Saving the Environment One Yard at a Time: GreenFest 2012

Thank you for donat­ing over 100 Bikes For The World!

Last year, with the theme of “Don’t Waste Our Future: Reduce, Reuse, Recy­cle”,  you over­whelmed us at Green­Fest with your gen­eros­ity and brought your old bikes to donate to Bikes for the World; cell phones and eye glasses for the needy; binoc­u­lars for kids’ nature explo­ration; clothes, toys, games, fur­ni­ture and more for Good­will Indus­tries; work gloves and energy to help us plant trees;  and even your long hair for a Cut-A-Thon for a cause with the Aveda Salon rais­ing money for Amer­i­can Rivers.  In exchange we offered you a day of free fun to learn about veg­etable and con­tainer gar­den­ing, bee­keep­ing, recy­cling, bike safety, your car­bon foot­print, rep­tiles, birds, mov­ing solar pan­els, fly fish­ing, and we gave out free rain bar­rels and com­post bins to boot.  Where else can you get all of that in one day?

Together, we planted 35 trees to reduce runoff.

This year our Green­Fest theme is “Sav­ing the Envi­ron­ment One Yard at a Time” and we’d like to show­case what you can do in your yard to make a dif­fer­ence.  We selected this theme because we con­stantly see so much neg­a­tive news regard­ing the Bay, species, and air qual­ity that we wanted to empower res­i­dents and prop­erty own­ers with new ways to approach their yard and make a dif­fer­ence.  With this theme, our goal for Green­Fest 2012 is to help res­i­dents under­stand what they can do right out­side their door to help the Bay, improve regional air qual­ity, pro­vide habi­tat to native species, and enjoy some time out­doors exploring.   

Come explore with us!

Of course, we wel­come all other green ven­dors, as well, from solar power to children’s books to organic farm­ers because dif­fer­ent things hit home with dif­fer­ent peo­ple and we need to find ways to get every­one in Howard County to Live Green.  We also wel­come your ideas of what you’d like to expe­ri­ence at this year’s Green­Fest — whether it’s spend­ing more time out­side learn­ing great new ways to explore in nature, or finally learn­ing how to prop­erly read that bag of lawn fer­til­izer, or maybe find­ing out how much it costs to install a rain gar­den.  Tell us your ideas for this upcom­ing Green­Fest by email­ing greenfest@howardcountymd.gov . 

Don’t be shy, tell us what you’d like at Green­Fest 2012.

Help us spread the word and bring in ven­dors you’d like to see share their knowl­edge with the com­mu­nity – is there a favorite local food mar­ket, arti­san recy­cler, or land­scap­ing com­pany that you would love to have at Green­Fest 2012 demon­strat­ing their sus­tain­abil­ity work?  Stop in and tell the man­ager you hope to see them at Green­Fest and you’d hate for them to miss this once a year chance for cheap community-wide expo­sure.  If you own or work with an orga­ni­za­tion that pro­motes our phi­los­o­phy of Live Green Howard County with sus­tain­abil­ity prin­ci­ples and meth­ods, grab an appli­ca­tion today. 

I’ll see you April 14, 2012!

Ven­dor appli­ca­tions are now avail­able at: www.hcgreenfest.org

OES Staff and Green­Fest Co-Chair

Given Mother Nature’s recent out­bursts in this area, let’s talk about being pre­pared.  Whether we’re fac­ing another snow­pocalyspe, hur­ri­cane, earth­quake, flood, or even an after­noon elec­tri­cal storm, it’s easy to be pre­pared while still being “green.”  Hav­ing wit­nessed the chaos that ensued in the Twit­ter world just before Irene hit (i.e.“[insert name of any store here] in #HoCo just ran out of water, milk, toi­let paper, gen­er­a­tors, and bat­ter­ies!”) it seems that often in quick prepa­ra­tions we grab the eas­i­est thing off the shelf instead of think­ing long term.  Plan now, think through what you really need, and you’ll find your­self at home with a stack of good library books instead of elbow­ing peo­ple for that last bot­tle of water.

• Buy a large reusable cooler jug to fill with tap water rather than scram­ble for a zil­lion bot­tles of water at the gro­cery store.  You can also use the jug for car trips, pic­nics, camp­ing, etc.
• Buy recharge­able bat­ter­ies for flash­lights, etc. and spend the day before the storm charg­ing them up rather than fight­ing for more at the store.  Recy­cle them when they are drained (other bat­ter­ies are not recyclable).
• Use a crank radio or flash­light that doesn’t require bat­ter­ies.  Hand it to your kids to burn some of their energy and enter­tain them.
• Don’t buy extra per­ish­ables that will need to be thrown out if you lose power.  How likely are you to chug that gal­lon of milk when your fridge starts to get warm?  Gross.  Buy smart – only things you are will­ing (and that are safe) to eat and drink at room temp.
• Keep in mind indoor air qual­ity and your health and safety.  Make sure your gas gen­er­a­tor, camp stove, or other back up power is out­side, not in a closed area to avoid breath­ing in car­bon monox­ide or other gases.  Use a gen­er­a­tor only if absolutely necessary. 
• Be neigh­borly and make sure your sump pump dis­charge doesn’t flow across other people’s prop­erty which could flood their house or yard.
• Make sure your rain bar­rel over­flow points away from your house foun­da­tion.  Also, try con­nect­ing a sec­ond or third bar­rel to store even more of the pre­cious rain water for use on your plants later when it inevitably dries up again.

 And a few ideas for those long days with­out power (and antsy kids crawl­ing the walls):

• Get out­side.  Bun­dle up the kids, pets, or your friends in the appro­pri­ate attire for the weather event and go explor­ing to burn off some energy.  (Of course only do this when and where it is safe, avoid pol­luted stand­ing water, downed trees near power lines, retain­ing walls that look ques­tion­able, or any­thing else that raises an eyebrow.) 
• Explore your own back­yard or one of Howard County’s many parks.  Nature doesn’t need elec­tric­ity to be fas­ci­nat­ing.  Look for birds, snakes, frogs, fish, sala­man­ders, and more.  Report some of your find­ings to the MD Herp Atlas HERE.
• Look for ani­mal tracks in the snow or mud and see how many you can identify.
• Col­lect fallen leaves, acorns, or pinecones and iden­tify which trees they fell from.  When you get back indoors look them up online or in books to learn more about the tree species. 
• Take advan­tage of the quiet.  With­out the back­ground hum of air con­di­tion­ers, trucks, or planes, stand in a field or for­est and lis­ten to the sounds of nature.  See how many you can identify.
• Purge.  It’s one of those things we always put off, but with­out the nor­mal pro­cras­ti­nat­ing options avail­able this is the per­fect time.  Go through your clos­ets, toy boxes, book shelves, kitchen, and garage and col­lect things you haven’t used in a few months to donate to those who really need them or recy­cle them.  Kids can eas­ily join in this activ­ity and will be happy to know their toys and clothes will bring excite­ment to other children.
• Go old school.  Make sock pup­pets, brown paper bag mon­sters, toi­let paper roll tele­scopes, news­pa­per hats, nap­kin origami, bird feed­ers from milk jugs, or get cre­ative with any­thing else you find in your house to recy­cle and reuse for fun.

- Lind­say,
OES staff

Green­Fest began long, long ago in a far off land as an idea cooked up in someone’s cubi­cle on a rainy day in March 2007 (before I arrived in Howard County).  With only a month to plan an Earth Day event, Laura Miller (then of DPW) and Sue Muller (DRP staff) some­how pulled together an event in the park­ing lot of the Howard County Dorsey build­ing on a spring Sat­ur­day in April.  The event included free shred­ding and had a dozen or so ven­dors with dis­plays, some free trees and drew an amaz­ing crowd of over a thou­sand peo­ple.  Green­Fest was born.

The moment I stepped through the door at Howard County I was named to the team of Green­Fest co-chairs and intro­duced to Laura Miller and Sue Muller.  I had no idea what Green­Fest was, what it should be, or what it would become.

Plan­ning for Green­Fest 2008 began slowly while I ori­ented to my new job, but quickly gained steam as ven­dors started rolling in.  We were filled with ideas and enthu­si­asm which only grew as the event got closer.  April 5th arrived and while I was some­what dis­tracted by the thrill of get­ting to carry a walkie-talkie all day, we were ner­vous and had no idea what to expect.  Our biggest fear: No one shows up.  Not even our friends whom we begged to attend.  Our sec­ond biggest fear: It rains and the out­door ven­dors get soaked.  We lucked out – peo­ple showed and so did the sun.  Lots of peo­ple, in fact.  More than we expected.  Approx­i­mately 1,500 cit­i­zens of all ages crammed through the halls of the Glen­wood Com­mu­nity Cen­ter excited to see all 65 dis­plays and live ani­mals.  Green­Fest was now solid­i­fied as an annual event.  We did learn that year that even though it was sunny, wind is not a vendor’s friend so we made a note to self: Keep every­one inside next year or pro­vide a lot of rocks for paper weights.

Lit­tle did we know that the staff and direc­tors of Howard Com­mu­nity Col­lege were at Green­Fest 2008 and were so impressed that the next week we received a phone call ask­ing to part­ner with them to hold Green­Fest 2009.  Con­sid­er­ing Green­Fest 2008 had a wait­ing list of ven­dors and we had no idea how we would fit more peo­ple into Glen­wood, this seemed like a per­fect solution.

Green­Fest plan­ning became a year-round activ­ity in 2008.  It never slept that sum­mer as we geared up for an even big­ger event at HCC.  There were so many new things to plan and fig­ure out – spon­sor­ships, work­shops, speak­ers, how to get peo­ple actu­ally doing some­thing that day and get their hands dirty.

Green­Fest 2009 and 2010 grew to over 100 ven­dors and maxed out our space in the Gal­le­ria of HCC.  We reached 2,000 atten­dees who planted trees, built a rain gar­den with mas­ter gar­den­ers out­side the Gal­le­ria, took home free trees to plant in their yard, learned how to grow veg­eta­bles in a con­tainer gar­den, built rain bar­rels, bought jew­elry made of dis­carded items, learned what to put in their blue recy­cling bins, signed up for home energy audits and alter­na­tive power sources, joined water­shed walks and watched chil­dren pet snakes, hold owls, and make binoc­u­lars to search for bluebirds.

This year we’ve added even more.  We’re col­lect­ing new and used bicy­cles, bike parts and acces­sories for Bikes For The World. This orga­ni­za­tion fixes them up and sends them to needy com­mu­ni­ties through­out the world.  Please search your garage and your neigh­bors’ garages for old bikes, tires, hel­mets, bells for the han­dle­bars, etc.  There’s noth­ing greener than reusing a form of already green trans­porta­tion.  And while you’re clean­ing out your garage (and your neigh­bors’ garages, too, if you’re really nice) make a pile to bring to our Good­will Indus­tries, Inc. truck that will also be at Green­Fest.  If you haven’t used it or worn it in over a year, chances are slim you’ll use it or wear it next year, but guar­an­teed some­one else will love it.

Also this year Salon Marielle, Elli­cott City’s Aveda Con­cepts Salon, will be host­ing a Cut-A-Thon to raise money for Amer­i­can Rivers.  Get a styl­ish cut for $25 know­ing that 100% of your pay­ment is being donated to help America’s waterways.

Green­Fest has become a part of my daily life and I hope some­how that results in your daily life being a bit greener too.   I’ll see you April 2, 2011 at the HCC Gal­le­ria.  www.hcgreenfest.org
~Lind­say
OES Staff

New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions.  If you’re like me, come late Jan­u­ary, you’ve long for­got­ten what­ever non­sense you thought you could take on when the ball dropped on TV.  The idea of New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions is great in prin­ci­ple; don’t get me wrong, so how do we make it eas­ier to fol­low through even when there’s not cham­pagne in our hand and party shoes on our feet?

We sim­plify.

Don’t worry, I won’t start in on how sim­pli­fy­ing is a way to live more sus­tain­ably – I’ll save it for another blog.  For now we’ll focus on sim­ple res­o­lu­tions that you can com­plete and see results.
How about this res­o­lu­tion: Try one new thing on Green Cen­tral Sta­tion to live more sus­tain­ably.  I know, I know the web­site is PACKED with AMAZING info and so many ideas, so where to start?!?!  How about these:

-    Plant a tree (we’d love it if you plant 100 trees, but even one will make a big dif­fer­ence)
-    Fig­ure out what to do with the CFL light bulbs, ring binders, kids toys, cell phones, and other items that bit the dust in 2010
-    Install a rain bar­rel
-   Caulk and weather strip around win­dows and doors
-    Go to your near­est farm­ers’ mar­ket on open­ing day in spring
-    Ride one of the Howard County hybrid pub­lic buses
-    Choose low or no-VOC paint when you redec­o­rate your next room
-    Insu­late inside out­let cov­ers (check for a breeze from out­lets on exte­rior walls)
-    Join a car pool (now with a guar­an­teed ride home!)
-    Shop locally – buy one gift from a local non-chain store or hire one local com­pany to work on a project.
-    Get a free com­post bin and start mak­ing your own fer­til­izer
-    Ride your bike to work once a month (we’d love it if you’d ride daily, but we’ll take baby steps)
-    Plant two native plants in your gar­den this year to attract wildlife
-    Join a local CSA
-    Use green clean­ers to improve your indoor air qual­ity
-   Stop fer­til­iz­ing your lawn
-    Insu­late your attic
-    Plant a tree (It never hurts to reit­er­ate)
-    Vol­un­teer (click here to sign up with OES or see below)

That last one is for those of you with greater deter­mi­na­tion that com­pleted res­o­lu­tions in the past with suc­cess.  We just fin­ished com­pil­ing a list of local envi­ron­men­tal groups in Howard County so check it out to find one local envi­ron­men­tal group you’d like to work with or learn more about; they are always look­ing for help.  (Of course many other groups in the County love vol­un­teers as well, but I have a bit of an agenda to push so envi­ron­men­tal groups get the shout out.)  We’ve tried to make it as sim­ple as pos­si­ble.  Find a group that sounds inter­est­ing, click on their page and find out what they have to offer.  Now only a sim­ple email or phone call away and you’ve got your­self a com­pleted New Year’s 2011 Res­o­lu­tion!  Congrats!

Also, con­sider vol­un­teer­ing at this year’s Green­Fest.  Sign up HERE and men­tion Green­Fest in the com­ments sec­tion and I’ll get back to you with optional duties and times for that day (April 2, 2011).  It’s a won­der­fully fun event and you’ll help the com­mu­nity a lot with­out even try­ing.  Plus it’s a one­time deal so no long term com­mit­ments required.

So this year resolve to get involved.  No I’m not say­ing you should go all out and start attend­ing every pub­lic meet­ing or shout things from your rooftop at your neigh­bors, but you can make a qui­eter dif­fer­ence.  A big one.  Just pick an idea above or join OES or one of Howard County’s amaz­ing local groups to help out and you’ll have made that big dif­fer­ence.  Thank you in advance.

Let us know what your green res­o­lu­tions are for the com­ing year or how you did with last year’s efforts.

~Lind­say DeMarzo, OES Staff

The feast is over.  You’re now hap­pily digest­ing some locally raised, hor­mone free turkey; organic sweet pota­toes; and CSA sup­plied green beans.  As you sip your glass of Mary­land wine and strate­gize for the biggest shop­ping day of the year, you feel a pain.  Ini­tially it might seem like indi­ges­tion from that extra piece of pie you pol­ished off, but it’s not.  That’s the pain of know­ing the mag­ni­tude of the car­bon foot­print you’ll be bear­ing tomorrow.

So what do you do?  Save money or save the planet?  It’s a tough call and typ­i­cally Black Fri­day tosses out the planet in favor of the money because how in the world could you think of try­ing to do both?!?!

*Cue super­hero music*
OES to the res­cue!  We’ve com­piled a vari­ety of tips to help you min­i­mize your foot­print when it feels like all you can think about is “how many miles before I see the cashier from the end of this check­out line?”  (We rec­om­mend read­ing these sev­eral times so they are in the back of your mind dur­ing the craze that is Amer­i­can holidays.)

Before we start, I should pref­ace for my tree hug­ger friends that we real­ize in an ideal world, every­one would just hand make gifts and give their loved ones peanut butter-covered pine cone bird feed­ers, but we are here to try to help you through the more likely sce­nario.  How­ever, we do sin­cerely applaud those of you who are mak­ing your gifts and would love to hear about them!

Get Ready, Get Set: You need fuel.  Eat local, hor­mone free, fresh from the farm food.  The less the food trav­els before it enters your mouth, the more nutri­ents it can offer you dur­ing your sprint to the next store.  Plus your guests are less likely to fall asleep on your couch or leave your house groan­ing in pain when filled with healthy, organic, hor­mone free food.

Select­ing Your First Store: The local move­ment is hot and you should join.  While we can’t guar­an­tee you bet­ter park­ing, we can guar­an­tee you free park­ing in his­toric Elli­cott City and Sav­age Mill, at least.  Peo­ple love gifts with local flair; it’s as if you’re shar­ing a part of your daily life with them.  Plus the money you’re spend­ing stays right here in our local Howard County econ­omy, not some off shore bank account.

Get­ting There: If you don’t have inten­tions of buy­ing a home gym and weight set, then bike, walk, or take the bus.  Oth­er­wise, car pool.  Shop­ping with friends is more fun than shop­ping alone so find a car­pool meet­ing loca­tion the day before.  Clown cars are all the rage these days (just make sure there are enough seat­belts)!  You’ll save hav­ing to cir­cle the park­ing lot for the 100th time to find a spot for your hybrid.  If you some­how man­age to have a choice of spaces to park, pick one that is cen­trally located within walk­ing dis­tance of mul­ti­ple stores rather than attempt­ing to relo­cate your car by dri­ving across the expan­sive park­ing lot to the next store.  (Luck­ily Black Fri­day pretty much doesn’t give us the option to move our cars — some­thing to keep in mind every time we shop.)

Wis­dom from Within: You made it through the doors.  The store music is loud, the peo­ple are loud, but you have a flash back to this blog and remem­ber the key things you are look­ing for to reduce your footprint.

• Buy items with lit­tle or no pack­ag­ing, or at the very least ensure pack­ag­ing can be recy­cled.  Buy gifts that will last gen­er­a­tions – qual­ity over quantity.
• Grab the wrap­ping paper and cards made of post-consumer recy­cled paper and that can be eas­ily recy­cled again – not the foil paper.
• Don’t be ashamed to keep it prac­ti­cal and use­ful.  Every­one needs socks; few peo­ple need lawn ornaments.
• When you pick up an item that you think some­one will love, pic­ture where that item will be in five years.  If you don’t like the image that pops to mind, put it back on the shelf and try again.
• Buy things that are made locally.  Indulge oth­ers with our specialties.
• Do not let the cashier dou­ble bag your items at check out.  You remem­bered to bring your reusable bags so you’re all set and don’t have to worry about gifts being strewn through the park­ing lot as you trek to your car.

You sur­vived: You dropped off your car­pool friends and you are now home safe and sound.  Con­grats.  You find your­self once again sip­ping your local Mary­land wine or micro­brew and star­ing at the task ahead:  wrap­ping and deliv­er­ing.  Reach for cre­ative wrap­ping alter­na­tives that can be reused, or at the very least avoid the foil type paper that can­not be recycled.

• A large new dish towel to wrap a kitchen gift.
• A cloth shop­ping bag for an odd shaped item.
• A quilt or blan­ket for large items.
• A sock or scarf to wrap some­thing small such as jewelry.
• A gift bag you received last hol­i­day season.
• News­pa­per fits every box.
• Reuse pack­ing peanuts or bub­ble wrap for shipped gifts (take extras to your local ship­ping store and it will make their day).
• Buy online and refuse gift wrap so you can use one of these cool alternatives
• Bas­kets work for any­thing: choco­lates, home­made treats, food, drinks, etc.
• Fab­ric rib­bon from the craft store that can be reused again and again to tie pack­ages and won’t get all smooshed like a plas­tic bow.
• Pieces of yarn that can be reused to tie any­thing from pig­tails to doll clothes.
• Shoe laces are made to tie, enough said.
• Tie an orna­ment or small gift onto the top of another pack­age with your reusable rib­bon rather than using more wrap­ping or another box.

Hope­fully in your pile of gifts you’ll also find that you remem­bered to grab some­thing to donate to the home­less shel­ter, or the food bank, or a neigh­bor who strug­gled this year.  They thank you for think­ing of them on Black Fri­day.

If Black Fri­day Makes You Cringe (we don’t blame you): Search online for hand­made gifts and you’ll find loads of ideas.  Also, search your attic for a box of your child’s favorite old toys and give them to your grand­chil­dren or other child in your life, one per year.  They will have a toy that no one else on the block could find in the stores and they’ll think it’s amazing.

We’d love to hear your tips for keep­ing your foot­print low this hol­i­day and shop­ping sea­son.  Please share your ideas with us, because even though we occa­sion­ally come with super­hero music, we still def­i­nitely need side­kicks to get the job done.

~Lind­say DeMarzo, OES Staff

Nei­ther a drench­ing down­pour nor a tem­per­a­ture of 90 degrees on a July after­noon could deter thirty stu­dents in grades 3–5 intent on sand­ing and paint­ing 30 rain bar­rels for their vaca­tion bible school (VBS) ser­vice project at First Pres­by­ter­ian Church of Howard County. The chil­dren worked dili­gently to sand, wash, and prime 55 gal­lon plas­tic ice cream bar­rels. These painted bar­rels were then ready to be taken home, painted with a color coat and fit with about $30 of hard­ware to serve as rain bar­rels. This ser­vice project reflected the clean water mis­sion theme of the VBS. It also helped the chil­dren under­stand and use water con­ser­va­tion at home, which in turn, involved their par­ents and mem­bers of the congregation.

On Fri­day evening, after the clos­ing pro­gram for the VBS, par­ents and friends who came to pick up their rain bar­rel were greeted by a team of Mas­ter Gar­den­ers. The Mas­ter Gar­den­ers answered ques­tions and pro­vided help­ful infor­ma­tion about installing and using the rain bar­rels. Rain bar­rel hard­ware was also avail­able for purchase.

The Mas­ter Gar­den­ers pre­sented a rain bar­rel work­shop at the church to show how to install and use the bar­rels to pro­tect water­sheds, prac­tice water con­ser­va­tion, and pre­vent storm water runoff in yards. Mas­ter Gar­den­ers, vol­un­teers for the Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land Exten­sion, have long been con­cerned with the impact of gar­den­ing and land­scape prac­tices on the envi­ron­ment.  The Mas­ter Gar­den­ers have actively pro­moted Bay-friendly land­scap­ing and gar­den­ing through their Bay-Wise com­mit­tee and gar­den­ing prin­ci­ples.

The large com­mu­nity rain bar­rel project was the result of close coop­er­a­tion, cre­ativ­ity and par­tic­i­pa­tion by the Howard County Office of Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­ity, Howard County Bureau of Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices, and the Mas­ter Gar­den­ers pro­gram of the Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land, with VBS staff and the Earth Care Com­mit­tee of First Pres­by­ter­ian. All worked together to pro­vide an inter­est­ing, prac­ti­cal, and unique learn­ing project for the stu­dents and to encour­age more peo­ple to pro­tect water here in Howard County.

The bar­rels were pro­vided by Howard County Gov­ern­ment and are free to res­i­dents of the County.  Please con­tact us if your com­mu­nity group is inter­ested in hold­ing a rain bar­rel work­shop.  Rain bar­rels can also be picked up by indi­vid­ual res­i­dents at the Alpha Ridge Landfill.

This spring the Mas­ter Gar­den­ers part­nered with Howard County to dis­trib­ute recy­cled, food-grade, 55 gal­lon plas­tic bar­rels to county res­i­dents to use as rain bar­rels, to col­lect storm-water from down­spouts.  Once county employ­ees cleaned the bar­rels and cut the needed holes in them, Mas­ter Gar­den­ers greeted county res­i­dents at the Alpha Ridge Land­fill and gave work­shops on how to make a func­tion­ing rain bar­rel and use it in the land­scape.  About 80–90 bar­rels have been given away to county res­i­dents, who pledged to add the hard­ware needed to cre­ate a func­tional rain bar­rel and to use the rain bar­rel for at least two years.

There will be four more bar­rel give-aways this sea­son at the Alpha Ridge Land­fill (gazebo near entrance, on right), from 9 — 11 am on Sept. 4, Sept. 18, Oct. 2, and Oct. 16.

This blog was writ­ten by Guest Blog­gers Nancy Fayer, First Pres­by­ter­ian Church of Howard County, and Barb Schmeck­peper, Mas­ter Gar­dener.  Many thanks ladies for shar­ing your suc­cesses with us and help­ing the County dis­trib­ute the barrels!

“What in the world is this?”  My hus­band asked as we opened our Com­mu­nity Sup­ported Agri­cul­ture (CSA) cooler to explore our weekly pro­duce share.  As we began search­ing for recipes online about what to do with this week’s unique item: kohlrabi (Do you cook it?  Eat it raw? What burst of fla­vor should we expect in our mouths?), he inhaled the con­tainer of per­fectly ripened, juicy rasp­ber­ries that were picked that morn­ing — even before I could rinse them.  Good thing they were organic.

The aver­age meal trav­els 1,500 miles before some­one plops it on your din­ner plate.  After 1,500 miles (think pack­ing the car and head­ing out on Inter­state 70 all the way to Den­ver, pass­ing through  nine states and being sure to stop at pro­cess­ing, pack­ag­ing, and ship­ping plants along the way) I would undoubt­edly be exhausted, worn out and likely a bit foul smelling.  Def­i­nitely not traits to look for when select­ing pro­duce.  Instead, reach for the berries picked that morn­ing just down the street – per­fectly ripe, juicy and wait­ing to explode your taste buds.

Where do you find these tasty berries and every­thing else you typ­i­cally fill your shop­ping cart with for the week: berries, mel­ons, cher­ries, pears, apples, greens, car­rots, broc­coli, cucum­bers, beans, toma­toes, pota­toes, gar­lic, herbs and spices, jams, honey, eggs, milk, meat and poul­try, soap, maybe some ice cream, and flow­ers to brighten your din­ner table?

Luck­ily the farm­ers’ mar­kets, farm stands, pick-your-own farms, and CSA’s of Howard County are hap­pily sup­ply­ing all these neces­si­ties and much more with­out mak­ing you drive those 1,500 miles.

The chang­ing sea­sonal pro­duce you find at the farm­ers’ mar­kets, farm stands, and in your CSA share is one of the great plea­sures of sum­mers in Howard County.  Now that it is early July berries are in full array.  It is hard to believe that these boxes of plump, bright red and juicy berries burst­ing full of fla­vor are related to their super­mar­ket cousins that are air­lifted from dis­tant places in the mid­dle of win­ter and gassed to appear ripened in the pro­duce cooler at the gro­cery store.  The joy that comes from finally bit­ing into the first straw­berry of the sea­son and savor­ing the good­ness of it is sheer reward.

Farm­ers’ mar­kets are won­der­ful cen­ters for com­mu­nity gath­er­ing as peo­ple recon­nect with the fresh fla­vors of sea­sonal pro­duce, and take the oppor­tu­nity to social­ize and share the lat­est com­mu­nity news. These farm­ers’ mar­kets pro­vide a real sense of local pride not eas­ily dupli­cated in a shop­ping cen­ter or gro­cery store.  Get­ting fresh, local food is reas­sur­ing, not only because you are putting money back into our local econ­omy, but because you get to shake the farmer’s hand every week, eat more nutri­tious food, and ask for recipes, freez­ing and cook­ing tips, and sto­ries from the field.  Many farm­ers are full of advice and typ­i­cally great cook­ing sug­ges­tions too so be sure to ask them what in the world to do with the kohlrabi.

Grab your shop­ping bags and intro­duce your­self to one of the five fresh­est mar­kets in the County.  You’ll be sur­prised at the fla­vors you meet.  Maybe you’ll even reach for a kohlrabi this week.

Hop­ing to meet our local farm­ers?  Visit one of the five Howard County Farm­ers’ Mar­kets open Wednes­day – Sun­day at var­i­ous locations.

Look­ing for an out­door adven­ture?  Find a You-Pick Farm in Howard County.

Not able to make your near­est farm­ers mar­ket this week?  Stop at a farm stand on the way home from work.

Up for the full adven­ture?  Join a CSA and own a share in a local farm.

Lind­say DeMarzo