The New Farmer Almanac

In the fourth volume of this loved publication, the Greenhorns’ diverse collaborators have created yet another delightful miscellany of writings and artwork--centered, this time round, on diversification, in all its forms. The New Farmer’s Almanac, Vol IV features essays and poems from dozens of farmers, ranchers, ecologists, educators, food bank managers, grocers, gardeners, and other actors and advocates bound by their care for the land, the food system, and the preservation of the natural world.

There are folk stories, reports on the racial distribution of farmland, recipes for hickory nut milk and healing and foraged tea. Toolboxes for seed-saving, indigenous land repatriation, and creating liberated space. Advice from old-timers and insights from the new. Meditations on failure, loved crops, and the wisdom of farm dogs. Here are stories about leaving, and of returning home to work the land; essays on the geography of self-discovery; reflections on trauma, both climatic and personal; and some practical guidance for farmers. Add to this hundreds of unique images, from lost-and-found postcards to inked watersheds to sketches of refugee gardens.

Created by the Greenhorns, The New Farmer’s Almanac is a place for public thinking and proactive literary inquiry into the future we share on the land and at the table. Shifting practices is a team sport, and with its original artwork, historic photographs, moon charts, essays, reading lists, proposals, and old-time manifestos, this is just the compendium to inspire your own part in the mix.

The New Farmer’s Almanac is published by the Greenhorns, a ten-year-old grassroots organization whose mission is to promote, support, and recruit the incoming generation of organic farmers and ranchers. Based in Downeast Maine, the Greenhorns have produced diverse media and publications including films, radio, guidebooks, parties, and exhibits. The new (permanent!) headquarters in an 1896 Odd Fellows Hall has been called “Reversing Hall.” Visitors are welcome to our agrarian research library, seasonal workshops, and fun family camping on the saltwater farm down the road. We are nearly to Canada, with acres of wild Maine blueberries, mussels and clams, edible seaweeds, mossy forest in every direction, and dozens of grown-over grandmother orchards to restore and use for cider. Join the mailing list to get our calendar of naturalist trainings and adventures land and sea.