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Western Maine Market

Western Maine Market Newsletter


Greetings, local food lovers!
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Place your order from Western Maine Market today for pick-up or delivery this Friday or Saturday.

Saturday pick-up of WMM orders will be available this week at the Rasmussen Farm booth at the Fiddlehead Festival, near the center of the High Street parking lot at UMF. Hereafter it will be at the Saturday farmers' market at 129 Main St in Farmington, the district courthouse parking lot.

Friday pick-up in Farmington will remain in the parking area at 181 Front Street, just north of the Better Living Center, where the Friday farmers' market will be held starting next week.
Fiddlehead Festival this Saturday
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The Maine Fiddlehead Festival will be held this Saturday the 29th of April, 10 am - 3 pm, on the UMF campus. Learn more at www.umf.maine.edu/sustainability/maine-fiddlehead-festival/

Farmington Farmers' Market vendors will be scattered among the other vendors at the Fiddlehead Festival this Saturday, in the High Street parking lot or Roberts Learning Center courtyard. The indoor winter market has closed for the season.
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New and Returning Products
Pea Shoots
Menu Group: Food
Section: Vegetables
Category: Greens Micro
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Vendor: Fairbanks Farmstand & Nursery
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Fresh, green, and slightly sweet, pea shoots are eaten cooked or raw. Add them to your salad or your stir fry!
Fresh, small leaf Spinach
Menu Group: Food
Section: Vegetables
Category: Spinach
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Vendor: Porter Hill Farm
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First of season. All grown naturally in our greenhouse
Flower Seedlings
Menu Group: Plants and Seeds
Section: Flowers Annual
Category: Other
Vendor: Fairbanks Farmstand & Nursery
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(Pictured) Sweet Pea - Deep Red Elegance Seedlings: Brilliant red early spring blooms! Long stems bear 3 to 5 blooms, perfect for cutting. Bring on the nostalgia with the beauty and fragrance of sweet peas in the garden this spring.
Please note that all parts, including the seeds, of Sweet Pea plants are poisonous!!!

Viola Frizzle Sizzle: Early spring edible flowers! Frizzle Sizzle Yellow-Blue Swirl Viola. Viola are decorative and an edible garnish for salads and desserts with slight wintergreen flavor. While a popular choice for brightening up salad mix, the flowers are also good for candying.
*These packs have been hardened off and are READY for planting outside in the ground (if your ground is ready) or containers*

Viola Penny All Seasons: Mounding habit with large, 1 1/2-2", uniquely colored blooms. Adaptable to a wide range of growing conditions. Stems do not become leggy in warm conditions.
Edible Flowers: Decorative and edible garnish for salads and desserts with slight wintergreen flavor. While a popular choice for brightening up salad mix, the flowers are also good for candying.
Fernleaf Dill Seedlings
Menu Group: Plants and Seeds
Section: Herb Seedlings
Category: Dill
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Vendor: Fairbanks Farmstand & Nursery
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A dwarf variety suitable for small gardens or patio containers, Fernleaf grows only half as tall as other varieties and is very slow to go to seed. Perfect for container gardning. One September, most of our May planting had not yet bolted, and its abundant piquant foliage was still suitable for harvesting. Multi-branching plants spread 18–24". Especially attractive to pollinators. 
Vegetable Seedlings
Menu Group: Plants and Seeds
Section: Vegetable Starts
Category: Broccoli
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Vendor: Fairbanks Farmstand & Nursery
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(Pictured) Broccoli, Marathon: Performs well in the Northeast for a late summer and fall crop. The large, blue-green heads have high, smooth, tight domes and small, fine beads. Plants produce heavy heads and have intermediate resistance to downy mildew.

Broccoli, Tendergreen: Exceptionally fast growing! 6–7" semi-domed heads are lighter weight than the later-season varieties. The medium-large beads do a good job of shedding water. Pleasing blue-green color, tender and delicious flavor. 2–3" (occasionally 4") side shoots to harvest following the main stem.

Cabbage, Early Jersey: 70 days to maturity. These seedlings grow into tasty, sweet and flavorful, conical heads that reach 2 pounds in size. They are hardened off and ready for planting.

Cauliflower, Snow Crown: Standard early variety. This hybrid shows unusual seedling vigor. Good quality, medium-size heads whether harvested in summer or fall. Good tolerance to moderate fall frost

Leeks, Kind Richard: ~20 seedlings: In favorable soil and culture, the white shanks are over a foot long to the first leaf. Medium-green leaves with full habit. For baby leeks, plant closely (40 plants/ft.) and harvest at finger size. They will withstand medium-heavy frost down to 20° without losing their healthy appearance.
Drop individual plants in 6' deep dibbled holes. 6" apart in rows at least 12" apart. Do not firm the soil, let rain and irrigation fill in the dibble hole. OR plant without the deep hole and hill 2 or 3 times.

Onion, Borettana Cipollini Yellow Storage Onion, ~30 seedlings: This Italian heirloom is the quintessential boiling and braising onion. Shaped like a button, up to 4" wide (normally 3") but less than 1" thick. Flattened spheres with bright shiny golden skin. Fine-grained mild flesh with a well-developed flavor. Appreciated in soups, stir-fries and shish kebab. Braids beautifully and keeps till late winter.
Tease them apart and plant individually or in clumps of 3 with an 11" spacing.

Onion, Red Wethersfield Storage Onion, ~30 seedlings: Large medium-firm deep purple-red flattened globes, pink-tinged white flesh with red concentric circles. Long-day variety keeps till late winter. 
Tease them apart and plant individually or in clumps of 3 with an 11" spacing.

Onion, Rossa di Milano Storage Onion, ~30 seedlings: This red Italian storage onion is shaped like a buttercup squash without the button. It has the flat square-shouldered top tapering like a barrel to a narrower flat bottom. Tops are slow to go down. Encourage the recalcitrant ones by pushing them over. They take a while in the fall to dry, but will be very hard and keep until May!
Tease them apart and plant individually or in clumps of 3 with an 11" spacing.

Onion, Walla Walla: ~30 seedlings each container. Walla Walla is a sweet onion, like Vidalia. These little loves have been hardened off and are ready to plant as soon as your garden is ready this spring. Tease them apart and plant individually or in clumps of 3 with a wider spacing.