Normally, as spring spills into summer, Real Food Farm fires up its farmers market sales. But in the wake of the coronavirus, that endeavor has halted. Instead, the Civic Works program, which operates two farm sites in Northeast Baltimore, has pivoted to supporting older adults across the city.

When lockdown measures and social distancing practices were first enforced, food and farm manager Gwen Kokes—along with director of elder services, Lauren Averella—decided to put the food they had to good use.

“I knew our older adults were going to be anxious leaving their homes,” Kokes says, “so Lauren and I made deliveries to apartment complexes.”

Now eight weeks into the initiative, Real Food Farm continues to donate 3,000 pounds of food each week to seniors free of charge. Taking their commitment to sustainability and building greener neighborhoods a step further, the team at Civic Works reached out to their friends at bicycle advocacy organization Bikemore to make deliveries more environmentally friendly.

“These bikers just have a sense of adventure,” Kokes says. “Biking 10 miles for them seems like nothing, and they don’t mind coming back to put more in their packs.”

Real Food Farm has also turned to local businesses in an effort to reduce emissions and pollutants in the process of transporting the produce, and other essential items, to the recipients’ doors. Every item is purchased within a 100 mile-radius, including hand sanitizer from Mount Royal Soaps, bamboo toilet paper from new startup Lor Tush, and individual meals from Wild Thyme food truck—which make use of the produce from the farm.

“Everything we do, we do in relationships so that we can lean on each other in the future and in times like this,” says Kokes.

The Civic Works team has worked to expand their customer base by putting flyers up around the city and reaching out to elder services at housing co-ops. Older adults call in on Mondays and Tuesdays to place orders, and the team works to get through at least 60 calls every hour. On Wednesday, they get to work preparing and packing the orders so that deliveries can be made before the weekend begins. “The idea is that we are providing for a week,” explains Kokes, “but there is no limit on what they can order until our inventory runs out.”

To keep the couriers and clients safe, a six-foot distance is always maintained and no bagged orders are touched without gloves, which are changed between every order. Clients are also instructed to come to the door only after the delivery person has left.

While starting the initiative was a smooth process, Kokes is now focused on endurance. The initiative has enough funding to continue through the end of June, but organizers are constantly working to find a long-term solution since elderly adults will most likely be the last demographic to safely leave their households.

Every Monday, customers call to voice their appreciation for the meals and let the organizers know how grateful they are to be cared for. Kokes hopes that the initiative has helped to show people how they can depend on local food producers not only in times of emergency, but in their daily lives.

“We are showing how important it is to stick to our communities,” she says, “and rely on each other in our neighborhoods in ways that we haven’t really thought about before.”

When Beckie Gurley’s husband Jack first approached her with the idea of starting a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program at their five-acre farm in Sparks in 1997, she was admittedly skeptical.

“I thought it was the silliest idea I’d ever heard of in my life,” says Gurley, who started Calvert’s Gift Farm in 1995. “I grew up in the country and was raised going to the local market to get our food. We ate seasonally without even realizing it. We didn’t eat tomatoes unless they came out of the garden. So I didn’t really understand, but I have a whole different attitude about food today than I did 25 years ago.”

For those who don’t have easy access to farm-fresh food, CSAs have become a convenient way to stock up on produce straight from local purveyors. Members pay an annual fee, and the subscription-style service provides them with bundles of fresh fruits and vegetables on a routine basis.

“A CSA is the total definition of a sustainable food system,” Gurley explains. “The food is going directly to you—the money is going right to me. And it’s all staying right here in my community.”

Aside from the economic boost, Gurley says that the health benefits of joining a CSA are also significant. Each of her boxes includes eight items of Calvert’s organic produce, with favorites including head lettuce, parsnips, heirloom tomatoes, and rare veggies like kohlrabi—a trendy cousin of cabbage.

“Obviously fresh produce is going to have better flavor and higher nutritional value,” she says. “And when you join a CSA, you have to pick your share up every week and eat what’s in that box. It makes people eat vegetables that they’ve never seen before.”

Meat farmers have also begun to adopt the movement throughout the years. Liberty Delight Farm—an all-natural meat producer that opened in Reisterstown in 2009—launched its own meat share program based on the CSA model last spring, providing members with bulk orders of frozen beef, pork, chicken, and turkey.

“I have people who come up to me at farmers’ markets to pick up their share and say it’s like Christmas,” says Lauren Taylor, Liberty Delight’s vice president of wholesale and retail. “These days, when nobody has any extra time, meal planning has become more and more prevalent. Picking up the box creates a lot of mental relief.”

Another perk, says Taylor, is that CSAs make it easy to eat seasonally. Liberty Delight’s offerings rotate to include roasts for the winter, as well as burgers and chops for summer grilling. And Calvert’s boxes boast a variety of colorful berries and greens during the spring growing season.

“When you eat a radish in the spring, it feels like it’s sucking all of the toxins out that you’ve accumulated from being a couch potato throughout the winter,” Gurley says. “I don’t know how or why, but somehow, evolutionarily, it makes a difference.”

Here are a few local CSAs to consider joining as spring approaches:

Calvert’s Gift Farm
Produce: The 24-week session runs from May to the end of October, offering CSA members crops like spinach, kale, radishes, parsnips, strawberries, blackberries, and heirloom tomatoes.

Pick-up: Shareholders gather their boxes from the farm in Sparks, where they are invited to browse surplus produce, and pick their own flowers and berries at no extra charge.
Price: $600 for 24 weeks. (Weekly shares consist of 7-8 items valued at $25-30.)
16813 Yeoho Road, Sparks, 410-472-6764

Hungry Harvest
Produce: This homegrown startup, which was featured on Shark Tank in 2016, distributes rescued produce (fruits and veggies that aren’t the right size or shape for grocery stores and often go to waste) to consumers throughout the region. Patrons can customize their harvest with crops including squash, cauliflower, cucumber, peaches, mangos, celery, and fingerling potatoes.
Pick-up: The boxes are delivered straight to your doorstep.
Price: Collections vary from $15-50 per week depending on size.

Liberty Delight Farms 

Protein: Members receive a 20-pound supply of meat per month throughout the year. The frozen cuts include six pounds of grass-fed beef and pork, and four pounds of farm-raised chicken and turkey.

Pick-up: Shares can be picked up at the farm in Reisterstown, as well as at various weekend farmers’ markets and wine shops all over town.

Price: $150 for a one-month share, or $500 for a three-month share.

1633 Oakland Road, Reisterstown, 410-833-1796

Moon Valley Farm   
Produce: This Cockeysville purveyor offers one 22-week season running from June through October, as well as extended season from mid-May through the end of December. Offerings include potatoes, carrots, squash, and hot peppers.

Pick-up: Aside from the farm, popular pick-up spots include Parts & Labor in Remington and MOM’s Organic Market in Timonium on Tuesdays, as well as Rooster & Hen in Catonsville and Hex Ferments in Belvedere Square on Thursdays. 

Price: Boxes range from $15-27 per week based on size.

1124 Greenway Road, Cockeysville, 443-722-6539

One Straw Farm 
Produce: Husband-and-wife farmers Drew and Joan Norman offer their CSA from June 3 to November 17, with options like radishes, chard greens, broccoli, peppers, and beets. 
Pick-up: A lengthy list of pick-up options spans from Red Canoe Cafe on Harford Road to Diamondback Brewing Company in South Baltimore. 
Price: Shares range from $16-36 per week. 
19718 Kirkwood Shop Road, White Hall, 410-343-1828

The Genuine Food Company
Protein: This ultra-local meat CSA is run by Clementine chef Winston Blick, Prigel Family Creamery owner Bobby Prigel, and Steve Belkoff of Forever Endeavor Farm in Baldwin. The team offers its prime cuts of pork and beef on a quarterly or yearly basis. 
Pick-up: Shares are retrieved at Prigel Family Creamery in Glen Arm each month. 
Price: Quarterly shares (60 pounds of meat for three months) cost $235-465.  
4851 Long Green Road, Glen Arm, 410-458-0786

Real Food Farm 
Produce: Civic Works’ urban farm in Clifton Park is a six-acre operation featuring hoop houses, open fields, a sensory garden, and more than 100 fruit trees. The farm offers weekly shares from May through December, which can be customized to include everything from carrots and cherry tomatoes to kale and hot peppers.  
Pick-up: Neighbors can collect their boxes at the farm, as well as at Little Gunpowder Farm in Monkton, on Wednesdays from 3-7 p.m. 
Price: Six-month shares range from $280-480 based on size. SNAP EBT members are welcome to sign up for three-week shares at a time. 
2701 Saint Lo Drive, 443-531-8346

Whitelock Community Farm 
Produce: Residents transformed a vacant lot in Reservoir Hill into this thriving urban farm in 2010, and have been increasing the neighborhood’s access to healthy food ever since. Whitelock’s 22-week CSA runs from June through October, offering members five to seven items plus one herb per week. Produce to look out for includes arugula, basil, cherry tomatoes, scallions, summer squash, and beets.  
Pick-up: Locals line up to gather produce at the farm on Wednesdays from 5-7 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Shares can also be picked up at Parts & Labor in Remington from 4-8 p.m. on Wednesdays. 
Price: $450 for 22 weeks. The farm also offers monthly payment plans, and a reduced rate for federal food assistance users. 930 Whitelock St., 410-205-6572

Nature News

Have you ever seen the alarming photos of what a supermarket produce section would look like without bees? If not, here you go:

So we all get that bees are critical agents in the food chain, right? Well then, one local beekeeper has some bad news for us.

Bill Castro, who runs Bee Friendly Apiary out of his home in Southwest Baltimore, says more than 56 percent of managed honeybee colonies in Maryland were lost in 2016. This follows a three-year average loss of 54 percent.

“This means that beekeepers in Maryland spend over $1.13 million every year to replace approximately 7,600 lost registered honeybee colonies,” writes Castro in an email. “If managed honey bee losses are this high, how do we think that wild native bee populations are fairing?”

The statistic Castro cites comes from Bee Informed Partnership, a collaborative effort among academic institutions, agriculturalists, scientists, and apiary owners to better understand honey bee declines in the United States. The troubling figure reinforces worries about worldwide losses from so-called Colony Collapse Disorder—an inexplicable dying off of hives—that researchers theorize is caused by pesticide use, parasites, and loss of habitat. However, recent stories indicate that the problem may not be as dire as previously thought.

In any case, local bee populations seem to be among those still suffering.

One step the average citizen can take to help the bees is to stagger garden plantings, so at least some flora is always blooming throughout the season. Bees begin foraging in early spring and continue until late fall. However, many garden plants and agriculture crops bloom only in the spring or fall, leaving the bees with little to sustain them the rest of the year.

Your local garden center can probably help you pick plants preferred by pollinator, which include bees, butterflies, birds, bats, and several other insects. Or, if you want to be super eco-friendly, Herring Run Nursery in Baltimore City can provide expertise in creating a pollinator garden using only plant species native to Maryland.

BGE took a small but symbolically significant step toward pollinator preservation in mid-November when it announced a partnership with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to return approximately 200 acres of utility-managed land in state parks to natural meadow habitat.

“This partnership benefits the state, our customers and, most importantly, the pollinators that are vital for a healthy environment,” said Derrick Dickens, vice president of Technical Services for BGE. “Changing the way we manage these electric rights of way will encourage the return of pollinators and native ecosystems, while still ensuring that power lines are safely maintained.”

Sustainability Shorts

After discontinuing its composting drop-off program for several months while it overhauled its system, Real Food Farm is once again accepting food scraps at its Clifton Park location. The farm’s new system—developed in tandem with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Urban Farm Plans—follows a co-op model that asks participants to take a one-hour training course before joining and then volunteer one hour per month to maintain membership. Once joined, members can drop off kitchen scraps any time and take home finished compost to fertilize their own gardens. If residents would like to participate but don’t have time to volunteer, Real Food Farm also accepts compost via Compost Cab, a collection service that operates in the Baltimore and D.C. metro areas.

Somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of all food in the U.S. goes to waste, ending up in landfills where it decomposes and emits methane, a greenhouse gas several times more potent than carbon dioxide. Composting is one way to divert unused food from landfill. Gleaning—the process of collecting excess food in order to feed food-insecure populations—is another. There are several local organizations that facilitate gleaning, including Gather Baltimore, Hungry Harvest, and the Mid-Atlantic Gleaning Network.

Visiting Laureate

On Wednesday, the famed poet, environmentalist, and farmer Wendell Berry spoke at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health about finding hope and sanctuary in a simple life lived in harmony with the natural world.

“I can’t give anybody hope,” said Berry, who spoke as part of a celebration marking the 20th anniversary of the school’s Center for a Livable Future. “Hope has to come up out of you … To find something worth hoping for is a very good place to start. There are things worth hoping for, there are good people, this is still a very beautiful world.”

A recap of the talk, which was led by journalist Eric Schlosser, can be found here.

1. Transportation – Charm City Circulator

We already love this free way to get around downtown, but we were even more excited to download this app. There are route maps, news about service or route changes, and alerts for nearby points of interest. But our favorite feature is the “next bus” integration that pretty accurately gives an estimated arrival time for the CCC, which means less waiting and more circulating.

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2. Nightlife – BeerGivr

This local startup came up with a genius idea: buy people drinks through your phone. Working with PayPal, you send a text message to a friend (“Sorry I’m running late!” “Can’t make it, but Happy Birthday!”) and choose a drink. Then, the text and a QR code pops up on your friend’s phone. The bartender scans the code and, before you know it, there’s a drink in their hand.

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3. Fitness – Armour39

Not surprisingly, fitness behemoth Under Armour has come up with an easy way to monitor your workouts. The Armour39 (which is compatible with any Bluetooth heart-rate monitor) tracks heart rate, calorie burn, and real-time intensity. This app is ideal for runners who want to find that heart-rate sweet spot while training or anyone looking to see just how efficient that cardio workout can be.

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4. Entertainment – Wham City Lights

The proverbial lighter in the air at concerts has been replaced by smartphones. So Dan Deacon and the guys at Wham City have decided to do something to enhance that experience by creating an app that produces a light effect on your phone and syncs with every other phone in the room (which has the app open), so they flash simultaneously and change color in response to the music.

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5. Arts – Soundscape

The Hearing and Speech Agency came up with a truly unique way to appreciate the city with the Baltimore Soundscape Project. The idea is to create one huge “sound map” by asking users to record and upload what they are hearing around town. The result is a decibel map of various points in the city—everything from the hum of water taxis in Fells Point to cheering crowds at Camden Yards.

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6. Food – Real Food Farm

Real Food Farm, located in Clifton Park, has been bringing healthy, affordable food to Northeast Baltimore since 2009. Now, this app makes the food available to all. The app allows you to create a shopping list, purchase produce, browse healthy recipes, get the neighborhood farmers’ market schedule, and find out when a Real Food Farm truck is nearby. Think of it as an organic grocery store in your back pocket.

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FESTIVAL FUN

Last year, two of Baltimore’s most popular festivals, Artscape (July 18-20) and the Baltimore Book Festival (September 26-28) both created helpful apps featuring maps, schedules, and news.