Falling into Fresh Starts

By Myeasha Taylor, Perlman Place Farm Manager

It amazes me how far we’ve come along since 3 years ago when I was an AmeriCorps member. Our programs have expanded with more and new Mobile Farmers Market stops, the development of Perlman Place Farm, and the recent hiring of both a new Food and Farm Director and Clifton Park Farm Manager.

We’re 9 months into the year and have managed to: retrofit 3 of 7 tunnels at our Clifton site, grow 15,976 pounds of food so far from both sites, and plant more than 100 raspberries and blackberry plants in Perlman Place’s Sherry’s Berry Orchard (named in honor of a resident on Perlman Place). We’ve received visits from MD Public TV, the Baltimore Sun, and the Fulbright-Millennial Trains. We’ve been gunning the new site with three production assistants – Calvin Atkins, Alexander Harrell, and Adamaah Grayse. This year, however, we’re moving towards a more comprehensive and collaborative agricultural training program with the Clifton site to double our productivity and efficiency.

Starting this fall, the Clifton Park and Perlman Place farm crews will be joining forces to grow more fresh food for the residents we serve. These crew members will also be leading their own community and independent projects, depending on their unique interest in food and agriculture. We hope to help transform and advance each member’s place in the community and food system, and I must say it’s pretty exciting. We have folks interested in mushrooms, permaculture, vegetable variety and breeding trials, and even developing an apothecary so that we can have an herb CSA!

Maybe this will lead us into something bigger like an incubator farm or becoming the premier urban farmer training site in all of Baltimore, the state of Maryland, the nation…or even the world! Who knows?! We’re just going to continue cultivate the minds and land of Baltimore City.

Come visit or volunteer while it’s still warm and we’re in the groove of abundant harvests!

About Real Food Farm

Real Food Farm works toward a just and sustainable food system by improving neighborhood access to healthy food, providing experience-based education, and developing an economically viable, environmentally responsible local agriculture sector.