Jolt Country

Is anyone else doing the farm share thing? We actually have a bunch in our area. I went with a half share from Kirby's this year (full share last year) because they also have fruit and you can pick up from public market... which means being able to get other things and make meal planning easier. I got 2lbs of honey and cider from them last year too.

-LG

Here in the Washington, D.C. region you basically have very little exposure to agricultural practices unless you go "outside the Beltway" which is the Interstate 495 loop that circles DC, MD and VA. So the general idea is that "inside the beltway" is civilization and outside is everywhere else, i.e. nowhere.

While you do see some farmers markets (Mt. Rainier, MD has one every week during summer) which is about 3 blocks outside the District, there really isn't a lot of exposure to this sort of thing. Yes, USDA has its Beltsville (MD) Agricultural Research Facility here in Prince George's County where they study crops, true commercial agriculture is much farther away, typically at least Gaithersburg (Montgomery County, MD, about 30 miles from DC).

I used to live in Southern California back around 1985. I'd sometimes travel from Long Beach (where I worked) through Orange County, and you'd travel into places in OC where there was a strong urban area with skyscrapers, and across the street was a plot two blocks in each direction that was a strawberry field. California had a law to encourage farming in places where the land values were so high it might not be economic to do so, that for ten years, as long as you farmed the land you paid no property tax, but if you sold it during that time you had to pay back taxes. The 10-year tax moratorium could be renewed indefinitely, so it kept farmers from seeing their taxes go up so much in high-value areas that you couldn't afford to grow crops.

Ha- my family and I got stranded in DC for a night in Feb. I may have tried to look you up if I'd known. Sucks that there isn't a lot in the way of farm share available in DC proper... especially considering the first ladies stance on gardening and fresh food. Any spots in DC for Urban Farming, or too much of an important hub for that kind of thing?

loafergirl wrote:Any spots in DC for Urban Farming, or too much of an important hub for that kind of thing?

As the saying goes, "DC is a company town," and that "company" is the Federal Government. Congress alone has 30,000 employees. Another consideration is that the largest non-government employer in the District of Columbia is the George Washington University.

As I noted, Mount Rainier, MD has a farmers market and it is probably likely there is one in DC I don't remember seeing one. Although there is at least one Walmart in DC, and I'm sure what they don't create from genetic engineering in produce they probably buy from local merchants near DC. Land is too valuable in DC to waste it growing crops.