P L E N T Y SUMMER 2019 Plenty Summer 2019-joomag copy | Page 18

FA R M , FO R K , F L AV O R
A History of Stewardship
BY C L A U D I A KO U S O U L A S
Y
ou don’t have to to grain. But farming has
be on a farm to remained a vital part of the
recognize the signs local economy and envi-
of spring—birdsong ronment. It was protected
in the morning, a brief when the Reserve was
scent of green, a soft brush established, but the future
of breeze. Your shoulders of farming isn’t guaranteed.
relax, your coat flaps open, Changes in agricultural
and your limbs stretch. technology, market de-
On the farm, the soil
mand, climate, and plan-
starts to relax and stretch ning policy could all shift
as well. Released from win- the practice of farming.
ter’s freeze, it gives under But we must recognize the
a bootstep, and sprouts Reserve’s value. The deci-
wildly and unstoppably. The sion to create the Reserve,
earth is coming back to life,
Bread & Beauty, by Claudia Kousoulas and Ellen
a moment that has been
Letourneau is available at: www.breadandbeauty.org.
marked and celebrated
since antiquity.
made more than a genera-
tion ago, has created literal
and figurative open space
where people can bring
farmers who settled in the clear, and no more land to their passions and contrib-
County grew tobacco—a till. Then succeeded the pe- ute to making Montgomery
Beauty, A Year in Montgom- cash crop—leaving the labor riod of old farms decaying, County a richer place.
ery County’s Agricultural of planting, harvesting, and worn fences, and moulder- Reserve is that soil should curing to their enslaved ing homesteads.” never be dismissed as mere workers and enjoying the
One thing we learned
from working on Bread &
But, as Knight Kiplinger
Claudia Kousoulas worked as a
dirt. Soil is the basis of the life of a landed estate own- notes in his foreword to farm’s prosperity and the er—hunting and socializing. Bread & Beauty, “The Quak- for more than 20 years. She
source of nutritious and But tobacco draws vital ers of upper Montgomery is also a freelance writer and
good food. More than one nitrogen from the soil, and County, around Brookeville editor whose work covers ar-
farmer told us the quality when the tobacco market and Olney, learned about chitecture, design, cooking, and
of their soil is their primary crashed, Montgomery farms lime fertilizer from their culinary history. You can see her
concern. Some use amend- were left depleted and un- colleagues in Waterford work at Appetite for Books.
ments, no-till or low-till profitable. Thomas Ander- [Virginia], and they intro- practices, or grazing live- son recalled in his speech duced it to their neighbors. Ellen Letourneau is an event
stock in a fertilizing cycle, for the County’s centennial This so-called Loudoun planner creating festivals, din-
but every farmer works first celebration, that in 1776, just Method would revive farm- ners, photo safaris, fundraisers
to create fertile soil. after the County’s founding, ing in Montgomery County. and other happenings to help
“In less than a century after Since then, farming non-profits expand their out-
It’s a process that has
planner in Montgomery County
this system of denuding and in the County has shifted reach and people to celebrate
parallel in Montgomery exhaustion began, there to meet market demands, life. She is also an amateur
County. The first European were no more forests to most notably from dairy weaver and bread maker.
an interesting historic
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PLENTY I SUMMER GROWING 2019