BANGOR DAILY NEWS • October 16, 2022
Aroostook County farmers have for years explored alternative crops. The sugar beets of decades ago eventually failed, but broccoli has become a resounding success story. Others, like clover, hay and grains, are used as rotation crops to nourish soil between potato plantings. Though spuds reign supreme in The County, that famously fertile farmland grows a whole range of vegetables, fruits and other crops that farmers have spun into gold: from flaxen grainfields and golden sunflowers to deep amber ales. Here are just a few of the crops you might be surprised to find growing in Aroostook.