REGENERATIVE LIFE AT ANCIENT GREEN FARM

INTERVIEW BY E.P. PHOTOS: COURTESY OF ANCIENT GREEN FARM

Regenerative farming is farming using living soil and all organic materials; it creates an environment that generates and supports life by following natural processes. By implementing this method of farming, the earth used is remediated over time.

Many farmers are now turning to regenerative ways of farming and living, seeing an increased interest in not only growing food but also a consciousness regarding how it is grown. As the world realizes that what we consume determines our standard of living, many are choosing quality over convenience, a change our world needs! Maine is rich with generational organic farmers who have maintained heirloom strains from apple to maple. From vegetable gardeners to cannabis farmers, Maine has a wealth of health that is about to sweep the nation and set healing into the world. In essence, Maine has become the state to emulate.

Husband and wife duo Bobby and Kate Gaudette own the beautiful hidden gem Ancient Green Farm in the quaint town of Bowdoinham, Maine. With a love for farming and living a life that exhales regeneration, the duo grow clean organic cannabis and maintain gardens to provide for their vision of healing through cannabis. The Gaudettes, like many, appreciate the way of living in Maine. Their land awaited use for a greater purpose, and though work needed to be done, the vision was clear. Five years in, and their desire to heal continues to grow, along with their connections to many like-minded farmers. Bobby brings his cannabis knowledge, and Kate is gifted with a green thumb, forming a land where healing and regeneration is felt as soon as you set your feet upon it.

The family-run and owned farm is home to Bobby, Kate, and soon-to-be big sister four-year-old Olivia. The farm also houses meat chickens, egg layers, cows, and two beautiful dogs, who take their jobs very seriously. With their vision materializing, the Gaudettes have built their farm starting with the beds in their first cannabis garden, which came from trees cut down on the land. Each hand-built bed houses a single plant, which is carefully guarded by wire cages, an impressive sight to take in. Wood chips, which also come from the land, have been placed all around the flooring, a farmer’s way of organically keeping weeds at bay. “We use regenerative farming practices, which means using all we can from the land to create fertility and biodiversity in our gardens and lessening our off-farm resources,” explains Bobby. Ancient Green Farm is a DEM Pure certified regenerative family farm, an organic certification created by Dragon Fly Earth Medicine. This certification is not easily attained, as self-sustaining farms take time, effort, and patience to create and maintain. To learn more about the DEM Pure certification, please see @dragonflyearthmedicine on Instagram or visit www. dempurefarms.com.

With gardens filled with vegetables, herbs, and flowers, Ancient Green Farm mainly grows full-season plants. Each garden site is designed with the landscape and plants in mind. A Walipini greenhouse—which is a solar-powered, geothermal, subterranean greenhouse for maximum season extension here in the northern climate of Mid-Coast Maine—allows for additional months of outdoor gardening time while a light dep greenhouse is in the works. The Walipini greenhouse was designed and built by Bobby Gaudette and woodworker Zach Murdoch over the winter and spring of 2019 and features local cedar wood milled on the farm. The Hugelkultur-inspired raised beds going around three sides are layered with wood chips, cannabis stalks, dairy compost, rock dust, and locally composted soil.

In just five years, Ancient Green Farm has dug deep to reach the roots of Maine, crafting unfiltered raw CO2 cannabis oil, a Maine original. “No additives ever, only the pure nectar of the plant with maximum terpene retention,” notes Bobby. As a self-sustaining farm, all products are grown, extracted, and crafted on the farm using only the purest, organic ingredients and methods available. The farm offers a cosmic line of THC products including CO2 cartridges, capsules, oils, tinctures, and salves as well as a separate line of CBD hemp oils, capsules, CO2 cartridges, salves, and skin care.

While Ancient Green Farm products can be found in several dispensaries, the Gaudettes decided to build their very own store on the farm. They want patients to receive the best medication that the farm has to offer as well as having the opportunity to see where their medication comes from, something often overlooked when it comes to medical cannabis. The Ancient Green Farm store will carry clean cannabis, CBD, and local products including art, pottery, produce, and locally grown foods. Set to officially open late summer/ early fall 2020, the store features a traditionally handcrafted frame and interior built from locally harvested and milled timber. It was crafted in collaboration with builder and designer Zach Murdoch of Sacred Timberworks (@ sacredtimberworks). Zach, an essential part of the Ancient Green Farm team, was trained in the art of timber framing at the Island School of Building Arts in British Columbia and under Steve Chappell’s Fox Maple in Costa Rica.

Ancient Green Farm is a family farm that continues to reach, extend, and exchange its regenerative way of farming and living with farmers and individuals who also value the sustainability and longevity of the earth. Ancient Green believes in creating friendships through healing and regeneration; one such friendship is that with Best Friend Farms (@bestfriendfarms)—a friendship grounded on the healing of the people, providing clean organic medicine, and creating strains of cannabis that further heal and reach the nation. The two farms come together as regenerative farmers who desire to see people receive organic medicine, grown with intentions of healing and well-being. Regeneration of the nation can only occur when farmers of food and cannabis turn back to the earth, using what she has given and allowing each plant to grow as nature intended.