Cylburn Arboretum – Baltimore Magazine

The Maryland Daffodil Society—The Oldest in America—Prepares for its 100th Show

Christianna McCausland — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:10:07 +0000

—Illustration by Alicia Corman

Enter the Vollmer Visitor Center at Cylburn Arboretum on April 16 or 17, and you will be met by the sight of approximately 1,000 daffodils, immaculately displayed in pristine glass bottles and test tubes like little soldiers with starbursts for faces.

These specimens are the best of the best, pedigreed examples of the beloved blooms that cut through late winter’s gloom like a welcome ray of sunshine—a beacon of warm days ahead.

“When you see a daffodil, you know spring is coming,” says Julie Minch, past president of the Maryland Daffodil Society and a longtime board member. For her, the charm of daffodils is their cheerful blooms but also their remarkable resilience. “Daffodils are easier [to grow] than some plants. They want to live. You can plant one upside down and they will turn it around, figure it out, and bloom.”

And since daffodils multiply themselves each year, you can spread them around your yard or dig them up and gift them to friends.

Begun in 1923 by local garden club members and daffodil devotees, the Maryland Daffodil Society is the oldest of its kind in the U.S. Its first daffodil show, held at the Elkridge Country Club, had 10 horticultural classes and one artistic class. The entry fee was 10 cents. The show has grown in size and popularity, moving from locations like the Baltimore Museum of Art and Kenilworth Mall before putting down roots at Cylburn.

Now, celebrating its 100th show this month, the show is one of the nation’s largest, with as many as 210 horticulture classes, as well as others for design and photography. The show is free and open to the public, and anyone from a seasoned grower to an amateur gardener can enter a bloom so long as they know the cultivar name. Which is no small feat, considering there are now over 32,000 named cultivars.

—Courtesy of the Maryland Daffodil Society

It is this wide variety of daffodils that Minch says the society likes to share with the public. There are daffodils with blooms as tiny as a pinky nail, and double daffodils so frilly they resemble roses.

Anyone familiar only with yellow “daffs” will be amazed at the pinks, reds, oranges, and whites—even greens—on display.

“Any opportunity in the horticulture world to educate the public is a good thing,” says Minch.

Encompassing the essence of spring’s joy, daffodils have captured the heart of everyone from poet William Wordsworth to children’s book author A.A. Milne. But if you need one more reason to adore them, consider that every part of these hardy flowers is poisonous to deer, making them the only true deer-proof plant for your garden.

Want to pick some daffodils up for yourself for fresh blooms next year? Check out the Society’s annual bulb sale in November, too.

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Nature’s Classroom: Baltimore’s First Forest Kindergarten

Megan McGaha — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 14:07:16 +0000

Splashing in puddles. Making mudpies. Climbing trees. These are the ways children naturally explore and learn about their world. Yet, in an era of online learning and academic pressures being put onto younger and younger learners, fewer children are being allowed the opportunity for a more gentle entry into education.

This explains the popularity of the Waldorf School of Baltimore’s Forest Kindergarten. While still a relatively new concept in the United States, forest kindergarten has been popular in Scandinavian countries since the 1950s. The most striking difference between forest kindergarten and traditional kindergarten is that most, if not all, of the school day is spent outside regardless of the weather. The Waldorf School of Baltimore has long had a successful preschool and Kindergarten program; and last year, as the school celebrated its 50th birthday, they had the opportunity to realize a long held dream: to open a second Kindergarten “classroom in the woods;” Baltimore City’s first Forest Kindergarten.

“The trend in mainstream education is to have kindergarten look more like an elementary grade with direct academic instruction and lots of desk time. We are giving children the gift of one more year to learn through self-initiated play, movement, and ample time in nature,” says Forest K lead teacher Lida Lawrence.

The Forest K classroom is located in a beautiful urban woodland on The Waldorf School’s campus, found along the northernmost edge of Baltimore City on a hill adjacent to Cylburn Arboretum. Simply follow the stone steps down from the main campus, which is itself a certified wildlife habitat and Maryland Green School. Take the trails naturally terraced with boulders and logs and planted with wildflowers until you spot the sandboxes, sinks, swings, and natural wooden play-structures marking this classroom with no walls.

Children engage their sense of wonder, their powers of imagination, their motor and social skills, by climbing, jumping, hiking, creating art at handcrafted tables, pumping water from a cistern, and resting in hammocks rain, snow, sleet or shine. The time-tested Waldorf Kindergarten curriculum of movement-rich circles and stories, painting and craft work, practical skills and social exploration, all play out in complete immersion in nature. Dressed in rainboots and jackets when necessary, children experience the changing seasons. Weather, in all its forms, is seen as a teachable moment. (A classroom on the main campus can be used for exceptionally inclement weather).

For more than a century, Waldorf education has maintained a strong focus on immersing children in the outdoors to promote a love of nature. Fostering a love for all living things, by intertwining educational experiences with the land around us, is central to the Waldorf approach. Waldorf Education is the fastest-growing educational philosophy worldwide, with more than 1,000 Waldorf schools in 64 countries around the world.

Do you or someone you know have a kindergartener who is ready to become not just a young learner but also a forest explorer? For information on admissions and visiting The Waldorf School of Baltimore, see their website.

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You Are Here: Gifted

Jess Mayhugh — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 08:30:00 +0000

Gifted

June 11, 2017
Auburn Drive

“You can’t run without passing the baton and we’re very good at passing the baton,” says Donnell Banks, 23, moments after he and his three teammates win gold in the 4×400 at the Special Olympics Maryland Summer Games at Towson University. “We practice together every Saturday and we’re very close,” Banks adds with a smile, standing alongside his running mates. “We work well together.”

So well, in fact, this is the third year in a row that the foursome—Banks; Calvin Anderson, 17; Niki Kohli, 17; and Vu Tran, 30—has won gold in the 4×400.

Events at this weekend’s 47th summer games include track and field, swimming, cheerleading, softball, and bocce—and more than 1,500 mostly under-40 competitors.

With temperatures reaching 93 degrees, Lori “Action” Plaxen, 28, who won five medals overall, cools off after her last event beneath the light spray of local fire trucks. “Special Olympics is a family,” says her mother, Joyce, the Montgomery County track and field team manager for the past 10 years. “What can you say? It makes them feel accepted. It makes them feel like they can do anything.

“Look around, too,” she adds. “There is every nationality, race, and religion competing here and getting along and loving each other.”

Along those lines, Jason Schriml, of Special Olympics of Maryland, recalls a favorite moment while coaching the Maryland team at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Boise and other locations in Idaho. “We were on a long bus ride leaving the opening ceremonies and I dozed off,” Schriml says. “There were teams from Iran, Iraq, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, South America on this bus and when I woke up, they’re all exchanging gear and taking selfies. One guy from India was showing his turban around to everyone. It was surreal.

“We also had four Maryland athletes competing in the snowshoe events in Boise,” Schriml continues. “What amazed me was the team from Egypt. Apparently, they practice with cardboard boxes, tied around their feet with rubber tubes, and train in the sand. I mean, they were good.”

True Colors

June 14, 2017

E. Pratt Street

Historian K. A. Wisniewski clicks his laptop and puts a PowerPoint image of 16 varying red, white, and blue flags on the screen at the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House. Most of the flags include the traditional stars of the American flag in differing configurations—concentric circles and abstract designs, for example—but not all. Wisniewski asks the small crowd how many of those flags were considered the official American flag at one time or another?

“All of the above,” he says, answering his own question.

Wisniewski explains that the U.S. has employed 27 flags since its inception. Early on, different flags were even acknowledged as official American flags at the same time. In fact, to this day, while there’s still debate over the identity of the original seamstress of the flag that became the known as “The Stars and Stripes”—the question over who designed the flag has largely been settled, according to Wisniewski. That would be Declaration of Independence signee Francis Hopkinson. At least, he’s the only known person to have billed Congress for the job.

Wisniewski’s presentation is part of the 90th Flag Dag celebration at the Flag House, which includes a museum and the attached former home of seamstress Mary Pickersgill, who stitched the famous Star-Spangled Banner that flew over Fort McHenry. Events today include free tours, a replica flag-raising, and a performance by Fort McHenry Junior Fife and Drum Corps.

As many Baltimoreans know, Philadelphian Betsy Ross, thanks to aggressive marketing by her ancestors, typically gets credit for designing and sewing the “first” official American flag. However, Wisniewski says, evidence suggests Hopkinson, who lived in Philadelphia and knew both Mary Pickersgill’s family and Betsy Ross, would not have handed his design to Ross. “In one correspondence, Hopkinson pays Betsy Ross a kind of backhanded compliment,” Wisniewski says. “He suggests she was good at something, but it wasn’t sewing.

“In other words, he thought she was a second-rate seamstress.”

Pulp Stores

June 17, 2017

Swann Drive

As the packed bus pulls away from the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and Botantical Gardens at Druid Hill Park, arborist Gary Letteron points out a state champion bur oak, a city champion white ash, and the Grove of Remembrance—pin oak trees, one for each state, planted 25 feet apart—representing the first living memorial to the veterans of World War I.

Letteron, along with Ted Martello, is leading the morning bus portion of TreeBaltimore’s “Notable Tree Bus Tour,” which is headed next to Cylburn Arboretum, but not before passing several massive English oaks near the park’s disc golf course. “We don’t know how old those trees are,” Letteron says, “but there are pictures of Civil War soldiers sitting underneath them. That’s how big they already were then.”

Entering Cylburn, the tour bus passes a showy magnolia in full bloom. Walking the 200-acre arboretum, and now led by Glenda Weber, a naturalist with Baltimore City, attendees get up-close looks at a silver maple, a Himalayan pine, a Chinese chestnut, and a 1970 progeny of the iconic, now-deceased Wye Oak tree, an Eastern Shore specimen once recognized as the nation’s largest white oak.

Later, the three-hour tour heads to Chinquapin Run Park, passes by a weeping cherry donated by Al Capone to Union Memorial Hospital (Johns Hopkins refused to treat the Chicago gangster’s syphilis), and visits Evesham Park and its nearby city champion male ginkgo biloba—a species that dates back 2.5 million years.

Beneath a giant bald cypress at Evesham Park, Weber explains that many trees have a single gender—male trees with flowers that produce pollen, or female trees with “ovaries” that produce fruit. Other trees have both characteristics; still others can switch genders during their lifetimes.

“They are all different and they are all my friends,” she says with a smile while discussing the nuanced gender and reproductive systems of trees. “Look closely and take notice of each one.”

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Five Things to Know about the Great American Solar Eclipse

Michelle Evans — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 12:02:00 +0000

What is a total solar eclipse?
Every year, there are a minimum of four eclipses: two solar and two lunar. However, the eclipse on August 21 is especially unique; there hasn’t been one like it since 1918. During this eclipse, the sun will be covered—totally or partially—for approximately three hours, with the longest period of complete coverage lasting just under three minutes. At this time, the only visible portion of the sun will be its hazy atmosphere known as the corona.

Why is this such a big deal?
Scientists have been studying data and patterns from the eclipses for the past 60 years to learn more about the sun. The Applied Physics Lab (APL) at Johns Hopkins University will send the Parker Solar Probe to the sun’s corona in 2018 in hopes of answering questions that have plagued scientists for decades. “It’s the first time in 99 years that we’ve had a total solar eclipse that’s gone right from one coast all the way across the U.S. to the other coast,” said Dr. Nicola Fox, project scientist at APL. “The corona is about two million degrees, but the surface is only 10,000 degrees, that doesn’t make sense. From a logical standpoint, the further away from the surface, it should get cooler, not hotter.” Events like the total solar eclipse bring scientists one step closer to answering these questions.

Will we be able to see it in Baltimore?
Each state along the 70-mile wide path of the eclipse—Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and The Carolinas—will witness a total solar eclipse, in which the moon will completely cover the sun, while the rest of the country will see varying views of partial eclipses. “In Baltimore, it will be a partial eclipse for about two hours,” said street astronomer Herman Heyn. “One hour as the moon approaches the sun, and another hour as it leaves the sun.” According to an interactive map created by NASA, a partial eclipse will begin in Baltimore at approximately 1:18 p.m., with maximum visibility occurring at 2:42 p.m., and ending at 4:01 p.m. “You’ll see something, it won’t be 100-percent totality, but it will darken up a bit, and part of the sun will disappear,” Fox said. “It’s really dependent on the cloud coverage. As long as you’re somewhere pretty open, with a good view of the sun, you should be fine.”

Can I take pictures of it?
Heyn explained that a total solar eclipse is actually safe for unprotected viewing, but looking directly at a partial eclipse is harmful for the eyes. There are creative alternatives to view the eclipse that will occur over Baltimore. Purchasing “eclipse glasses” is one way to protect your eyes from the suns harmful rays. These glasses are specially designed to look directly at the sun. “You don’t want to use regular dark sunglasses,” Heyn cautioned. “Those don’t block enough of the infrared light that would burn your eyes.” Creating a pinhole camera is another safe way to experience the eclipse, using materials already available around the house. “Take a piece of cardboard, about a foot square, and poke a hole in it with a straight pin,” Heyn explained. “Take another piece about half that size and place it under the first. That will give you a small image of the eclipsed sun.” There will also be workshops at Cylburn Arboretum the day of the eclipse to create pinhole cameras for ages seven and up. Taking pictures of the eclipse should be done cautiously, due to the extreme heat—two million degrees Fahrenheit—emitted from the sun’s corona. A typical photo lens will burn up without a heavy-duty filter.

What does this mean for the future of astronomy?
The total solar eclipse later this month will be another piece of data that the APL and NASA can use toward their mission. “It’s kind of cool because we’ve discovered so much about the sun’s corona itself during eclipses,” she said. “The huge temperature difference was found during an eclipse and what the corona’s structure looks like was found during an eclipse. Without the solar probe, we’ll never fully understand what we are really seeing.”

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Farm City

Jess Mayhugh — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 09:00:00 +0000

Farm City

Urban farming is taking root in Baltimore. Is it the city's next growth industry?

By Amy Mulvihill.
Photography by Christopher Myers. Lettering by Jill DeHann.

One wheelbarrow-full at a time, Walker Marsh is transporting an SUV-size pile of horse manure from one end of his farm to the other.

“Man this stuff gets stinky as you get into it,” says Marsh good-naturedly, as he lifts another shovelful into the cart.

The effort, an early spring project to create compost for newly demarcated plant beds at his nascent flower farm, is an almost archetypal act of farming—low-tech, simple, wholesome—probably practiced ever since agriculture first began in the Fertile Crescent some 11,000 years ago. But everything else about the scene—at least to our modern eyes—seems jarring.

Maya Kosok at her flower Farm Hillen homestead.

Instead of long, uniform rows of crops stretching toward the horizon, the site is a half-acre triangle of compacted dirt in East Baltimore, strewn with trash and fenced by a knee-high strip of woven black plastic. Instead of a bucolic vista, the view is of Inner Harbor skyscrapers and construction cranes over the nearby Johns Hopkins medical campus. Instead of a quiet country road, there is only the persistent rumble of traffic on city streets. And instead of barns and silos, there are sad-looking liquor stores and vacant row homes ringing the farm. Marsh himself might confound some expectations, too. Do a Google Images search for “farmer” and what results, overwhelmingly, are pictures of farmers who are male, middle-aged, and white. Marsh is almost none of those things. A tall, thin 28-year-old African American with a nose ring and an easy, sibilant laugh, Marsh is a new breed of farmer on a new breed of farm—the urban farm.

“Right now, it’s just dirt but . . . we’re going to get it done. I’m a big dreamer, I’m a vision-type person,” Marsh says.

Though growing crops in urban environments is not novel—victory gardens were common during World War II, for instance—an almost revolutionary zeal for the practice is sweeping the country, and thanks to Marsh and his fellow “urban ag” compatriots, Baltimore has joined the crusade. Baltimore is such fertile ground for it that U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack came to Baltimore in April to announce the launch of the Department of Agriculture’s new online resource guide for budding urban farmers. Before the press conference at Frederick Douglass High School—which had just installed garden beds and a small orchard on its campus—Vilsack attended a roundtable with some of the major players on Baltimore’s farming scene.

“There’s an awful lot going on in this space,” he said afterward. “One day, you’re just going to wake up and go, ‘This is everywhere!’”

That day may have already arrived. In recent years, the city has adopted a suite of regulations to better accommodate farming, everything from rewriting the rules about livestock (bees, miniature goats, rabbits, and chickens are allowed now in limited numbers) to clarifying the building code to permit lightweight, temporary greenhouses called hoop houses. Perhaps most ambitiously, last year the City Council passed an Urban Agriculture Property Tax Credit that provides a 90 percent tax break to farmers who produce $5,000 worth of crops annually. There is also a pending rewrite of the city’s zoning code, which would codify urban agriculture in almost all of Baltimore’s residential zones.

As a result, if you know where to look, you can now find agriculture in every corner of the city, in forms ranging from flower farming to aquaponics—a combination of aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (growing plants in water). Among the city’s 17 urban farms and more than 75 food-producing community gardens, the variations seem endless.

“It’s a lot of really innovative people just trying things out,” says Maya Kosok, who runs Hillen Homestead, a flower farm on two small vacant lots near Clifton Park. “There’s a lot more potential.”

Nowhere in the city is this potential more apparent than at Real Food Farm. Totaling eight acres across two sites—one in Clifton Park and one in a nearby blighted neighborhood—the operation is supported by the larger nonprofit Civic Works. It has become what food and farm director Chrissy Goldberg calls “a model urban ag farm,” its goal less about making money than about creating new farmers. Groups from local high schools and universities constantly stream in and out of the Clifton Park site, learning about food systems, food justice issues, and urban farming. On Fridays, the farm’s woodchip-lined walkways buzz with activity as city farmers congregate to prepare for the next day’s Waverly farmers’ market, where they sell under the collective banner of the Farm Alliance of Baltimore. And, as a partner with national and local job programs, the farm is a constant source of hands-on experience for aspiring agriculturalists. Marsh himself started here, transitioning from a different project under the Civic Works umbrella.

“I was doing door-to-door canvassing, basically selling home weatherization packages,” recalls Marsh, who, like many urban farmers, makes a point to offer job-training opportunities to at-risk youth on his farm. “I just didn’t like it, so I went back to the folks at Civic Works and was like, ‘Hey, is there a different job?’ And they were like, ‘Well, the only job available now is farming.’ I was like, ‘Crap. I guess I gotta farm.’ But I went out there and I fell in love with farming the first day, and I haven’t looked back since.”

Greens Grown at Food System Lab @ Cylburn.

Spring crops at Real Food Farm’s Clifton Park site.

Early strawberries at Real Food Farm.

Isabel Antreasian, left, and Alison Worman at Whitelock Community Farm in Reservoir Hill.

In bloom at Hillen Homestead.

Walker Marsh at his East Baltimore flower farm, Tha Flower Factory.

Farm Stand sign at Whitelock Community Farm.

Tending to the bees at Real Food Farm.

The urban farming movement is, in many ways, an outgrowth of a renewed interest in cities, which now house the majority of the world’s population and are only expected to swell. As Lindsay Thompson, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, remarked earlier this year at a Light City U conference, “Global challenges are city challenges,” meaning that making cities functional, safe, and healthy is crucial to the continuation of civilization. “So, no pressure,” she joked.

Because of urban agriculture’s potential to feed, employ, beautify, and improve ecological and health outcomes, it is often touted as a promising solution to the ills of urbanity, especially in cities like Baltimore where vacant land is plentiful, food insecurity and blight are rampant, and community resources are scarce.

But the reality is considerably more complicated. Even the movement’s staunchest allies admit it won’t completely solve food insecurity problems and its job-creating potential, at least in the short term, is modest. Still, many in the field feel its virtues—which include fostering relationship-building, community investment, and increased housing values—are overlooked.

“My understanding . . . is that there are very few folks on the city level that see urban agriculture as a permanent use [of land] anywhere,” says Allison Boyd, the director of the Farm Alliance of Baltimore, which imposes soil safety and other health standards on farmers as a condition of membership. “It’s [like], ‘Oh, it’s this nice thing. It will be a placeholder until someone comes along and wants to build a row house or a condo or whatever.’”

At the heart of the matter is determining what Boyd calls “the highest and best use” of city land. For urban farmers, that is agriculture. For the city, that means whatever will generate property tax revenue—and that’s unlikely to be a farm. Indeed, very few farms in Baltimore operate on taxable private land. Most occupy city-owned vacant lots or parkland, which farmers access through one of two programs. The first, called Adopt-A-Lot, permits use of vacant land without a lease and for free on a year-to-year basis; the city can revoke the agreement at any time. The second—the Land Leasing Initiative—offers more protection but is harder to access. It provides a five-year lease with a two-year notice to vacate, giving farmers a minimum occupancy of seven years. But the Land Leasing Initiative only applies to operations deemed urban farms, not community gardens or green space, and applicants must have at least one year of successful ag experience to qualify.

Cheryl Carmona co-founded Boone Street Farm in 2010 on two vacant lots in East Baltimore’s Midway neighborhood. Over time and despite challenges, the farm thrived, expanding onto a few nearby vacant lots. Then, last fall, Carmona was informed that a developer wanted to buy one of the lots and construct an apartment building. Because Carmona was using that plot through the Adopt-A-Lot program, she had little recourse.

“We had two weeks to come up with a counterbid. We were trying to scramble and come up with $20,000,” says Carmona, who is now working to register her remaining lots under the Land Lease Initiative. Without that added cushion of protection, she calls her farm “a sitting duck.”

And this is perhaps the great irony of urban farming—the more successful the farm, the more it helps stabilize a neighborhood, the more likely it is to fall prey to redevelopment.

But Abby Cocke, an environmental planner at the city’s Office of Sustainability, thinks officials are beginning to recognize the hard-to-quantify value of urban farms and other green spaces.

“We are just starting to work out a green network plan for the city that would look at our vacant land [and determine] what are the most strategic places to keep open and not develop,” she says, calling it “an evolving conversation.”

“Right now,” she continues, “it is absolutely a different conversation every time because every neighborhood is different and every farm is different and every development is different. But we’re starting to do a better job at balancing priorities and not just thinking in one way.”

The farmers, too, are starting to think differently. While much of the farming in the city is traditional and land-intensive, there are alternatives being explored, some with great promise.

In a small greenhouse on the grounds of Cylburn Arboretum, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is backing an experiment in aquaponics, raising fish and growing salad greens in an interconnected system of water-filled tanks and troughs. Though Laura Genello, the outgoing farm manager at the Food System Lab @ Cylburn, admits the practice has its drawbacks—it is expensive to launch and energy-intensive—the soilless growing method can produce high yields, reduce labor costs, and allow for almost total environmental control.

“Other than feeding the fish and maintaining healthy water for them, they don’t require a lot. There’s no weeding, no soil prep, no tractor use or tillage,” Genello explains.

And the rewards can be great, though it’s the quick-growing greens, not the fish—which take a year and a half to mature—that are the cash crop. Through the sale of both the greens and the fish to area outlets, Genello says the Food System Lab “comes fairly close” to covering its operating costs except for her salary, which is underwritten by Hopkins. Luckily, the academic nature of the project doesn’t demand profitability, but it’s easy to see how, with a few tweaks, a similar model could reap plenty.

Carrots at Real Food Farm.

J.J. Reidy inside the urban pastoral shipping container.

Maya Kosok hard at work at Hillen Homestead.

With a toothy grin, prep-school elan, and a do-gooder’s drive, 28-year-old J.J. Reidy could be mistaken for a young Kennedy, but he’s actually the proprietor of Urban Pastoral, Baltimore’s latest—and maybe most unconventional—urban farm. In a 320-square-foot retrofitted shipping container in the parking lot behind the American Brewery building, Reidy is growing microgreens through hydroponic vertical farming, a method favored in space-squeezed metropolises like New York and San Francisco. Shallow plant beds are arranged in stacked rows and columns, and the density allows Reidy to grow about 4,300 heads of lettuce at a time in the climate-controlled, LED-lighted container—a harvest he notes is equivalent to “several football fields of open-field agriculture.”

That lettuce will be front and center next month when Reidy and his cohorts open a vegetarian/vegan restaurant in the new R. House food hall in Remington. He believes that between the growing farm operation and the eatery, Urban Pastoral will be able to demonstrate the profitability of urban farming in a way other local farms have not.

Professor Thompson, who mentored Reidy as he developed the business while a student at the Carey Business School, thinks this is crucial for the success of urban farming.

“It’s never going to take off if it doesn’t make money,” she says.

But though Thompson is pragmatic about the challenges facing urban ag, she roots for it because she recognizes its value.

“The magic of those spaces is that they can harness disruption and make it into innovation instead of disruption turning into chaos,” she says. “And that’s the big challenge of cities. Of course we’re going to have disruption because we’re mashing up all sorts of people and ideas and values. But can we harness that? The quality of place is one of the key factors in making that difference.”

After a long winter, it’s busy time at Whitelock Community Farm in Reservoir Hill. Farm manager Alison Worman and programs manager Isabel Antreasian admit that the long, cold spring has put them behind schedule. They need to weed beds, get late-started seedlings in the ground, organize a slate of community events, and prepare to welcome new employees participating in the city’s YouthWorks summer jobs program.

But Worman and Antreasian understand that Whitelock’s role as a community asset necessitates flexibility. So they don’t bat an eye when a neighbor, Omarr Newberns, accompanied by his cocker spaniel, Brooklyn, appears carrying a dead potted plant.

“Hey, Omarr, what’s up?” asks Worman, a 26-year-old who came to urban farming after graduating from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a degree in fiber and book arts.

“These are from last summer,” Newberns says of the shriveled sprig.

“These are the basil?” Worman queries. “It’s not going to come back, but I can give you some more.”

“Okay, I kept watering and watering, trying to see if maybe it will salvage,” Newberns replies sheepishly.

He began growing herbs last year after developing an interest in cooking and now tends a potted garden in his apartment.

“Before coming here, I was going to the international store, H-mart, to find all the different types of herbs,” he explains. “Once I found the ladies had it here, I was like, ‘Hey!’ And then I started growing my own last summer because they put their green thumb in there and it worked!”

As Newberns, Worman, and Antreasian discuss herbs and coo over Brooklyn, another neighbor stops by, then another, and another. Suddenly it feels more like a party than a day on the farm, and the conversation drifts from the prior evening’s Bruce Springsteen concert at Royal Farms Arena (Newberns works security there) to reminiscences about Prince, who had been found dead earlier that day.

Worman, finally excusing herself to go grab a new basil plant for Newberns, shrugs and laughs. “Welcome to our every day.”

Barrels of tilapia at Food System Lab @ Cylburn.

Starter seedlings at Food System Lab @ Cylburn.

Laura Genello was the farm manger at Food System Lab @ Cylburn from June 2012-July 2016.

Tilapia from Food System Lab @ Cylburn is sold to local restaurants, including Woodberry Kitchen.

Real Food Farm emphasizes teaching agricultural practices to the next generation of farmers through programs such as Youth Crew, a paid year-long internship for 11th and 12th graders in the Lake Clifton area.

A toolshed at Real Food Farm.

A farmer harvests strawberries at Real Food Farm.

Real Food Farm is one of about a dozen urban farms that sells at the 32nd Street Farmers' Market in Waverly.

Lettuce at Real Food Farm.

Real Food Farm also hosts several beehives.

Totaling eight acres across two sites, Real Food Farm's Clifton Park location is the most "traditional" looking of the city's urban farms.

Myeasha Taylor at Real Food Farm's Perlman Place location.

Flower at Whitelock Farm.

Whitelock Farm is a community gathering place in addition to a food-producing farm.

Herb garden at Whitelock Farm.

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Saturday Bike Ride: The Charm City Farm & Garden Tour

Ron Cassie — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 16:43:00 +0000

Whether by bike or bus, the fourth annual Charm City Farm & Garden Tour offers a unique, once-a-year opportunity this Saturday to visit and learn about the diverse, community-managed small farms and garden spaces throughout Baltimore.

The bus tour is already sold out—sorry, we’ll try to provide an earlier head’s up next year—but there’s no limit on the number of bicyclists that can join in. Registration for the 2014 bike tour, which visits nine North Central Baltimore community farms and gardens, including the Boone St. Farm, Hidden Harvest Farm, and Remington Village Green, opens tomorrow morning at Druid Hill City Farm at 8 a.m., with the 8-10 mile recreational ride pulling out promptly at 8:30 a.m.

Bring a helmet, but a bathing suit, too—the ride wraps up at approximately 12:30 p.m. back at the Druid Hill Park swimming pool for an after-party. The $20 registration includes a route map and garden information, snacks and water during the ride, a pre-ride bike safety check, breakdown support, bag check and delivery to the pool—plus a commemorative souvenir, admission to the pool, and refreshments during the pool party.

The event is hosted in partnership by staff and volunteers from Baltimore Green Space, the Baltimore Farm Alliance, the Parks & People Foundation, CGRN, Cylburn Arboretum, and UME Baltimore City Master Gardeners.

By the way, the weather should be PERFECT tomorrow—sunny, high of 84 degrees, 47 percent humidity.

August in Baltimore doesn’t get better. Ride on.

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Baltimore’s Neighborhood Parks

Jess Mayhugh — Tue, 27 May 2014 08:00:00 +0000

City dwellers often counter the argument for county life and its more plentiful open spaces with some variant of the line, “But the
entire city is my backyard!” While this rebuttal conveniently overlooks certain realities of city life—traffic; crime; noise, light, and waste pollution; having to occasionally, you know, share—there is also a lot of truth to it. Does a suburban backyard have free outdoor concerts, two zoos (yes, two), five golf courses, miles of hiking and biking trails, an ice-skating rink, Chesapeake Bay access, an arboretum, and literally dozens of pools?

Indeed there is much to celebrate in Baltimore’s park system, probably more than you know, and it’s all right outside your door. With summer bearing down on us, here’s our guide to exploring the best of your own backyard—all 4,905 acres of it.

Druid Hill Park

2600 E. Madison Ave.,
druidhillpark.org

Acreage: 745.

Special Features: The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, a disc golf course, and one of the city’s 29 public pools. Druid Hill Lake, aka the Reservoir, and Boat Lake also draw walkers, bikers, and birders to their scenic shores. The 125-year-old Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory & Botanic Gardens is a jewel box of flora with five distinct greenhouses (including orchid and tropical rooms), plus a half-acre garden.

Summer Events: Every Wednesday from June through September, the park hosts an evening farmers’ market. The zoo is open daily from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and offers its much-loved Breakfast with the Animals program on select weekend mornings. The park lives up to its pagan namesake on June 21 with a Summer Solstice Celebration with hayrides, live music, tarot card readings, and storytelling.

Patterson Park

E. Baltimore St. and S. Patterson Park Ave.,
pattersonpark.com

Acreage: 55.

Special Features: The 1891 octagonal pagoda, open for climbing on Sunday afternoons through mid-October, is one of the city’s most photographed landmarks. The Boat Lake is stocked with catchable fish. Though an ice rink in the winter months, the Dominic “Mimi” DiPietro Family Skating Center hosts floor hockey rec leagues all summer. Two adjacent dog parks—one for small pooches, one for large dogs—get lots of use. For a measly $2 admission fee, gain access to the park’s recently renovated swimming pool.

Summer Events: Spy up to 200 species during Patterson Park Audubon Center’s twice-monthly free bird walks. Cast your rod in the Boat Lake June 7 at the kid-friendly Fishing Festival. The ever-popular Friends of Patterson Park Concert Series returns with two to three concerts a month in June, July, and August. And LatinoFest celebrates its 34th year June 21-22.

Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park

1901 Ridgetop Rd.,
friendsofgwynnsfallsleakinpark.org

Acreage: 1,216.

Special Features: The 15-mile Gwynns Falls hiking and biking trail runs through the park. The Victorian Italianate manor house of railroad baron Thomas DeKay Winans still stands, as does his carriage house, and an American Gothic-style chapel built for his workers. For kids, a miniature steam-powered railroad with 3,400 feet of track provides free rides every second Sunday through November.Though smaller, the Carrie Murray Nature Center gives Druid Hill’s zoo a run for its money with fauna ranging from raptors to an albino Burmese python named Fluffy. (All animals are rescues or orphans.) A new “Rainforest Room” exhibit housing Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a Blue-fronted Amazon parrot named Cupid, and other exotic critters, opens June 7.

Summer Events: Carrie Murray offers nine weeks of summer camp for kids, plus regular kids’ programs focusing on owls (June 6), bees (June 21 and Aug. 30), and nocturnal insects (July 11 and Aug. 1).

Clifton Park

2801 Harford Rd.,
bmgcgolf.com/-clifton-park

Acreage: 267.

Special Features: The oldest of the city’s five municipal golf courses offers 18 holes for rates starting as low as $10. Elsewhere in the park, Civic Works’ Real Food Farm is making a go of urban agriculture with several hoophouses, an orchard, beehives, an herb garden, and field crops.

Summer Events: The golf course is open every day, weather permitting. Real Food Farm welcomes volunteers from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. every Wednesday and Friday, plus the first and third Saturday of the month from March through November.

Cylburn Arboretum

4915 Green Spring Ave.,
cylburn.org

Acreage: 207.

Special Features: Trees! From Kentucky coffeetrees to redwoods, Cylburn’s got you covered. Over three miles of trails will also take you through several gardens including daylily and rose plots. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future is conducting research in a cutting-edge agriculture practice called aquaponics on the premises. The farming method combines aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (soilless plant farming) in a waste-free sustainable growing cycle. Regular tours of the project’s greenhouse are starting soon.

Summer Events: Enjoy outdoor yoga (June 7, 14, 21, 28); the Celebration of Art event (June 14-15) with exhibitions, lectures, and children’s activities; and a firefly walk (June 26).

Middle Branch Park

3301 Waterview Ave.,410-396-3838.

Acreage: Six miles of shoreline, marshes, and meadows.

Special Features: One of the city’s best-kept secrets, the park is the launch site for many area collegiate and high school crew teams. The two concrete boat ramps can accommodate anything from kayaks to large boats.The Gwynns Falls Trail runs through the park, and The Maryland Vietnam Veterans Memorial sits on a rise above the main parking lot.

Summer Events: The recs and parks department hosts periodic “open paddle” sessions, providing all equipment, a tutorial, and a guided tour for a nominal fee.

Mount Pleasant Golf Course

6001 Hillen Rd.,
classic5golf.com/-mount-pleasant; 6101 Hillen Rd., mtpleasanticearena.com

Acreage: approximately 110.

Special Features: In addition to the links, which have been played by the likes of Arnold Palmer, the park is home to the Mount Pleasant Ice Arena, the city’s only year-round skating pavilion.

Summer Events: Public skate times are held every day. Hockey and figure skating classes and clinics are held regularly, as well. Summer skating camps for ages 5 to 18 run from June 23 to July 25.

Canton Waterfront Park

3001 Boston St.,
bcrp.baltimorecity.gov/ParksTrails/CantonWaterfrontPark.aspx

Acreage: 2.5.

Special Features: A boat ramp and fishing pier provide stellar access to the water.The park is also home to Maryland’s Korean War Memorial.

Summer Events: WTMD’s popular First Thursdays concert series has relocated here from Mt. Vernon due to restoration of the Washington Monument. Upcoming shows will feature national acts such as Los Lonely Boys (June 5), Strand of Oaks (July 3), JD McPherson (Aug. 7), and The Hold Steady (Sept. 4)—all for free!

Roosevelt Park

1221 W. 36th St.,
bcrp.baltimorecity.gov/ParksTrails/RooseveltPark.aspx

Acreage: 18.72.

Special Features: One of the nicest public aquatic centers in the city can be found here, boasting a large outdoor pool, adjoining splash pad with towering water features, and a renovated pool house. Last month was the official grand opening of the first phase of the Skatepark of Baltimore. The gaping concrete bowl is ready for skateboard use and development of a street plaza landscape is in the offing.

Summer Events: Roosevelt Park and Recreation Center keeps a robust calendar of events, including coed volleyball on Wednesday and Thursday nights, community movie night (July 18), family game night (Aug. 8), and an environmental camp for ages 5 to 12 from June 23 to Aug. 15.

Fort McHenry

2400 E. Fort Ave.,
nps.gov/fomc

Acreage: 42.

Special Features: The city’s only national park is steeped in history. View the fort, barracks, the 1814 Guard House, and those immortalized ramparts.

Summer Events: Twice-monthly bird walks take advantage of the fort’s waterfront setting. As part of the ongoing bicentennial celebration of the War of 1812, the park is hosting Fort! Flag! Fire! Baltimore’s Star-Spangled Summer! with living history performances, cannon firings, fife and drum concerts, and lectures.

Carroll Park

1500 Washington Blvd., friendsofcarrollpark.blogspot.com/

Acreage: 117.

Special Features: Originally part of Declaration of Independence signer Charles Carroll’s Mount Clare estate and Georgia Plantation, Carroll Park’s history traces back to its pre-revolutionary site for industrial factories.The park is home to one of the two oldest Federal-style mansions still standing in Baltimore, which is open for tours guided by the National Society of Colonial Dames of America in traditional period dress.

Summer Events: Carroll is the closest golf course to downtown (about three miles), making it even easier to enjoy a quick round on a summer’s afternoon. (It’s an “executive,” aka nine-hole, course.) Don’t miss September’s The Shindig Festival (tickets on sale now) featuring Jane’s Addiction, Rise Against, Gogol Bordello, and Baltimore’s own J Roddy Walston & The Business, among others.

Cimaglia Park at Fort Holabird

Pine and Oak avenues

Acreage: 40.

Special Features: While the park’s recreational history dates to the seventies, Fort Holabird was constructed by the U.S. Army and used for various purposes from the 1920s to the 1950s. Upgrades to the park completed last November improved the park’s aesthetic appeal with enhancements like pedestrian pathways. Further renovations include two new half-courts for basketball and lighting for the ball fields.

Summer Events: Grow your own fruits and vegetables—from park to table. The Baltimore City Farms program offers rental garden plots for city residents looking to plant their own produce, herbs, and flowers in personal, fenced spaces.

Federal Hill Park

300 Warren Ave., bcrp.baltimorecity.gov/ParksTrails/FederalHillPark.aspx

Acreage: 10.

Special Features: Named for The Federalist—a ship built by 4,000 local Maryland citizens to celebrate the state’s ratification of the constitution, Federal Hill Park boasts cannons and monuments in memory of the Battle of Baltimore, in addition to unrivaled views of the harbor. Also, be on the lookout for new, Under Armour-renovated basketball courts. Little known fact: There is an extensive network of tunnels within the hill, which are rumored to have once functioned as an “underground railroad” of sorts, with escape routes, storage for munitions, and a place to store cold beer from local breweries.

Summer Events: The American Visionary Art Museum will begin its annual “Flicks From the Hill” free outdoor movie series on July 10, and continue screenings every Thursday through August 28. Once named one of Travel + Leisure magazine’s “World’s Best Free Things”, the park’s steep slopes create a natural amphitheater for audiences to enjoy alfresco films.

Forest Park

2900 Hillsdale Rd, bmgcgolf.com/-forest-park

Acreage:140.

Special Features: A classic, 18-hole golf course situated amidst the hilly green landscape with a clubhouse perfect for special event receptions.

Summer Events: June 22 and 23 mark the qualifying rounds of the 2014 STX Baltimore Putting Championship, which features two competitive divisions—adult and junior. The top three qualifiers in each division will play the finals on June 25at Mount Pleasant Golf Course.

Herring Run Park

3800 Bel Air Rd., arcadia-baltimore.org/arcadia_herringrun_c.html

Acreage: 300.

Special Features: Open, flowery fields, a running stream, winding paths, and playing fields. Considered the dog-friendliest park in the city, there is plenty of foliage to explore here with pets, family, and friends. The park is home to the Christopher Columbus monument erected in 1792, as well as bike paths, and softball and soccer fields along the length of the stream.

Summer Events: The park welcomes the first annual Herring Run Around—a 5K race on paved and dirt trails on June 28. Watershed alliance Blue Water Baltimore will host a picnic for volunteers and members following the race.

Latrobe Park

1518 Latrobe Park Terrace, sobosports.com/locs/latrobe.htm

Acreage: 6.

Special Features: Highlights include illuminated tennis courts, two basketball courts, a playground, and the gated Locust Point Dog Park, which features AstroTurf (no muddy paws!) and a waterslide for more adventurous canines.

Summer Events: Construction began on the Under Armour-funded $1.5 million Banner Field project this April, which will enhance the park with a turf field lined for football, soccer, and lacrosse. The field, named for the national anthem, will feature a sound system, scoreboard, running track, lights, and seating for 150 spectators. The Locust Point-based athletic company will also be making improvements to the playground. In summer, the park is frequented by the ASA Softball Leagues for co-ed evening games against local teams split according to skill-level.

Pine Ridge Golf Course

2101 Dulaney Valley Rd., bmgcgolf.com/-pine-ridge

Acreage: 224.

Special Features: Because nothing is ever simple, this county-situated course is actually owned and operated by the city due to its adjacency to Loch Raven Reservoir, which supplies much of Baltimore City’s drinking water. Home to many past PGA and LPGA tournaments, the 18-hole course also boasts a 45-station lighted driving range, which is open during the warmer months.

Summer Events: The Baltimore Municipal Golf Corporation and House of Ruth Maryland will host the 4th annual High Heels for Hope Longest Drive Contest on June 7. Proceeds will benefit House of Ruth’s mission to provide victims of partner violence with services to rebuild their lives. The twist? All contest participants must hit their drives while wearing a pair of high-heeled shoes—minimum two inches and no wedges or platforms—which will be donated to House of Ruth at the contest’s conclusion.

Reed Bird Island/Cherry Hill Park

101 Reedbird Ave., issuu.com/baltimorerecnparks/docs/cherry_hill_splash_park_pool_schedu

Special Features: Twin green spaces bifurcated by the Patapsco River as it empties into the Middle Branch, the park was Baltimore’s first waterfront park.Its rolling topography serves as a recreation area with picnic groves, fishing piers, a stage, and a shelter. Winding walking and bike paths along the shoreline lead to nearby Middle Branch Park.

Summer Events: The active public pool is perfect for cooling off post bike ride and offers swimming lessons on Saturday mornings.

Robert E. Lee Park

1000 Lakeside Dr., relpnc.org/

Acreage: 415.

Special Features: Another county-located but city-owned park, this popular bucolic spot just over the city-county line offerswaterfront activities including kayaking and canoeing, hiking trails, and the Paw Point Dog Park, which allows dogs water access, as well. Two pavilions, one overlooking the Lake Roland Dam and one perched hilltop, are ideal for family picnics.

Summer Events: The park, which, although owned by the city, is operated by Baltimore County Department of Recreation and Parks, offers a variety of activities for families including kayaking and fishing lessons, night hikes, and day camps. A full schedule of events can be found here.

Wyman Park

3100 N Charles St., wymanparkdell.org

Acreage: 88.

Special Features: Designed by the Olmstead Brothers, Wyman’s sweeping lawn is home to two monuments erected in honor of the Civil War. The Union Monument Plateau, engulfed by cherry trees, features a vigilant Union soldier flanked by goddesses. At the park’s other end, the Lee-Jackson Monument honors Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

Summer Events: Enjoy Music in the Park on June 18 and 25 with a free concert and outdoor movie. On July 27 there will be a special performance by jazz, funk, and world-rhythms band, the Swingin’ Swamis.

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