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Montgomery Victory Gardens Update - October 9, 2009

In this update:

*
Watch Fresh Cider Get Pressed at Heyser Family Farm in Silver Spring
* Grape Stomp at Sugarloaf Mountain Winery - October 17th and 18th
* Organic Beer Tasting in Takoma Park, Saturday October 17th
* Exploring Michael Pollan's "Eater's Manifesto"
* More Americans Growing Food on Small "Hobby" Farms



Watch Fresh Cider Get Pressed at Heyser Family Farm in Silver Spring


If fall means apples and delicious, fresh apple cider to you, than you'll want to make a trip this month to Heyser Family Farm in Silver Spring.

Located about six miles north of the Beltway on New Hampshire Avenue, Heyser is a third generation family farm that specializes in apples - in fact, they  are the creator of the Spencerville Red apple.  And this is the perfect time of year to visit so you can buy apples, eat an apple cider doughnut, and watch fresh unadulterated cider being pressed from local apples - before you take some home yourself!

Heyser grows other produce as well, including pumpkins (gotta have 'em for Halloween and pies) and also sells bread and natural, non-homogenized milk in bottles, along with other dairy products from local farms.

So there is plenty to stock up on at Heyser Farm; but if you are looking for the freshest, healthiest apple cider you can taste in Montgomery County, then you definitely want to make Heyser your destination in the coming weeks.

Click here for more information on Heyser Family Farms.

 

Grape Stomp at Sugarloaf Mountain Winery - Oct. 17th and 18th

Thank goodness not all local food has to be solid! As any nutritionist will tell you, well made wine and beer can be extremely healthy additions to a diet, not to mention your mental health, and while Maryland is generally not considered "wine country" there are some encouraging start-ups underway, and one of them is right here in Montgomery County.

Sugarloaf Mountain Winery is situated in Dickerson, Maryland, at the very northern border of Montgomery where it meets Frederick County,  in our county's famed Agricultural Reserve. The countryside is absolutely gorgeous, and Sugarloaf's wine is pretty darned good too, having won several awards.

And the perfect time to take a ride into the country and visit Sugarloaf is during their 3rd Annual Grape Stomp, Saturday and Sunday, October 17th and 18th. The '09 Grape Stomp features live music, great food, kite flying instruction and demonstrations, tours of the winery and - of course - tastings of their award winning wines!

As they say at Sugarloaf, come on and jump in with both feet at their '09 Grape Stomp. For directions and more information, visit their website here.



Organic Beer Tasting in Takoma Park, Saturday Oct. 17th

To compliment the Grape Stomp at the northern end of our county, why not check out a beer tasting in the southern end?

As the flyer says, it's a beer tasting "Takoma Park style," and that means organic and nuclear free! Leading the event will be local beer maker and author Chris O'Brien, who will be taking us through a tasting of numerous leading organic microbreweries, accompanied by food and music. Chris has just returned from Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany, so he should be particularly full of hoppy enthusiasm.

The beer tasting will take place at the Historic Cady Lee Mansion in Takoma Park on October 17th from 4-7pm. It's a fundraiser to support the Takoma Foundation Community Grants Program, and tickets will no doubt sell out soon, so if you want to go act fast!

For more information and to obtain tickets, contact the Takoma Foundation here.


 
Exploring Michael Pollan's "Eater's Manifesto"

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.
 
These hardly sound like words to spark a social revolution. Yet when I went to hear food author Michael Pollan speak in Baltimore earlier this year, I was amazed to find the hall crammed with over 1,000 people. Apparently he's been drawing even larger crowds all over the country.

What's going on?

To read more, and to see the only "Cliff Notes" version of Pollan's manifesto explanation you'll find online (or anywhere else!), click here.


 
More Americans Growing Food on Small "Hobby" Farms

We've often pointed out the explosion of personal food gardening that is taking place in our nation right now - an estimated 7 million more households joining the ranks in the past two years. But did you also know that small farms, or "hobby" farms (bigger than a garden, but not big enough to be a sole means of support) are also sprouting across the nation?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's most recent farm census shows that while the nation's largest farms keep getting larger,  the number of farms under 50 acres soared nearly 15 percent between 2002 and 2007 to about 853,000 nationwide. And farms under 10 acres grew even more, with their numbers rising about 30 percent to 232,000.

Check out this Associated Press article about this latest hopeful phenomenon in local food production.



As always, don't forget to send us your feedback and suggestions! Let us know what's on your mind, and please send us any items, particularly about local food production (and consumption, and celebration!) that Montgomery Victory Gardens can promote. Send to [email protected]

Thanks!

Gordon Clark,
Project Director
Montgomery Victory Gardens