This is how you’d look if all you had to wear were the plastic bags you toted home all year long.     You’d look like a plastic imitation of New Orleans’ legendary Mardi Gras Indian tribes. But you’d be warm.

Wilderness, farmland, paved land: That’s the trajectory Maryland has followed since its founding as Lord Baltimore’s colony 376 years ago. So a county that can keep its farm traditions alive does so with pride. Thus Calvert County, where 55,000 acres of land are zoned as Farm and Forest Districts, made its First Annual Sustainable Agriculture Awards this year.  Citizens voted awards in three categories: Sustainable Farmer, Green Grocer and Buy-Local Restaurant of the year. 

Remember me? And my journey? For the past six months I’ve navigated Solomon’s Island Road every Thursday to restock my kitchen with the week’s produce that came in my share of the Community-Supported Agriculture farm I joined in April.

It’s been a wild weather year — record winter snowfall followed by record summer heat followed by record daily rainfall.  Weather that’s been inconvenient for most us has been terrible for Maryland farmers who grow conventional crops like corn and soybeans.  But for Maryland grape growers in all corners of the state, 2010 has been a very good year. 

 

 

Find a greener way to care for your lawn Saturday, August 14, at the Great Maryland Lawn Mower Event in Baltimore’s Camden Yards. The first 1,000 people who bring their gas guzzling power mowers to the event can exchange them for a discount in purchasing one of two environmentally friendly electrical Neuton mowers.