by Sarah Craighead Dedmon

For regular travelers of Machias’ Kennebec road, it seemed like the plants popped up overnight. One day there were empty fields surrounding Schoppee Farm, and the next, neatly-mulched rows of tall, green plants spreading as far as the eye can see.

“Now that they’re big enough to be identifiable, we get a lot of people stopping and asking us questions about them, which is great,” said farmer Ben Edwards. “But the assumption is that it’s marijuana.”