Maryland Farm & Harvest Visits Baltimore City and Frederick and Montgomery Counties during December 13 Episode

ANNAPOLIS, MD (December 8, 2022) – Maryland Public Television’s (MPT) original series Maryland Farm & Harvest, now in its 10th anniversary season, will feature farms and locations in Baltimore City, along with Frederick and Montgomery counties during an episode premiering on Tuesday, December 13. 

Maryland Farm & Harvest airs on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. on MPT-HD and online at mpt.org/livestream. Encore broadcasts are available on MPT-HD Thursdays at 11 p.m. and Sundays at 6 a.m. Each episode also airs on             MPT2/Create® on Fridays at 7:30 p.m. Episodes are also available to watch on demand using MPT’s online video player and the PBS Video App. 

The popular weekly series takes viewers on a journey across the Free State, telling engaging and enlightening stories about the farms, people, and technology required to sustain and grow agriculture in Maryland, the state’s number one commercial industry. During its 10th season, the series looks back to when it all began nearly a decade ago and revisits some favorite farms and farmers from past episodes.

The December 13 episode features the following segments: 

• Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm (Baltimore City). A Baltimore city neighborhood has been converted from a food desert into an urban oasis, as the result of the creation of this 10-acre farm by Richard Francis, aka Farmer Chippy, and a group of dedicated volunteers. Their goal, to change this patchwork of vacant lots into a productive farm that has a positive impact on area residents and especially on the lives of young people who reside in the Park Heights community. Farmer Chippy and his Plantation Park Heights urban farm team look at the farm as a center of learning and explain that by instilling a healthy attitude toward food in young people early on, they can make a difference in their lives. With the bounty of the harvest in hand, the local farmers travel to the John Hopkins Farmers Market where they sell their fresh produce to the community. Farmer Chippy” has also created a shared agriculture and training resource called “Agri-hood,” a co-op where other city neighborhoods can learn to create their own urban farms.
• Compost Crew (Montgomery County). Compost Crew, a Rockville-based food scrap recycling business, offers composting services to businesses, organizations, and residential customers in parts of Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. Founded in 2011, its mission is to eliminate food waste, converting compostable waste into material that revitalizes the soil. Company CEO Ben Parry wants people to be more mindful about waste and think twice before throwing food scraps into the trash. Viewers then see how the compost process works. Local farms have also teamed up with Compost Crew to develop compost outposts, modular food scrap composting sites. Among these partners is One Acre Farm in Dickerson. Farmer Michael Protas explains the benefits of composting and sees the fruits of Compost Crew’s labor. Once a week, Compost Crew hauls in food scraps to the farm and dumps them into bins. As part of the process, hay and wood chips are mixed into the food scraps, which sit in the bins for three-to-six months. When the compost is ready, Protas spreads the material onto his fields. 
• 10th Anniversary Revisit, Season One – Catoctin Mountain Orchard (Frederick County). In this segment from the first season of Maryland Farm & Harvest (2013), viewers revisit this popular farm and orchard in Thurmont. Catoctin Mountain Orchard farmer Bob Black takes The Local Buy segment host Al Spoler on a tour of his 100-acre farm where the two men pick apples, talk about the most popular apples among consumers, and discuss how best to store apples to maintain their freshness. Bob explains to Al that he likes to sell “noisy apples” – those with a loud crunch that deliver great flavor.

More than 14 million viewers have watched Maryland Farm & Harvest on MPT since its fall 2013 debut. The series has traveled to more than 430 farms, fisheries, and other agriculture-related locations during its first nine seasons, covering every Maryland county, as well as Baltimore City, and Washington, D.C. 

Past episodes can be viewed at video.mpt.tv/show/maryland-farm-harvest/, while episode segments are available on the series’ YouTube channel at youtube.com/c/MarylandFarmHarvest/featured. Engage with the show on social media @MarylandFarmHarvest on Facebook and @mdfarmtv on Twitter.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture is MPT’s co-production partner for Maryland Farm & Harvest. Major funding is provided by the Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board.

Additional funding is provided by Maryland’s Best, Rural Maryland Council, Maryland Agricultural Resource-Based Industry Development Corporation (Marbidco), a grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Program, Farm Credit, Maryland Soybean Board, Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts, Wegmans Food Markets, Maryland Nursery, Landscape & Greenhouse Association, Maryland Seafood Marketing Fund, Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, Maryland Farm Bureau, and The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment. 

Other support comes from Mar-Del Watermelon Association.

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Follow Maryland Department of Agriculture on Twitter @MdAgDept