etable farming at the time, but now have shifted to using dried leaves as mulch. Leaf mulch not only reduces use of plastics and is great at suppressing weed growth, but it also adds organic matter to the soil as it slowly decomposes. In heavy rain storms, leaf mulch absorbs water and retains moisture, reducing the need for irrigation as well. As he and his team have learned over the last decade and a half, weather is a constant wild card, and they must constantly pay attention to what works— and what is not working so well. He is grateful he can pivot quickly and try new things, but the challenges are huge.
A history teacher in Montgomery County Public Schools, Marc is passionate about the need for communities to produce their own food so that we are not dependent on the volatile global food system. Marc says,“… the Ag Reserve was an enormously innovative program, but now we need to think deeper about how we connect growers with the land.”
Marc has myriad suggestions on that topic, such as grants and technical assistance for deer fencing, high tunnels, irrigation, and crop experimentation. Yet he states emphatically“ Looking to the future, we need to make it more feasible for people who want to grow food to acquire land.” He believes the single most effective way to grow the local food economy is to provide incentives for landowners to offer long term leases to table crop farmers.“ Land security is more important than technical support or even free money.”
Marc reflected on the role of weather among the many aspects of farming that require constant
Gene Kingsbury takes on careful winter pruning of his 8000-plus fruit trees.
adaptation and lifelong learning, and summarized,“… At the end of the day farming is about managing your environment, and that includes the day-to-day weather.”
At Kingsbury Orchard, Getting Pounded by Weather Is a Regular Event
On a frigid, blustery day during the very cold January of 2026, Gene Kingsbury was as cheerful as ever as he took on the gargantuan task of annual pruning for more than 8000 fruit trees. This week he was working on apple and pear trees. It was a humbling reminder that farmers are at work year-round in the most brutal weather, even if the public only sees the fruits of that labor in the warm months.
Gene is no stranger to the fiercest weather events. In 2025, an early warm spell pushed trees into bud ahead of schedule, but on April 9th the temperature dipped into the teens, destroying 70 percent of his peach crop. At the opposite end of the growing season, he lost half his apples due to an early frost. In August 2024, a severe wind and hail storm ripped through his orchard, yet left farms just a mile away unscathed. That storm uprooted more than 150 young apple trees that were heavy with fruit.
As a young boy learning to manage the orchard beside his father and grandfather, Gene saw occasional hail storms— any farmer’ s worst nightmare— and other kinds of strong weather events, but not on such a regular basis, nor with such devastating effects. Climate change has forced him to stop planting new apricot trees because their early bloom cycle makes them ever more vulnerable to spring frosts. The orchard’ s
10 plenty I spring sowing 2026