JOANNE CLENDINING: It is a big, wide agricultural world out there, from the mountains to the shore, and all points in between.

Did you know there's an annual tradition that keeps the spirits happy?

That aquaponics can have a lasting learning effect?

And that Southern Maryland was a bourbon bastion?

Don't go anywhere, stories about the people who work the land and feed our state 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.

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 Checkoff Program.

Progress powered by farmers.

The Maryland Nursery Landscape and Greenhouse Association, The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

The Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, promoting the importance of agriculture in our daily lives.

And by Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences.

(theme music playing).

(bird chirping).

JOANNE: The history of Maryland agriculture can be a tangible experience if you know where to look.

Hi, I'm Joanne Clendining, welcome to "Maryland Farm and Harvest."

This week we're at Carroll County Farm Museum, where artifacts, barns, and living history reveal what farm life was like a century ago.

The location was a site of a 144-acre farm and Almshouse where the poor and indigent could work for food and lodging.

The last Almshouse guests left in 1965.

The museum opened its doors the following year.

Coming up a Garrett County school finds hydroponics, elementary.

But first, what do you get when you gather farmers, their combines, and a waving crowd?

You get a spirited event called The Blessing of the Combines.

(tractor engine).

♪ ♪ From the birth of agriculture about 10,000 years ago to just the other day at the grocery store, farmers have been giving us a lot to be thankful for, and for just as long the world has celebrated their farmers and the goods they've harvested through organized festivals, through singing, dancing, and parades of decorated horse-drawn carts.

The Romans had Cerealia that celebrated the grain harvest.

In Bali, Indonesia, they celebrate the rice harvest and in the heart of the Delmarva Peninsula, the small town of Snow Hill has The Blessing of the Combines.

♪ ♪ The Blessing of the Combines parade held every August just prior to the fall grain harvest is more than just a parade.

It's a heartfelt tribute to the hardworking farmers who keep the fields fertile and the community thriving.

LORISSA McALLISTER: This is the biggest event in town.

Last year we had 6,000 people attend, this year we're expecting closer to eight to 9,000, um, which is remarkable uh, for such a small town, we have a population of about 2200 people.

It has grown from 500 people with, you know, smaller combines... to these huge, huge combines and thousands of people.

BECKY PAYNE: In our parade, we have the antique tractors and floats.

JOANNE: They managed to pack in all the cute kids, AG queens, massive combines, and American flags in the short 0.2-mile parade route.

But the combines getting to the end of the parade is just the beginning of the festivities, and it starts with a blessing.

BARB HEDGES-GOETTL: Let us pray.

Gracious God, we come to you on behalf of those who toil in farm and field producing food for your children and feed for creatures around the world.

That this is a thing that brings us all together, right?

We all eat, we're all dependent on our farmers, we all need to be aware of their needs and to be able to support them as a community.

JOANNE: Becky Payne was thinking along the same lines when she first had the idea for a parade.

BECKY: Friends of ours were sitting around and we just got talking, said, you know, the farmers need to be honored.

After all, they are the center of our agricultural and our livelihood.

And we were thinking about what we could do.

JOANNE: Becky took the idea of a combine parade through town to the local farmers.

BECKY: Some of them looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

JOANNE: Becky's son, Brad Hauck remembers his first thoughts after hearing his mom's idea.

BRAD HAUCK: I was thinking it was gonna be a lot of work.

JOANNE: And it is.

Days before the parade, Brad and his friend Ronnie Hannicker wash and detail the harvester he'll be driving in this year's parade.

BRAD: It always gives us a good, good reason to get the combine up before we start harvesting.

And I don't know anywhere else in the world that does anything like this, which is pretty special.

JOANNE: Now getting his 13-foot-wide combine to the parade without an accident takes patience and highlights one of the reasons these farmers need a blessing.

BRAD: I don't think most people realize quite how big the farm equipment is now.

Back when I started, you could get over on the shoulder with any piece of equipment you had and get off on the grass just a little bit, and you weren't in anybody's way.

Well, now it doesn't matter if I get over or not, I'm in the way.

JOANNE: "In the way" that translates to three deaths and over 185 farm vehicle accidents since 2020, which makes a blessing for a safe and fruitful harvest all the more important.

ZACH EVANS: So whether you came here today for the live entertainment, for the family-friendly programming that we have laid out all through town, make sure before you leave, you go outta your way to thank a farmer, 'cause they're the reason that you're here today, and they're the real reason that we all are celebrating at Snow Hill this morning.

JOANNE: Even though this annual event promotes the agricultural heritage around Snow Hill, it also celebrates agricultural communities across the state.

And this event is more than just combines, there are tractor pulls, hay rides, music, food, a children's barnyard, and "Wheels that Heal" car show.

♪ ♪ All right, it's time to test your inner agronomist, here is our thingamajig for the week.

Do you think you know what it is?

No, it's not a boomerang.

Here's a hint, if you walked a mile in one of these, you'd have been hitched to a cart.

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

With each spring comes the promise of new growth and prosperity.

Here are some pics of that season's greetings, enjoy.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ When a school in Allegany County wanted to teach their kids about agriculture they took to aquaponics and now they're awash in leafy goodness.

(tractor engine).

♪ ♪ Since 1966, the Bishop Walsh School, sitting atop Cumberland, Maryland's Haystack Mountain, has been nurturing curious minds.

TEACHER: Good morning, hi, Mary Alice.

JOANNE: Over those years, thousands of kids have entered these walls with the goal to learn and grow.

The current batch of students have the same goals, but this generation is learning to grow something else in their classroom.

Vegetables, thanks to aquaculture.

And these first grade farmers are checking on their lettuce.

Three weeks ago they planted seedlings.

STUDENT: They were tiny seeds like this.

JOANNE: Today they're back for the harvest and they're excited.

STUDENT 2: Because it's fun.

STUDENT 3: Because we get to pick them up.

JOANNE: And that makes Mick Burkett mighty happy.

MICK BURKETT: I am a science teacher, mainly of the biological sciences, and a STEM coordinator.

When the bell rings for homeroom to get started, they don't walk in here, they run down the steps.

They don't even know they're doing STEM.

STUDENTS: Yea!

JOANNE: STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math.

When the school received a STEM grant a couple of years ago... JENNIFER FLINN: I went to Mr. Burkett and said, I have this funding, what would you like to do with it?

MICK: I started aquaponics, uh, primarily maybe even out of selfish reasons.

I grow my own produce and I thought that would be great to bring to Bishop Walsh.

JENNIFER: So we decided on the grow tower that we have out in the hallway, which seemed really big at the time, and the kids loved it and we liked it so much that we found some more funding from a donor and basically built an aquaponics lab.

And, uh, it's just, it's blossomed from there.

I thought, you know, it'd be fun, we'll see what happens, you know, maybe it'll be successful, and it's just beyond my expectations.

JOANNE: A year into the program and the whole school is involved.

But what is aquaculture anyway?

Here I'll get a few of the BW Grows junior members to explain.

JOSEPH KHACHAN: Aquaponics is basically raising fish to grow plants that benefit from the fish waste.

So we're growing plants without soil, but they're getting everything they need by the fish waste.

JAMES MAYBURY: So what we're looking at is a tank full of tilapia.

We have about 30 in each of these tanks.

They can adapt to their environment very well.

HARRY VASSILIADIS: This is the filtration system of the water before it enters into the plants.

When it comes from the tilapia tank, this clarifying tank, um, catches any waste to the bottom, which can be flushed out.

And then as it enters into the mineralization tanks, any smaller pieces such as feces or smaller pieces of food can be caught.

AIDAN FLINN: And these tilapia are gonna be producing ammonias from their, uh, gills and from their waste.

If you have too much ammonia, it's actually gonna kill the fish.

And if you have too little, it's gonna kill your plants.

KHUSHI RATHOD: After it's done filtrating, it turns into nitrates, which is like nutrients that the plants can use, and it goes into these grow beds.

So these are rafts that are floating above the water.

The plants take up the ammonia, and then they also take up the nitrates that the bacteria gives off into here.

And then the ammonia makes the waters cleaner.

So cleaner water's going back to the fish, so the cycle can just keep going.

JOANNE: Keeping that cycle going is important.

Luckily, the entire student body from pre-K to 12th grade has a hand in growing, whether in the soil or the greenhouse, or the water with the tilapia.

MICK: We're growing so much more than fish, we're growing so much more than plants.

JOANNE: Take our team of first grade farmers, for instance.

They're learning that they can feed their school.

JENNIFER: We were hoping at the beginning just to have enough lettuce and herbs and things to have cafeteria salads, you know, maybe once a week, something like that.

And now we have plenty for lunch every day.

And we have enough for anyone who works here to take produce home.

And we've been able to donate to the local, uh, Union Rescue Mission.

MICK: So not only are we feeding our students in the cafeteria, our faculty, and the Union Rescue Mission, now we're getting to the point where we're becoming proficient enough where we can provide food for restaurants.

And that's going to add another aspect to our aquaponics program, where the kids are gonna learn marketing.

This is a fun time for them, and it's really changing the way I do education here at BW.

Every subject has an opportunity to get involved.

It's no longer the classical sense where you got the mathematics in a math class or you got the science just in a science class.

JOSEPH: It's really a unique experience.

Not many schools have this, and certainly not like in the area.

MICK: Doing this, uh, endeavor with the kids, I get to see the kids being excited about science, being excited at STEM.

JOANNE: And at the Bishop Walsh School I'm sure that excitement will only continue to grow.

STUDENTS: BW Grows!

(cheering).

JOANNE: The vegetable plants that Bishop Walsh students harvest, not only provide fresh lunch veggies but help feed the hungry at the Union Rescue Mission in downtown Cumberland.

Eventually, they hope to sell their produce, lettuce, peas, and more to nearby restaurants.

And did you know aquaponics can be traced back to the Aztec Indians who raised plants on rafts on the surface of a lake around 1000 AD?

Coming up, Al lends a hand at a small batch farm distillery.

But first, did you know that Maryland's been a mashing mecca for centuries?

Looking back on the state of distilling, both "Then and Now".

(wind howling).

♪ ♪ Unlike the well-known bourbon whiskey of today, the favorite spirit among 18th and 19th-century Americans was a unique rye whiskey, a liquor once commonly brewed in Maryland due to the prevalence of rye grain.

♪ MAN: If I don't get dry whiskey I surely will die.

♪ JOANNE: The flavor of this early Maryland whiskey was described as particularly distinct and advertised as being more refined than its competitors.

But also took on the name the "Baltimore Paint Remover" due to its high alcohol content.

World War I, Prohibition, and the rise of Kentucky bourbon whiskey would eventually halt the distilling of rye whiskey altogether.

But modern Maryland distilleries are determined to bring back the classic flavor of this regional whiskey.

Except there is one problem, they can't agree on how it was made.

Most old distilleries did not keep recipes for their rye whiskey.

So new distillers instead have looked to old bottle labels, manuscripts, and oral history to guide them.

Underground limestone deposits and a unique Maryland distilling technique, utilizing three chambered stills are among many theorized techniques utilized to create this distinct flavor and are being capitalized upon today.

In the last decade alone, over a dozen new distilleries have opened to revive the great Maryland rye whiskey recipes.

Each distillery brewing its own distinct variation and interpretation of the long-lost Maryland rye whiskey.

Both "Then and Now".

♪ ♪ Speaking of distilling on this week's, The Local Buy, Al heads to St. Mary's County, where one of the state's premier small-batch bourbon makers are making a name for themselves, Al?

(tractor engine).

♪ ♪ AL SPOLER: St. Mary's County is a renowned for its unique culture of Chesapeake Bay Tidewater communities.

Farming, fishing, and crabbing are the first things that come to mind.

But it's got much more.

St. Mary's County, Maryland is just packed with history.

Now this is the birthplace of Maryland.

It was the first county to be organized, St. Mary's City, the first capital.

And now it's home to the number one farm distillery in America.

Hollywood, Maryland's Tobacco Barn Distillery.

Oh my goodness, would you look at this?

At this Is a veteran-owned farm-to-bottle distillery started in 2014 when friends Scott Sanders, Dan Dawson, and Sean Cogan began creating high-quality bourbon from the corn grown on Dan's family farm.

DAN DAWSON: They decided they wanted to make bourbon and I said, well, I've got the farm.

I know how to make it, so let's go ahead and do it.

AL: This isn't water running.

DAN: This is not water right now, about 135 proof.

AL: Ok, yowzah!

Back in 2018, we visited the then-4-year-old company as they were getting their sea legs.

And you've been going strong ever since.

Uh, but like Earl Weaver said, it's what you'll learn after you know it all that really matters, you guys been learning stuff.

SCOTT SANDERS: Uh, we've been learning a lot Al, there's, there's a lot to learn and a lot of changes too.

So for example, we didn't have this tasting room at the time.

AL: Always like coming in here.

They also added some conveniences to the process.

DAN: Well, we got a little older, so we mechanized the handling of corn.

We used to get bags of corn and, and carry 'em on our shoulders upstairs and that, that got old.

AL: What hasn't changed is their commitment to being a farm-to-bottle distillery, growing their own corn and sourcing their rye from local farms.

DAN: Right now.

AL: Holy mackerel, it's bubbling.

DAN: Yeah, yeah, it's just starting, right... it's still kind of sweet right now.

Production is pretty much optimized for what we want to do, which is two barrels a week, 100 barrels a year.

Probably not the most ideal business plan, but, uh, if we were 30 years old, we would expand.

Right now, we're just trying to make it better.

AL: That plan is starting to pay off.

In 2023, they were voted the number one farmer distillery in America.

DAN: We were kind of committed from the very beginning not to source any products.

We were gonna make it all here.

And, uh, we've had a lot of people very patiently wait for our bourbon to, uh, mature and it has now.

AL: And the future?

DAN: To continue actually refining, making the best bourbon in the world.

I mean, that's, that's a bold statement because Kentucky makes 96% of it and they make some extraordinarily good bourbon.

So it's a pretty high bar.

AL: A mighty heady goal.

But Scott Sanders has a perfect metaphor.

SCOTT: It's kind of the difference between your mother's cookies and if Keebler made cookies, small batches where Keebler puts out thousands.

AL: Now, what does the mom's cookies of fine rye bourbon taste like?

Now, could I talk you into letting me taste a little bit of that?

SCOTT: Yeah, I'll give you a little bit out here.

AL: Okay.

SCOTT: We're, we're all lined up and ready to go here.

AL: Single barrel, huh?

SCOTT: Single barrel, yeah.

So this, we do this one barrel at a time.

AL: Mm-Hmm, thanks.

SCOTT: And I might join you if that's okay?

AL: Okay, sure.

BOTH: Here we go.

AL: Oh my goodness, it is, it is sweet.

And it is satiny and it's got class.

SCOTT: Yeah.

AL: And all those things really, really are obvious.

SCOTT: When you said sweet, that kind of caramel.

AL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: It's not from the corn has nothing to do with the corn, it comes from the barrel.

AL: Is that right?

SCOTT: So we use American white oak barrels.

AL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: It's, uh, state tree of Maryland.

And in here, when you toast this on the in, this gets charred, this gets toasted.

AL: Mm-Hmm.

SCOTT: Uh, you get about, uh, three and a half, four pounds of wood sugar out of every barrel that goes into the bourbon.

AL: I'm astonished.

SCOTT: Yeah, so that's why it's sweet.

It's that your brain makes you think corn.

AL: Yeah.

SCOTT: But it's really out of the wood.

AL: Well, that's really amazing.

You know, I think if people are gonna be looking for something to do, uh, you can't do better than come down here to St. Mary's County and visit the Tobacco Barn Distillery.

It's, it's a great show.

It's great things to learn about.

And I hope you come down.

We're gonna put all sorts of information on the website at mpt.org/farm.

Thank you.

SCOTT: Thank you, good having you here, Al.

AL: Okay, and for The Local Buy, I'm Al Spoler, Joanne?

JOANNE: Thanks Al.

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 if you walked a mile in one of these, you'd have been hitched to a cart.

This is an ox shoe.

Those big oxen behind me, Jack and Jim, they would've worn these when pulling carts and plows.

And since their hooves are cloven, they actually wear two per hoof.

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.

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 Checkoff Program.

Progress powered by farmers.

The Maryland Nursery Landscape and Greenhouse Association, The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

The Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, promoting the importance of agriculture in our daily lives.

And by Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences.

♪ ♪ (bird chirping).