Maidstone Harvest is a small-scale regenerative and organic market garden just outside of Annapolis, Maryland. Maidstone is set on a stunning property nestled onto Whitehall Bay that is also the home of Lorraine and Chris Wallace. This small yet vibrant place was where I would find myself most of this summer. The story of Maidstone starts and ends with Lorraine Wallace, my kind and caring mentor and boss. She began Maidstone a couple of years ago hoping to one day expand and become a successful organic farm that can spread our delicious vegetables and progressive farming ideals throughout Maryland.
Last summer in 2022, I began working at Maidstone, this was simply to get my feet wet and get some experience before I would come back this summer in 2023 for my 320-hour internship. In hindsight I’m very grateful to have seen the farm last summer and how far we’ve come since then. New personnel and a more professional outlook were what I was greeted with this summer. We brought on Alec, the new farm manager, and my main mentor and teacher this summer. He aimed to focus “on sustainable practice biologically and in business, considering the ecology of both.” (Alec) Alec has a graduate degree in sustainable agriculture as well as years of experience working on organic farms. His goal was to offer me a “comprehensive perspective on vegetable farming.” (Alec) The conversations we had and what I was able to take away from them was perhaps the most valuable thing I gained from this internship. But it is far from the only thing, after this summer I would estimate that I have gained most of the skills necessary to manage and operate a small-scale market garden. Some of the things I learned are cultivation and harvest techniques for various vegetables, irrigation applications, soil nutrient management, organic pesticide risks, and application, how to handle various pests and uphold a predatory insect population, microgreen management, and how to best work as a part of a team in the workplace. These skills along with a better understanding of hard work were all learned through my tasks on the farm and conversations with my mentors. Alec claimed that by the end of the summer, I had “evinced an understanding of each element in the value chain through thoroughness in practice.” (Alec) Some of my main tasks were harvesting, transplanting, weeding, pruning, bed flips, and some other various odd jobs. Being the youngest and most physically able member of our team, most of my tasks were very physically intensive and in the heat, it could be tough. But looking back I’m thankful, these experiences taught me what a full hard day of work is and that is something invaluable. The rest of my team also had to be hard working to upkeep our level of production throughout the summer. Our team was small consisting of myself and three other members. This meant that each of us had a noticeable and important impact on our small business. I doubt many other interns this summer got to be such a large part of the business in which they worked, and this unique experience gave me some perspective on what it means to manage and maintain a growing business.
Our customers at Maidstone are all high-end restaurants in Annapolis. Our model at Maidstone is to have top-of-the-line vegetables with individual care given to every individual plant. This is the exact image the restaurants in Annapolis are looking to buy from as they move towards more farm-to-table meals. This business plan gave me some extremely unique and beautiful experiences. I’ve been able on several occasions now to eat dishes with vegetables that I harvested in them. My favorite meal had to have been at Preserve in downtown Annapolis when I went with Alec, my mentor. We personally knew the chef and so he made us a special dish with some of our microgreens. A rockfish ceviche with corn shoots to garnish and add flavor. It simply melted in my mouth as the flavor exploded in my taste buds. At that moment, I felt pride in our vegetables and everyone at Maidstone, at that moment I felt pride in that I contributed to bringing that flavor and a delicious meal to thousands of restaurant-goers in Annapolis, at that moment I knew what it meant to be a farmer.
