Robin's Outdoors

Robin Follette
Previously Published in Lancaster Farming newspaper.

ALEXANDER, Maine — Route 9 is a busy highway. It’s the main route used by chip and log trucks traveling to and from Woodland Pulp and 18-wheelers carrying goods to eastern Maine. Canadians on their way to Bangor use Route 9, as do the majority of tourists entering and leaving the area.

A few miles before Route 9 meets U.S. Route 1 in Baring sits a small farm. It’s out of sight for most drivers traveling 60 to 70 miles per hour. If you know it’s there, you might catch a glimpse of a low tunnel through the trees on your way by.

The Carters move the cover off a pod they use for season extension.

Just when you think you must have gone past it, the driveway to After The Rain Farm appears. You drive past a neighbor’s home and follow the driveway away from the busy highway and into a different world. The noisy trucks are barely heard. The wide road is replaced with a narrow gravel driveway, soft in spots because of recent snow and rain. On the right, those low tunnels you might have seen from the road are protecting a very early planting of peas, cabbage and kale. Nearby, apple and pear trees, grapevines and strawberry plants are waiting for spring. Spring is about a month late this year. They grow a variety of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers.

After The Rain Farm is home to Ted and Liz Carter. They’ve lived here since 1979. Liz is an artist and homeschooled their two children. Ted taught first grade for 31 years before retirement.. They started a “full service” CSA in 1996.

“We let ourselves into homes, put food on the counter and in the refrigerator and flowers in the vase,” said Ted.

“At the time, CSA was enough for us,” Liz said.

Ted was still teaching. The CSA worked well for them through 2003, when they decided it was time for a change. That year, they operated the CSA and became vendors at Sunrise County Farmers Market in Calais.

“The market in Calais was doing well and we wanted to support it as it was growing,” Ted said.

A cold frame is used to extend both ends of the growing season.

After a year of running the CSA and attending a farmers market, it was time to make a decision.

“We liked CSA, but we can’t do both. We were stretched too thin,” said Liz. Ted still had a full-time teaching job at the time, so they decided to stay with the farmers market. They returned to the market in Calais in 2004, but took 2005 off when Liz was diagnosed with breast cancer. The Carters returned to the farmers market in 2006 and are still there. In 2010 they became members of Machias Valley Farmers Market, their second market.

“Machias has been very accommodating,” Ted said. “It’s open Friday and Saturday. We’re there on Friday because it works with when we have vegetables to pick. We’re usually the only ones there. People stop on their way to Hannaford (grocery store) and get what they want. Then they pick up the rest at Hannaford. The customers are dependable.

“We’re limited to two markets because it takes so much time to pick and clean the vegetables. We’ve upped our production by 50 to 60 percent to add the Machias market,” Ted said.

The Carters enjoy farmers markets very much. They both went to market in the beginning, but soon realized one of them needed to stay home to work in the garden. Liz continued to attend the market, while Ted worked in the garden.

“Farmers market is like a garden party. You get to hear other people’s stories. They tell you about their gardens. It’s a sense of community. People are visiting while they’re waiting in line,” she said. Ted goes to market now. “He’s good at sales,” Liz said.

“I enjoy the personal interplay at market,” Ted said. “I’m a social being. It’s gratifying to know people are eating our food.”

Ted and Liz work together as well as separately in their day-to-day farm work. “We dovetail,” said Ted. He organizes seeds, chooses most of the varieties, starts seeds, manages succession planting and works outside in the garden and high tunnels. Seed starting begins in late February or early March. The last succession is seeded in August. They work together when needed.

Liz adds and deletes varieties on the seed list depending on their popularity and how well they produce. She tends to watering the seedlings. “She’s the one who notices what’s happening,” Ted admitted. “She notices plant health and pests.”

Liz laughed and added, “I’m the one who comes in and says, Oh my God! Did you see the potato bugs or the flea beetles or the sick plants or whatever I find going on.”

Ted retired at the end of the school year in 2009. “Our customers made it easier to retire,” he said. “They told me how much they loved our vegetables and how good they taste. There’s a lot of gratitude.”

Liz and Ted have found a rhythm in working together. “I don’t go into Liz’s world,” Ted said, smiling. “She grows the herbs and flowers. I don’t know what they are. I was pulling them up when I was weeding.”

Liz no longer interplants herbs and flowers in the vegetables. “I’d plant something and go back to check on it and it would be gone. He thought he was weeding,” she said.

Liz’s hard work in the herb and flower gardens shows even in mid-spring when few plants are growing. The farm is beautiful.

There are several challenges to face each year. Ted was quick to say the weather is the biggest challenge of all. If you don’t like the weather in Maine, wait a minute. It will change. In a two-hour span, the sky cleared a bit and the sun peeked out. That was soon followed by heavy rain, a temperature drop that brought heavy snow and then a steady sleet that pelted the poly covering the high tunnel.

Liz planted the first seeds on March 31, the day before the April Fool’s Day nor’easter. They placed low tunnels over the rows to give the seeds protection and a little added warmth. Steam escaped the low tunnel recently when they pulled back the cover to show rows of 1-inch-tall seedlings.

Season extenders are used to start the growing season in late March and continue into May. By November, they’re ready for a winter break. The greenhouse used for seed starting is attached to their home. They harden plants off in cold frames they’ve built. There are high tunnels and solar pods in use.

The soil is another challenge. They have a small mountain of aged horse manure that would make any gardener envious.

“There’s never enough compost,” said Liz. “We’re always working to improve the soil.”

In addition to the aged manure and compost, they use cover crops and foliar sprays of compost tea and an amendment called MPM from Lancaster Agriculture Products in Pennsylvania.

“Cancer made us step it up,” Liz said. “The soil will help heal us.”

“We’re dependent on the top 6 inches of soil,” Ted said. “We have to take care of it. If not, we’re in trouble. So we make the soil the best we can.”

“Two markets is perfect,” said Ted. “A week between markets is too much. The beans get too big, so we pick them and drop them right there on the ground. A second market a week means nothing goes by. We’re at our limit now with two markets.”

There’s room to expand the gardens. After a working visit last year from Mark Fulford, a soil scientist, they have started using strip tilling in a new area. They’re expanding the barn to build an apartment on the top floor to provide residence for two interns, preferably a couple. They’re hoping interns, or possibly journey people, will like the area and want to stay at the end of their internship.

“A motivated couple could start their own garden here and add a third market a week,” Ted said.

The apartment will be ready by the beginning of the 2012 season. The Carters are eager to share their knowledge of growing and love of farmers market.