Beth Quimby writes in the Portland Press Herald,
The vegetable-growing season used to end with the first hard frost in Maine. Not anymore.
An increasing number of farmers are pushing the growing season into the winter to take advantage of the surging demand for locally grown food. As a result, more farmers are operating greenhouses, branching out into cool-weather crops and creating new markets for their produce.
“Basically, people have gotten into it because their infrastructure is already there,” said Mark Hutton, vegetable specialist and assistant professor of vegetable crops with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
Winter farming was pioneered in the 1990s by organic farmer and writer Eliot Coleman and his wife, Barbara Damrosch, at their Four Season Farm in Harborside. The two took a trip to Europe in 1996, following the 44th parallel through France and Italy – the same latitude as Maine – when the idea of winter farming hit Coleman.
Click to read the rest of the Veggie Season Keeps Growing In Maine story.
Photo credit: Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald
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