Plent y
summer growing Season • 2026
FEATURES
4 Ensuring Local Food Access for Everyone Strategies to build a more equitable and sustainable County food system by ciara o’ brian
8 Community FarmShare Helps Address the Local Food Procurement Challenge
by lara fu
14 Against All Odds: The Courage to Start a Farm
by melane kinney hoffmann
24 Nature Reveals the Power of Collaboration Seeing through the lens of permaculture can change the way we do everything by lisa baird
32 Life Where the Aquifer Rises Biodiversity thrives in seeps and springs
by abby mann and caroline taylor
36 Comus Sky Farm Life unplugged... and please bring your dog! by wib middleton
DEPARTMENTS
20 Wild Thing Forestalling the Butterfly Apocalypse by rick borchelt
28 Eye for Beauty The Wabi Sabi Way of Seeing by wib middleton
30 Down on the Farm Calleva Farm Is All Abuzz with Newfound Friends
by niki markoff
41 From the Ground Up A Second Life for Hens in the Agricultural Reserve
by abby johnson
44 Out in Nature A Rare Place: Serpentine Barrens Conservation Park
by ginny barnes
50 Poetry Corner Barnesville School Poetry publisher i managing editor & design Jane Perini publisher i staff writer & photography Wib Middleton
PLENTY, Summer Growing Issue 2026. Plenty is published three times a year by Thunder Mountain Publishing LLC. It is distributed free of charge in many Montgomery County, MD locations as well as locations in Frederick. © 2026 by Thunder Mountain Publishing LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. • www. plenty-agmag. com • 928-862-0600