive agricultural community.

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Kenneth and Katie Copp moved their Old Order Amish Mennonite family, and their family business, to Thorndike, Maine, just over a year after Amish families started settling in the Unity area during the summer of 2009. Since moving to Maine the Copps have established a small bakery specializing in products made from freshly ground grains, and a home-scale woodworking business crafting traditional furniture.

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When Rebekah Pressley boarded a bus in New Jersey to travel to central Maine, she had never heard of the small community she was headed to, let alone the state of Maine. And the 24-year-old had no way of knowing that she would soon be replacing her pills and bottles with berries and twigs. As part of her church-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, she would end up working at an organic blueberry farm in Stockton Springs.

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Inch by inch, row by row, sustainability project by sustainability project, teachers and students at Ravenwood, an education-focused small farm in Searsmont, Maine, have created an ecological Mecca where nutrients and energy cycle close to home.

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Peter and Susan Curra are not from Maine, although they have been farming here long enough that no one thinks otherwise. The farm and family history is rooted in Massachusetts soil, where they met, married, had their first of three children and started building a dairy herd.

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Meat producers and retailers are increasing their numbers in Maine – reflecting the increased demand for local foods. Here’s a glimpse at some of those farmers and vendors.

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New Zealander Bob Taylor visited HRH Prince Charles’ organic farm, the Duchy Home Farm, and interviewed farm manager David Wilson in October 1994. That visit was reported in a feature article in The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener, December 1995-February 1996 issue. In August 2009, Taylor revisited the farm to see what changes had been made over these 15 years.

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A historic saltwater farm in New Brunswick on the St. Croix River near Calais has a new lease on life thanks to the good luck, determination and hard work of four young farmers who migrated east from British Columbia a year ago. The four, who range in age from 21 to 24, worked at various jobs in B.C. but shared a growing interest in food and nutrition.

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“Ahh, country living,” laughs Becka Smith Gagne as she prepares lunch for her four-year-old daughter, Oceanna, tells her apprentice Katie where to store onion braids, answers questions on life and the pursuit of happiness – all while eyeing her baby son, Rowan, who is moments away from learning to crawl. “Country living” is a catch phrase that she and her husband, Jeff, use to describe the life they’ve built on 22 acres of land in the shadows of Schoodic Mountain in Franklin, Maine.

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On a curve in Route 220 in Maine’s Washington village, near Route 17, hangs a wooden sign advertising “Aquaculture Engineering, Inc.” The driveway leads past the house to a gravel walkway that goes past a mid-sized barn and a small garden to an ordinary-looking greenhouse. Like many ordinary-looking farmsteads in Maine, this one offers much more than meets the eye. The greenhouse and the nearby outbuildings hide a unique, sustainable system of food and energy production.

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I met Don Webb at a Farmer’s Market near Topsham, Maine. Tall and strapping, with a grizzled, full gray beard and a ruddy, weather-seasoned face, he was giving rides on a hay wagon pulled by two solid, beautiful gray Percheron draft horses.

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When I first spotted it, I thought it was an unlikely place for an organic farmstand: still within Ellsworth city limits, right off a fast stretch of Route 1, across the street from a hotel and in a residential neighborhood. Pulling up, I assumed the Blackstone Gardens farmstand would be just another folding tray full of excess zucchini. But the variety on the whiteboard was evidence of a real farm enterprise, and the lineup on the table was mouthwateringly impressive, including delicate lavender eggplants, batches of leafy herbs and heaps of ‘Cherokee’ tomatoes.

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The concept of "socializing kids into farming" competes with a process of "externalizing" farm families and communities that has been happening in New England since the 1800s. Crystal Spring Community Farm in Brunswick, Maine, may be inverting these trends.

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Nine years ago, Ana and Roy Antaki of Weeping Duck Farm in Montville moved from conventional, corporate jobs in Kansas City to a 150-acre former dairy farm in Maine. Since then they’ve moved from conventional back-to-the-land methods of feeding themselves to the newer (or older) method of preserving foods by fermentation.

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In 1973, a young Ph.D., Linda Tatelbaum, was teaching at a New Hampshire college when Watergate exploded, the Arab oil crisis hit, the college went bankrupt, and she couldn't pay her oil bill. With her good friend, dean of students Kal Winer, she decided to "drop out, do physical labor, earn my keep on this planet," writes Tatelbaum in her book, Carrying Water as a Way of Life: A Homesteader's History.

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The fields of Wolf Pine Farm, where organic vegetables grow, and the share room, where Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members receive their produce, exist symbiotically under the watchful eyes of farm owners Amy Sprague and Tom Harms and in the capable hands of the young staff. Wolf Pine Farm, in Alfred, Maine, proves that the CSA model connects consumers extremely effectively with their food and the farmers who grow it.

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In creating a 21st century organic farm, the Perron family – pronounced with the accent on the last syllable – of Sumner has incorporated many elements of a much earlier lifestyle. For starters, two generations share the land – “two entities working together” is the way son Dan Perron describes the operation.

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Many people first visit Hedgehog Hill Farm for the widely advertised, free “Sundays in the Garden at 2.” Every Sunday afternoon from mid-June through August, the public is invited to stroll through the lush gardens and hear a lecture about some aspect of gardening at the 200-acre farm in the small, western Maine town of Sumner.

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Bonnie and Arnold Pearlman have been farming organically in Jonesport for 34 years. They can’t recall what year they were first certified by MOFGA, but Arnold says they were “among the very first.” The Pearlmans found their 20 acres of woods and blueberry barrens in the mostly unpopulated interior of the Jonesport peninsula in 1969.

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The Common Kitchen staff needs a lot of milk for the meals prepared during the Fair, and all of this milk is donated by Barnes & Barnes Organic Dairy in nearby Albion, which Verda Barnes runs with her son Basil. And Basil’s son Ricky. And Ricky’s children Alan and Ashley, plus Basil’s other granddaughter Brooke.

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I met Stuart Beck’s apples before I met the grower himself. In the midst of the clamor and excitement of the annual family cider-pressing day, I couldn’t help noticing how sound and relatively unblemished were the apples going into the vintage machine. I was astonished to learn that the truckload of Gravensteins, gathered by simply shaking the trees over tarps and unceremoniously heaving them into the big pickup body, were all organic.

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Since 1986, our farm has used a system of raised beds, drip irrigation, plastic mulch and fabric row cover tunnels. We’ve used this system or parts of this system for frost protection, weed control, irrigation, microclimate enhancement, moisture retention and insect control for 1000 to 4000 feet of warm season and brassica crops.

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“Organic is not business as usual,” says Wayne Bragg, an organic dairy farmer in Sidney, Maine. The bicentennial farm where he and his wife, Peggy, live was established in 1772 by John Bragg II, who took up a claim and built a little log cabin by the Kennebec River. The farmhouse was built in the 1880s by Caleb Bragg, who made his money in the bookbinding business. Now the farm continues, thanks to the organic market.

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Serendipity guided the women at Wrinkle in Thyme Farm in Sumner, Maine, to discover WAgN when they were new farmers and WAgN was a new organization. Marty Elkin and Mary Ann Haxton had gone to the Extension office in Lisbon for information about reclaiming an apple orchard, balsam fir tipping and pasture management.

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Something is seriously rotten in the state of Maine agriculture. We may fly a flag with a farmer on it, but farmland acreage is steadily shrinking, and less than 1 percent of Maine’s people live on farms. Wisconsin cows are causing our cows some serious trouble, and Frito-Lay prefers Idaho variety #X129W to a good old-fashioned Kennebec. (Well, you know what they say – there’s no accounting for taste.)

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Beautiful and sturdy, the Gonsalves’ straw bale house fits snugly, organically, into its cleared niche between forest and brook with a sense of permanence and belonging. If the idea of a house of straw should conjure images of it being blown away with a huff and a puff from the big, bad wolf, seeing this real, lived-in straw bale house would quickly dispel any notion of impermanence or fragility.

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“Well, it’s pretty exhausting work,” say Bill and Cynthia Thayer after a moment of thought. A few days after I sat down with the Thayers of Darthia Farm in Gouldsboro, I can’t quite remember if they were referring to the vegetable patch, the Haflinger horses, the wood lot, the spinning and weaving, the sheep, the bagpipes, the funk band or the nearly 200 apprentices they have hosted over the last 25 years.

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On a clear, crisp day in January, hundreds of dairy farmers convened in Augusta to convince legislators that they cannot keep up their current way of life. They are drowning in debt as the price paid for milk hits a 20-year low. The time spent on the capitol steps was time away from their farms, away from their cows; time when their debt load was increasing and their production decreasing.

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Don McLean has been an environmentalist much longer than he has been a veterinarian. In third grade, he did his science project on pollution. “Since then I have been trying to at least reduce the negative impact of modern life on our environment,” he said recently at his solar home-in-progress in Norway, Maine.

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Laura and Eric Evans seem to have lived a life comprised of one fascinating project after another. The community garden – or, more accurately, community of friends garden – that they started on their land in Camden last year is no exception.

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Margie Shannon’s father would approve of the life that his daughter and son-in-law, Mike Shannon, have built on the north side of Frye Mountain, at 1000-feet elevation, in Knox. The solar-, wind- and propane-fueled house, the productive garden, and the water conservation measures would meet his standards, and the fuel-efficient Honda Civic hybrid in the driveway would amaze him.

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Deb Soule started Avena Botanicals in 1985, with a vision that she wanted not only to produce therapeutic medicinal herbs and their products, but that she also wanted to teach other women how to grow and use these herbs. For many years she was doing all of that, with some hired help but primarily on her own.

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As a Hancock County businessman/farmer, Tom Taylor has talked with a lot of people who have worked in commercial blueberry plants. "The people who pick out [clean] the berries work in coats because [the berries] are frozen by the time they pick them out. I haven’t heard any good tales from people who worked in a commercial factory. All they can say is that they never want to see a blueberry again in their lives." Working in a blueberry factory doesn’t sound like a job that could ever be called "fun." "It’s really unfortunate," says Tom, "because the way we do business, it’s fun! It’s not overly fatiguing, hardly even breaks the sweat."

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Michael Docter runs a 600-member Community Supported Agriculture farm, The Food Project, in Hadley, Mass., that not only provides abundant and diverse produce to its members but sends a substantial portion of its yields to the Western Mass. Foodbank. Dorter's energetic persona and ability to maximize efficiency everywhere on the farm have been critical to the success of the operation. That efficiency was the subject of his talk at MOFGA's Farmer to Farmer Conference in Bar Harbor last November.

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The basis for terms such as "whole farm systems" and "holistic management" is the simple ecological concept that everything is connected with everything else, says organic grower Steve Gilman. "We live with this [concept] everyday. We know what it means. But, because of the nature of what we're up against, sometimes we end up having to focus" on a pest problem, or on getting a crop out. In that focusing, says Gilman, we can end up excluding many things and losing track of that ecological concept.

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Picture a classic Federal country house on a saltwater farm bordering a tidal river, horses working the fields beyond a tree-shaded brook, sheep browsing in the orchard, hens cackling, geese honking, a friendly black Lab greeting arrivals. You’re back in the nineteenth century hobnobbing with contemporaries of Thoreau and Emerson in a bucolic, Currier and Ives calendar original.

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Lee Humphreys’ and Ib Barfod’s Meadowsweet Farm on Finn­town Road in Warren could just as well be called Renaissance Farm, for they have excelled at music and environmental education (Lee); engineering (Ib); community activism, farming and parenting (both). Add woodworking to Lee’s list … and we can even talk about the ghost that inhabits their home.

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One of the most sophisticated operations in Aroostook County takes place in the most unpretentious of settings – the utilitarian potato-packing plant cum residence and its surrounding outbuildings, farming equipment and fields at Wood Prairie Farm in Bridgewater. Here Jim and Megan Gerritsen have created a unique niche for a viable business in what is often regarded as economically depressed territory.

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Raising animals on fresh green grass is vital to Paula and Sumner Roberts at their Meadowsweet Farm in Swanville. Their philosophy is to “treat all animals with respect and allow them the fullest expression of their natures consistent with good husbandry… [This] includes freedom of movement, exposure to sunlight and fresh air, clean surroundings, a normal social environment, and food suited to their digestive systems. For sheep and cattle this means a grass diet with no animal by-products or added hormones, for chickens a mix of grain and free selection of green grass and bugs.”

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In the early 1980s, when land was still “pretty cheap,” Eric and Anne Nordell bought their small farm in Trout Run, Pennsylvania – a place with steep, rugged terrain; a relatively short (for Pennsylvania) growing season; and no large, upscale markets nearby. They decided to grow flowers, vegetables and herbs – crops that would enable them to keep the farm a two-person operation, because they love working together; and to be able to depend on the internal resources of the farm as much as possible.

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Like many another organic true believer, Lisa Turner was captivated by the prospect of year-round fresh veggies as promised in Eliot Coleman’s Four Season Gardening. “It’s a fabulous book for families,” she says. “If you want to have your own little greenhouse, follow what he says exactly and it works out wonderfully.”

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Not many turkeys, organic or otherwise, can enjoy a 360-degree view of scenic Hancock County and beyond, from the Schoodic hills to the east, the Acadia mountains to the south, the Bangor hills to the west and, on a perfect day, perhaps a glimpse all the way to Mt. Katahdin to the north. On a bright, brisk, early November day last year, 25 or more Giant White birds at Shalom Orchard in Franklin ran eagerly to the fence to greet any possibility of food or friendship, as blissfully unaware of their upcoming fate as they undoubtedly were of the superb scenery.

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The magical mesclun salad mix from Nesenkeag Coop Farm is consumed at Boston’s fanciest restaurants. It’s also consumed by the homeless and hungry population of greater Boston and southern New Hampshire.

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A strong drive to produce an abundance of healthful food is the force common to Tom Roberts and Gloria Varney, MOFGA’s “farmers in the spotlight” at the Maine Agricultural Trades Show in Augusta last January. Roberts and his partner, Lois Labbe, raise organic crops at Snakeroot Organic Farm in Pittsfield, while Varney and her husband, Gregg, raise crops and animals and sell many value-added products at their Nezinscot Farm in Turner.

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Nick Sewall, owner of the Hermit Island Camp Ground at the end of Small Point, has given him the use of almost an acre adjacent to Edgewater Farm in Phippsburg where Bill and his wife, Carol, operate a bed and breakfast. Carol manages the B&B and Bill is bookkeeper, fix-it man and as close to a full-time farmer as he can get. Farther down the road, the Small Point Summer School (a tennis, sailing and theater camp for young people) lets him plant a big field on its property, “as long as a football field and a third as wide.”

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How can a community garden be a secret garden? Just ask any of the folks who raise their favorite vegetables in the Camden Community Garden.

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When one of the highlights of summer is a bunch of grownups sitting on a deck spitting watermelon seeds at each other, something good must be going on. “When they’re ripe, we’ve gotta eat ‘em. They won’t keep, so we have a big watermelon harvest party. It’s great fun,” says Dave Foley – fun and the essence of the community spirit at Ocean Glimpse Farm.

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Jim Hannah and Deborah Banks raise happy hens: 3,000 happy hens, in fact, all with room to roam and with feed to satisfy the most gourmand among the flock. Their Hilltop Farm in Dexter is, as far as Hannah knows, the largest certified organic egg operation in Maine.

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Norbet Kungl raises a large variety of organic vegetables in Walton, Nova Scotia, on a small bay across the Bay of Fundy, and markets year-round in Halifax. He is one of the premier farmers in the Northeast, and was featured as “Farmer in the Spotlight” when he spoke before a large group of growers at MOFGA’s Farmer to Farmer Conference last November. The annual event is cosponsored by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.

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Imagine giving and receiving a little piece of Eden as a 25th anniversary present. Adam and Eve never had it so good. But Ellin and Stephen Sheehy did just that when they bought an old farm on the Alna-Whitefield town line six years ago, a place where they have been able to put to practical use years of creative pursuits and to find new ones to explore every day.

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