♪ ♪ JOANNE CLENDING: From the mountains to the shore, Maryland is a producer's paradise.

Did you know, there's a hop unique to Maryland?

That farmer's markets can be a pickler's paradise?

And farmscapes can inspire artistry?

Don't go anywhere, stories about the people who grow our food and work our land are coming up next on “Maryland Farm and Harvest.” NARRATOR: Major funding for "Maryland Farm and Harvest" is made possible in part by, The Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, investing in smarter farming to support safe and affordable food, feed and fuel, and a healthy bay.

Additional funding provided by, Maryland's Best, good for you, good for Maryland.

A grant from the Rural Maryland Council, Maryland Agricultural Education and Rural Development Fund.

MARBIDCO helping to sustain food and fiber enterprise for future generations.

A grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture, Specialty Crop Block Program.

Farm Credit, lending support to agriculture and rural America.

The Maryland Soybean Board and Soybean Check-Off program, progress powered by farmers.

Wegmans Food Markets, healthier, better lives through food.

The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

The Maryland Nursery, Landscape and Greenhouse Association.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences.

And by... (theme music playing).

(bird chirping).

JOANNE: Maryland's agricultural landscape is a unique mix of flat lowlands, steep mountain terrain, and gentle rolling hills.

Hi, I'm Joanne Clendining, welcome to “Maryland Farm and Harvest.” Today we're in Harford County where these rolling hills are home to the Holloway Brothers Farms.

The Holloways are livestock and grain producers, and, as we'll see later in the show, they're farm is as pretty as a picture.

Coming up, a young farmer's quest to stay on the farm drives him to reinvent the family grain business.

But first, wild hops were growing in a farmer's yard and local brewers and researchers had never seen anything like it.

But the unique find has folks hopping with delight.

A new day is rising in Keedysville, Maryland along with it, the hopes of many Maryland brewmasters, hop farmers, and beer lovers.

Say “hello” to one of Maryland's newest discoveries, the Monocacy hop.

BRIAN BUTLER: Monocacy is a hop we found in Maryland, it has been in Maryland for many years, we like to refer to it as a new hop to us but a very old hop.

Nice.

JOANNE: Brian Butler a principal-agent with the University of Maryland Extension, has spent nearly a decade researching how to improve hop production in Maryland.

BRIAN: Early on, as farm breweries became a new innovation in agritourism, many people tried to grow hops, specifically the Pacific Northwest hops because that's all we had.

Production was very complex, a lot of inputs, very expensive, it did not go well.

JOANNE: The biggest problem was that traditional hop plants were not bred to be resistant to Mid-Atlantic conditions; humidity, bugs, and blight.

What they needed was a hop plant acclimated to Maryland's climate.

That would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

(rooster crows).

And by sheer chance, they found the haystack and needle in Frederick County.

BRIAN: The history of what we now call the Monocacy hop starts with Dr. Ediger.

JOANNE: The renowned Fredrick County farmer and veterinarian bought his farmhouse in 1968 and it came with a plant he knew well.

DR. RAY EDIGER: I thought I would never see a hop again until we moved here and by golly there was one growing.

BRIAN: Now the interesting thing was, is the Dr. Ediger had come from Oregon, so he was familiar with what a hop plant was.

And they left it.

JOANNE: Fast forward 50 years at a chance encounter with Tom Barse, a hop farmer and owner of Milk House Brewery who passed Ray's hop sample to Brian.

TOM BARSE: I said, you know Brian, I've got this hop that's been growing in Maryland for years, I don't know anything about it.

So he said, “Well I'd be interested in getting some” and he started some and then we sent samples off to the USDA.

BRIAN: Where they did a genetic evaluation of the plant and they determined that it was a truly unique, you know, wild hop.

TOM: So I'm like, “Oh shoot, Maryland has its own hop!” JOANNE: It's been classified as a North American wild hop, but it's like nothing seen before.

As far as folks can tell, it was brought here from Europe some 100 years ago, and over that time it is fully adapted to Maryland's climate.

BRIAN: My goal for this project is that the Monocacy hop is identified as a true Maryland hop, which it is, is enjoyed in beer, by Maryland residents, and that this becomes iconic like many of the other things that we associate Maryland with like crabs.

JOANNE: So far, Brian's goal is getting off to a great start.

BRIAN: We're going to continue from here, but we want to now kind of push this out a little bit.

JOANNE: Last year, Milk House Brewery produced three beers with the new hop.

This year, Brian's teamed up with Chris Leonard of Heavy Seas who's taking some newly harvested cones back to the brewery for a special wet hop beer.

CHRISTOPHER LEONARD: We call them wet hop because usually when you take the hops down you dry them, we're not going to dry them, we're taking them straight to the brewery today and we're going to use them today.

Smells great!

It gives a different, sort of grassier, fresher kind of aroma.

But it's a good first step for us.

JOANNE: While Chris was out picking hops, his crew, back at the Baltimore-based Heavy Seas brewery, had begun the brewing process for the wet brew.

Now it's time to add the finishing touch.

CHRISTOPHER: We're going to add these to our hop back and uh, we're gonna, we're gonna pump some wort through these guys and get all this delicious, aromatic aroma to add to this beer.

And about 14, 16 days from now we will have a German-style Altbier brewed with these wonderful Monocacy hops.

JOANNE: At the big reveal, the Heavy Seas patrons seemed keen to the new taste.

PATRON: It's delicious, it's well-balanced.

CHRISTOPHER: I think it's great, I'm really excited about it and I think you'll see a lot more of this hop in the future.

BRIAN: We have the potential to grow hops in Maryland, in a sustainable way that potentially could be profitable as an alternative agricultural enterprise, help supplement the breweries, and also people in agriculture looking for another enterprise to add to their farm.

JOANNE: The Brewers Association of Maryland is encouraging beer makers across the state to brew their own batches with the unique Monocacy hop.

We can beer-ly wait for the results.

All right it's time to test your agricultural know-how, here is our thingamajig for the week.

Do you think you know what it is?

No, it's not a horn.

Here's a hint, it's used to help keep farm animals healthy.

Stay tuned and we'll have the answer at the end of the show.

Speaking of farm animals, we love seeing pics of your livestock, farm pets, and any other animal that calls the farm home.

Here are some of our favorites.

Enjoy.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ JOANNE: With fluctuating grain prices, one Washington County farm decided to get out ahead by creating a special grain feed that has their customers chomping at the bit.

♪ ♪ (bagger machine whirring).

♪ ♪ (sewing machine whirring).

JOSH ERNST: So we're, we're bagging uh, broiler feed.

This is probably the feed that I sell the most of.

JOANNE: On a Friday afternoon in June, farmer Josh Ernst and his brother Micah are hard at work filling bag after 50-pound bag with chicken feed.

JOSH: Now it's coming out of the, this bagger here and then we just sew it shut and sack it.

JOANNE: The recipe for this nutrient-rich grain mix is their own and so are most of the ingredients grown right here by Josh and his father Steve Ernst at Ernst Grain and Livestock in Washington County.

STEVE ERNST: The corn and soybeans, pretty much 100% of those go to, to our feed manufacturing.

I can handle the corn the way I want to handle it, I can store it, uh, condition it, um and dry it the way I want to dry it, and, all that kind of ties into the quality thing that we're after when we look at our feed manufacturing.

JOANNE: The Ernst family grows about 500 acres of grain all of it destined for feed.

JOSH: When we first started out, that was our goal was to sell everything that we produce, so now I'm going to have to come up with new goals.

JOANNE: But grinding and bagging all of the farm's corn, wheat and soybeans wasn't Josh's only goal, another, perhaps the reason for getting into feed in the first place, was a little bit bigger picture.

JOSH: I wanted to be able to be here full-time on the farm before I was working part-time off the farm.

JOANNE: Easier said than done.

In 2014, when Josh graduated from WVU with a degree in Ag-Business, the family farm didn't produce enough income to support him full-time.

Even Dad worked off farm as a crop consultant, but the solution was in plain sight.

STEVE: We needed to utilize something that would generate more cash flow here on our farm.

JOSH: We already had the grinder/mixer and the grain storage here onsite because we've always made feed for our own animals.

JOANNE: So, they took the plunge, and shifted from selling their grain in bulk to dealers for a fluctuating market price to producing and selling feed.

JOSH: When you're just going off commodity pricing for grains, you're not getting near as much income here on the farm, it's just passing through you, whereas if the more steps in the production that I can have here then we can have more profitability here and I'm keeping more of the chunk here.

JOANNE: Step one, the recipe.

Which is where Steve's day job comes in handy.

STEVE: I have always worked away at another job as a uh, crop and nutrition consultant in agriculture.

The nutrition background that I have's given me the experience to formulate and, and develop certain levels of vitamins and things in the feeds that we want to achieve to achieve animal health.

JOANNE: But not just one recipe.

JOSH: We have a broiler feed, we have a chick starter, a layer, we have a scratch feed then we have hog feed, um we have a goat and cattle feed.

JOANNE: And all of it non-GMO, meaning the hungry hogs and chickens who scarf down this feed can be sold as a specialty product for a slightly higher price.

Mostly everything I sell is going to people that are going to farmer's markets with the products uh, ‘cause it's, ‘cause everything here is GMO-free.

JOANNE: The process for making the feed might look complicated.

(machines whirring).

But it's actually pretty straightforward.

JOSH: You add the grain, you grind it and then add the small ingredients and then it mixes for roughly eight minutes or so and then I unload it into my bulk tanks to bag it.

JOANNE: Besides the grains, Josh adds vitamins, minerals, and probiotics to create specialty mixes that draw in customers from as far as three hours away.

JOSH: We're selling them something that we would use ourselves, the hog grower that I sell is the same feed I use.

JOANNE: Also part of the package, face time with the chefs themselves.

STEVE: 1,000 pound minimum per custom.

JOSH: Yeah.

STEVE: We'll custom batch anything you want if you make 1,000-pound minimum.

JOSH: The closer I stay in contact with the customer the more, you know likelihood of me being able to do what they want, you know, and if I do what they want then they keep coming back.

JOANNE: And if they keep coming back, Josh can keep calling himself a full-time farmer, a title he officially earned six months ago and he hasn't looked back since.

JOSH: There's a lot more pride in it whenever you're when you're working for yourself and you, you can see the outcome of everything you've done.

It's not just getting a paycheck, you know, you're working for something, so I like that a lot.

JOANNE: Coming up, a vegan meal made easy with local produce, but first, we have a special treat this week.

Meet John Franklin Sauers, an artist who finds inspiration on farms like this one.

Hi, John!

JOHN FRANKLIN SAUERS: Joanne, good afternoon.

JOANNE: It is great to have you here, I see you are painting this lovely barn, what speaks to you about this barn?

JOHN: This barn is a very magnificent structure, it shows the noble qualities of those who came up before the 20th century and were engaged in agriculture at a time when families were so dependent upon the quality of the building which stored, that which they had grown.

I've done drawings of this for some years now.

It, it's spiritual.

JOANNE: I can't wait to see the finished product.

But first, here's a closer look at the work of the man who's been called Harford's Living Treasure.

JOHN: Well first thing you do when you get to be 90 years of age, you get out of bed in the morning, make sure your feet don't get tangled up in the sheets and you fall on the floor and you hurt yourself, and then you put your feet on the ground or the floor and you say, “Thank you.” And now, do what you should do because you have given a new day.

JOANNE: For decades, John Franklin Sauers has been putting color to canvas, capturing the scenes of landscapes, nature, and farmland.

And even though he has more than 2200 paintings to his name, he's never forgotten his humble beginnings.

JOHN: My first memory, I remember it well, in second grade, I'm drawing a bird, the teacher told me I had the worst looking bird in the class, that was the first reference I ever had to my art.

JOANNE: There's always a critic.

But John persisted and now his work has been honored in exhibits, galleries, and museums and he's tireless in his effort to master his craft.

JOHN: It's challenging, oh yeah, art's still challenging to me, I work at it.

And there'll, there'll be times when it's like you're, “What the hell's wrong with me?

I can't quite get it.” That may last two weeks or three weeks, but when that two weeks or three weeks I'm like a tiger by the tail.

JOANNE: John's work has especially highlighted the beauty of agriculture.

JOHN: I mean, this is our earth, this is the fertility, hay bales, grass, this is the sustaining factor in our, in our life um, and the relationship of how we treat it is how we are going to live and the future generations.

And our farmers, they're doing good, uh, they have full awareness of what they have to do.

JOANNE: Talented as a painter as he is, John is also a powerful observer, the trait that most influences his work.

JOHN: You live within the spirit of place and out of the spirit of place, something develops and that's the beauty of art, it opens up questions, this is my life.

My left side of the brain I almost need a textbook to plug a lightbulb in, which drives my sons wild, but life opens up what are you going to do, pursue something, well I pursued that which I meant to pursue and I've been kicking all these years.

JOANNE: Wondering the Annapolis Farm Market, chef Lettie Lavallee found inspiration for an old family recipe on this week's, “Farm to Skillet.” ♪ ♪ LETTIE LAVALLEE: Are you looking for a new way to enjoy your summer veggies?

Hi, I'm Lettie Lavallee, a personal chef in Annapolis and I'm going to show you a simple, versatile dish that you are absolutely going to love.

It starts with a blast from my childhood, pickled green tomatoes, and includes local honey, charred veggies, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

And we're going to get everything we need here, at the Anne Arundel County Farmer's Market in Annapolis.

So are you ready to shop?

♪ ♪ Hi Karl.

KARL: Hey morning, Chef, how are you today?

LETTIE: Good, how are you doing?

KARL: Oh, living the dream.

LETTIE: Oh good.

KARL: What are we working on in the kitchen today?

LETTIE: Um, I'm doing a charred veggie farro and so I really want some fresh summer corn for it today.

KARL: Fun.

LETTIE: Yeah.

KARL: Nothing better than Southern Maryland corn right now.

LETTIE: I agree.

KARL: This is a white sweet corn called “Milky Way.” LETTIE: Ooh.

KARL: Which was pulled late yesterday evening.

Sweet, it's nice.

LETTIE: I can't wait, okay, I'll need a couple ears of this and then I think I'm also gonna need some green tomatoes.

KARL: Tomatoes are right over here, Chef.

LETTIE: Oh, perfect.

KARL: So we made sure we brought plenty of green tomatoes because we know it's fried green tomato season, um, it always hurts my heart to pick ‘em so green, I just love them when they're perfect and red, but there's so many good dishes we can do with these, so... LETTIE: I agree.

KARL: How many do you need?

LETTIE: Um, I need about two to three pounds.

KARL: Okay, so we're just going to have to play guesstimation, we'll try to get you full size.

LETTIE: That sounds good to me.

Hi!

VENDOR: Good morning.

LETTIE: How are you doing today?

VENDOR: Real good, how are you today?

LETTIE: Good.

Today I need some honey for a dish I'm making.

VENDOR: Okay.

LETTIE: You know what, I kind of want to go with this one, just ‘cause I love the jar.

Thank you so much, I can't wait to eat this.

VENDOR: Take care, oh you're going to enjoy it.

LETTIE: Thanks.

Hi, Oksana.

OKSANA: Oh, hi Chef, how are you?

LETTIE: I'm good, how are you doing today?

OKSANA: Good, good, thank you.

What are you looking for today?

LETTIE: Well I need some beans for a dish I'm making and I thought I might try something a little different, so can you tell me a little bit about these?

OKSANA: Yes, we have this uh, uh unique Chinese noodle beans.

I personally like them because of their flavor.

LETTIE: Oh.

OKSANA: And some of them are actually red and, they, they do not lose their um, color when you expose them to heat, unlike other purple uh, vegetables, they usually do, but this one's still purple which is very pretty in a dish.

LETTIE: Yeah, I think actually I will take the ones that have some purple in it, I like that idea a lot.

And then I just need some onion and some garlic as well.

Thank you so much.

OKSANA: You're welcome, thank you, have a good day.

LETTIE: I can't wait to see you next week.

OKSANA: All right, bye.

LETTIE: I think that wraps up our shopping trip here at the Anne Arundel County Farmer's Market, I just bought so much fresh produce from these amazing farmers and now my basket is full and it's heavy, let's go cook this stuff up!

♪ ♪ Welcome to my home kitchen, it's not a big space, but I like to say you don't need a big kitchen to create delicious food.

And speaking of delicious food, I'm going to make pickled green tomatoes, this is going to be a quick pickle so that you can enjoy it in 24 hours.

I have a cup of water and a cup of white vinegar in my pot.

I'm going to add to it some kosher salt, and some sugar.

A couple cloves of garlic that we got at the market, and then you can add whatever spices you want at this point, you could add coriander, cumin seed, um mustard seed, so we're just going to let this sit in this pot for a little bit and just come up to a boil and that's when we know it's ready.

Ooh, getting a little splash.

There we go, carefully pour that liquid in there, make sure you get that, all that spice and that garlic.

Now the next part of our dish is charred summer vegetables and the great thing about this dish is that you can really use any vegetables that you find at the market that day.

You don't have to use these specific ones.

Let's grab a couple green and a couple purple.

We're just going to chop off the ends like you would with a regular green bean and if you can't find a unique bean like this at your market, you can definitely use regular green beans.

Throw them in our dish.

Olive oil.

Give them a toss and then I'm going to char these today in a cast iron skillet.

(sizzling).

Oh, you can hear that sizzle, that's what you want to hear.

We're going to get a lot of flavor and a lot of great texture out of this.

So while that's charring, I'm going to make a simple vinaigrette, and we're going to use the picking liquid, we're going to use that honey that we got at the farmer's market and then some olive oil and salt and pepper and that's about it with this.

The honey will really balance out all the flavors from the salt and the acidity.

The base of our dish today, I am going to use farro, you just follow the package instructions, I like to leave it with a little bit of chew in it, give a little texture to the dish, if you don't have farro, you can use quinoa, couscous, rice.

So we're going to pull our charred veggies off and throw them right into our farro.

You can still hear that sizzle.

There's still one more veggie that has to get charred and that is our corn.

That I'm going to do directly over our flame.

And just run your knife right along the cob and bring the corn off.

And we're going to throw this in with our other veggies.

Okay, all we have to do is give this a few tosses and look at all those beautiful colors in there, I just can't wait to eat this, so let's get this plated up.

This dish is great as a vegetarian main dish, you could use it as a side dish, or you could grill up any protein you want and stick it on top look at this.

Okay, we're just going to put a few of these on top.

Oh my.

That takes me back to my childhood.

Oh!

And then the last thing that I have to go on top is those beautiful edible flowers that I got at the market today.

Mmm, my goodness.

You can taste the depth of every flavor, the texture of the farro, the charred veggies, the crunchy tomato, this is so amazing, you are gonna wanna give it a try.

For the recipe, visit our website, mpt.org/farm and you can make this dish your own at home and you're gonna love it.

JOANNE: Be sure to check out mpt.org/farm for all our recipes and resources, plus you can watch all “Farm and Harvest” episodes there as well.

Also, don't forget to follow us on social media for show updates, pictures, and videos.

Now hold on, we're not done yet, remember our thingamajig?

Did you guess it?

Our hint was, it's used to help keep farm animals healthy.

This is a medicine bit.

You hook an animal's halter reins here, placing this bar in the animal's bite, you pour medicine in here, and it comes out this hole and down the hatch it goes.

Congratulations if you got it right.

Join us next week for another thingamajig along with more stories about the diverse, passionate people who feed our state.

I'm Joanne Clendining, thanks for watching.

(music plays through credits).

NARRATOR: Major funding for "Maryland Farm and Harvest" is made possible in part by, The Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, investing in smarter farming to support safe and affordable food, feed and fuel, and a healthy bay.

Additional funding provided by, Maryland's Best, good for you, good for Maryland.

A grant from the Rural Maryland Council, Maryland Agricultural Education and Rural Development Fund.

MARBIDCO helping to sustain food and fiber enterprise for future generations.

A grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture, Specialty Crop Block Program.

Farm Credit, lending support to agriculture and rural America.

The Maryland Soybean Board and Soybean Check-Off program, progress powered by farmers.

Wegmans Food Markets, healthier, better lives through food.

The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

The Maryland Nursery, Landscape and Greenhouse Association.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences.

And by... (bird chirping).

♪ ♪