A sensory feast — colorful fruits and veggies, fresh eggs and meat, well-tended ornamental plants along with herbs and veggie plants — that’s the main reason to go to a farmers market. But education and the ability to speak directly with producers run a close second. At the Jones Station Farmers Market, education includes beekeeper and honey seller Peter Quinton’s display of what bees do to make honey and Lori Beard spinning wool roving into yarn.

Nothing may seem amiss, but the entire western half of Maryland is now a quarantine area. In 14 counties west of the Chesapeake and Susquehanna, Maryland Department of Agriculture has found evidence of the emerald ash borer. The destructive Asiatic beetle, which has conquered the west in nine years, kills ash trees from the inside out.

“I’m proud of you that you can name all the states in our watershed and not miss any,” said longtime TEAM DNR volunteer Penny Vahsen to fourth-graders at West Annapolis Elementary School. “Some students say California is part of our watershed.”     Not Candice Gaylon’s class this past school year. They’re up on buffers, erosion and water pollution.

Squirrels, rabbits, ground hogs and deer are a common problem in home vegetable gardens. I surround my garden with a four-foot-high four-inch-by-two-inch turkey fence supported by steel fence posts at 10-foot intervals. I also attach an 18-inch-wide pullet fence at the bottom with hog-nose rings. Groundhogs will not climb the turkey fence with the bottom pullet fence. They try but fall backwards because the pullet fence is loosely attached. The bottom edge is buried two to three inches deep to discourage the ground hogs from digging under.