Instagram story viewer> @ecocityfarms> Posts

ECO City Farms

@ecocityfarms

3.2K

followers

327

following

We grow great food, farms, and farmers in Prince George's Country, MD. 🌿

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

ECO turns Sweet 16! We are celebrating at our Fall Harvest Festival on November 14th, Saturday, 1 pm - 4 pm, at our Edmonston Farm. We would love it if you join us.

The past few years have been challenging for many organizations, especially for nonprofits like ECO City Farms. We decided to make this year's festival a fundraiser so we can continue what we do for the community.

We will have food, music, farm stand, a farm tour and fun activities such as face painting and smoothie bike. To get tickets or to donate, you can scan the QR code or go to fundraiser site Mighty Cause (search for ECO City Farms). We thank you, as always, for your support. taken in ECO City Farms by @ecocityfarms

14

0

4 days ago

Happy Fall everyone! We're blessed with this beautiful weather. And we are busy like bees in summertime.

Come say hi at the ECO table this Saturday, 3 pm - 8 pm, at Fiesta on the Bridge (Decatur, that is) by @edmonstonmd to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. We'll have our farm stand, smoothie bike and t-shirts.

Sign up for the last of three classes of Growing Medicinal Herbs for Profit by UMES. Or work alongside our farm team as a volunteer to prep and plant garlic to be harvested next year.

For other public events that need registration, please scan the QR codes. This includes the memorial service for the beloved Benny Erez.

And please save the date for Nov. 14th, ECO's Sweet 16 celebration and fundraiser during our Fall Harvest Festival. More on this later.

And don't forget about our Farmers' Market at the Urban Farm Incubator every Saturday, 10 am - 2 pm, until mid-November. We got produce you can't find at regular groceries and flowers to make you smile on your way home.

Hope to see you at the farms. taken in ECO City Farms by @ecocityfarms

20

0

10 days ago

It’s Thursday CSA Pick Up at ECO City Farms. We got some beets, tomatoes, apples and pears, sweet peppers, mild and hot peppers, okra, fragrant herbs and aromatics.

Behind all the good food that we grow are beautiful farmers who work the soil and harvest your fruits and vegetables. Here are a few shots from our Bladenburg Farm this week.
We have nothing but love for our farmers and farmer friends. taken in ECO City Farms by @ecocityfarms

56

4

a month ago

On this first day of ECO’s Fall CSA Pick Up, we want to thank our CSA subscribers, from those who just signed up to the ones who’ve been with us for many seasons.

We grow for the community. This is why ECO exists. We are thankful.

We also want to give love to our trainees and volunteers who have worked alongside our hardworking farm team (Maddie, Thomas, Michael and Donta) under the hot sun, clouds and showers. Farming is not easy. So please know that we appreciate the time and energy you give to us and our farms (and Rosie!). And always, gran amor to our dedicated growers, our farm team.

If you’re interested in being part of our CSA community for the 2027 seasons, email our farm manager at maddie@ecocityfarms.org. You’ll get fresh fruits and vegetables every Thursday.

In the meantime, you can continue to support ECO City Farms through donations or buying our really fabulous (not a lie) soil conditioner Bladensburg Blend from our vermicast. Link in our bio. taken in ECO City Farms by @ecocityfarms

41

4

2 months ago

Maiya Lay @lovebugfarmmd once led a life steeped in DC kitchens. In 2016, she helped open up Doi Moi, China Chilcano and Bread Furst. Inspired by seasonality and sustainability, Lay dreamt of running a farm-to-table business. To establish good foundation, she ventured in farming.

Lay found ECO City Farms, where she apprenticed in 2016, and then again in 2020, when the pandemic shut everything down. By this time, her priority had changed: food security especially among the most vulnerable and a stronger connection to community.

“That’s when I delved full force into farming,” Lay recalls. She completed ECO’s Beginning Farmers Training Program, and worked with other farm organizations. The former chef realized her years in the kitchen “built my stamina and endurance for working in the fields…taught me how to pivot quickly, set priorities, and push through obstacles.”

Lay is a child of refugees from Cambodia, who survived the genocide between 1975-1979, where 1.5 million to 3 million people died.

“Food is my way of connecting and preserving some of that culture,” says Lay, who thought digging through ancestral history would be painful. Instead, farming brought her “joy and excitement, for my parents and other Cambodians who experienced so much loss.”

Lay’s father grew a garden in their Maryland home, and shared harvests with their immigrant neighbors. But growing up, Lay ate highly processed food from her parents jobs at 7-11 and donations from food pantries. This upbringing has guided her farm career.

Lay grows nutrition-dense food on a half-acre plot in the Urban Farm Incubator at Watkins Regional Park. Until last year’s USDA cuts, Lay provided fresh (and organic) produce to six churches and a community college through the Capital Area Food Bank. With that income flow gone, Lay now sells at UFI’s Farmers Market every Saturday until November.

Even on a 90-degree morning, Lay moves fast through the lush she grows, her daughter Ameya — her “Love Bug” — reads a book in the shade and snacks on a hibiscus leaf. Lay’s mission is solid: farming is an act of love, for the land, for the community. She grows with all heart, and wouldn’t do it any other way. taken in Watkins Park Urban Farm Incubator by @ecocityfarms

75

3

2 months ago

Join us tonight, Friday the 31st of July, for our Movie Night Cookout at our Edmonston Farm, 6:30 pm start for FREE grilled burgers and hotdogs, with movie starting at 8:30 pm when instead of popcorn, you get nachos with cheese! We’ll even have a carafe of good coffee provided by Vigilante (thank you!).

This is the culmination of our six-week Summer Youth Program, where teens learn farming, culinary arts and life skills. The youth will be cooking and running the show tonight with minimal guidance from adults. You can buy produce from our farms as well as our cute ECO City Farms t-shirts. We’ll have ECO’s smoothie bike, games, raffles, music from DJ Fran Maravilla @franmaravillaes sound design @thom_thesounddesignguy from Thom Woodward and face painting from Happy Caritas @happycaritasdc with Patty Pedraza. Coffee from @vigilantecoffee (thanks!).

To show you how much fun we can have, here are pictures from our Wednesday Open House at our Bladensburg Farm that our ECO youth also helped put together. Yes, we are busy this week! Thanks to 2Fifty @2fiftytexasbbq for the delicious beef fajitas, chicken, esquites and rice & beans. And huge thanks as well to all our volunteers, staff and young people who made this family event a night to cherish. So, let’s do it again — see you tonight! taken in ECO City Farms by @ecocityfarms

29

0

3 months ago

(FREE registration link in our bio.)

We've been too busy at the farm that we have not posted here in a while. You see, a month ago, ECO started its annual summer youth program in partnership with Bladensburg High School's Wellness Ambassador Program. The 12-13 young people learn farming and culinary arts, Monday-Friday, 9 am - 3 pm. Their summer with ECO culminates in two events they are organizing:
Bladensburg Open House on Wednesday, July 29th, at our Bladensburg Farm
Movie Night Cook Out on Friday, July 31st, at the Edmonston Farm, aka Rosie the Cat's forever home.

Big thanks to the following special folks for contributing to our food, drink and entertainment offerings: @fernando_gonzalez_pitmaster
Chef Fernando for our 2Fifty Texas BBQ for the 29th and the Town of Edmonston and Vigilante Coffee @vigilantecoffee for the 31st. Thom @thom_thesounddesignguy Woodward will again give us his precious time to manage sound for our events. Fran Maravilla @franmaravilla1 will DJ at the cookout. And Happy Caritas @happycaritasdc will be at both events to, what else, put on happy faces on children (and adults).

We hope that you can join us, and cheer on our young people as they man our farm stand, grill meats and lead games. Please spread the word. This is free to the public. But do bring your card, phone or cash — we’ll be selling our produce, soil conditioner and ECO t-shirts. See you soon! by @ecocityfarms

63

3

3 months ago

ECO City Farms celebrates Pride and honors LGBTQIA+ farmers, growers, ranchers and agricultural workers.

Even though Pride celebrations have been around since 1970, when the first march happened to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising in June 1969, we don’t hear much about queerness in agriculture. The USDA nor the Census does not collect information on the sexual orientation of farmers and ranchers.

In 2022, the National Young Farmers Coalition conducted a survey that to date is likely the most comprehensive data on the subject. That survey revealed that 24.2% of respondents identified as a sexuality other than heterosexual.

Of all those surveyed, 78% did not come from farming families. Most of these first generation farmers were driven to the land by environmental conservation, anti-racism and social justice. The survey also revealed that a generation of producers were growing a diversity of crops and livestock and practiced regenerative agriculture.

While Washington, DC had its Pride weekend already, the cities of Alexandria, VA and Silver Spring, MD will hold celebrations this weekend, the end of Pride month, along with San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Minneapolis.

Happy Pride! by @ecocityfarms

10

0

4 months ago

Support your local farmers from ECO’s Watkins Urban Farm Incubator. by @ecocityfarms

29

0

4 months ago

Happy Juneteenth from your Watkins Park Urban Farm Incubator Team! Celebrate this year with a trip to our market this Saturday (and every Saturday after that -- we love seeing you!). You'll be supporting your lovely local farmers.

This market is quite unique in our area because you're face to face with the people who grow your produce. You step on the land where your food is grown and taken care of. There's pride, dignity and beauty in all that.

We hope to see you on Saturday! We're open 10 am - 2 pm. Watkins Regional Park, 601 Watkins Park Dr., Upper Marlboro, MD 20774.

And huge thanks to Brandon Forester, who came by on the first day of the market, and took these wonderful pictures that you see here. Community at work! taken in Watkins Park Urban Farm Incubator by @ecocityfarms

69

4

4 months ago

ECO City Farms supports the rights of all communities to live long, healthy lives on their own terms. This Juneteenth, we honor the history of Edmonston, MD, the site of our first urban farm and home to freedmen seeking self-determination.

After the Native Americans, one of first settlers in Edmonston were the Plummer Family. Born into slavery to the Calvert Family, Adam Francis Plummer (1819-1905) became the foreman for Charles Benedict Calvert, founder of the University of Maryland.

Plummer, who was literate and educated, wrote a diary for six years starting in 1841. His diary documents his unsuccessful attempts to escape, the pain and indignity he suffered watching family members sold away. His youngest daughter Nellie would later continue writing in this journal, considered the only living diary of any slave in the United States and now in the care of the Smithsonian.

The end of the Civil War emancipated millions of enslaved people. Adam Plummer and his wife Emily worked to reunite their family. With savings and skills, the Plummers were able to acquire 10 acres (to 12 acres) of land on the south end of the plantation where they worked and where he and newly freed family settled. Plummer, an avid horticulturalist, named the settlement Mount Rose for the rose garden he planted there and where modern-day Edmonston sits now.

The Town of Edmonston has honored its agricultural heritage and its founding community by becoming one of the greenest cities in the United States today. And we at ECO City Farms honor the legacy of Adam Francis Plummer and his family through our vision of sustainability and commitment to diversity and respect for all beings.

Image Credits:
1. “The African Presence: Roots Of Edmonston” - Mural project between the Town of Edmonston and Operation ARTS Foundation Inc.

2. Mural on 5112 Buchanan Street.

3. Mural commemoration of Adam Francis Plummer’s legacy by artist
Emily Chimiak created in 2010, and restored on June 19, 2022 by Preservation & Framing Services of Rockville, in partnership with Operation ARTS Foundation Inc. and Collins and Sons LLC.

4. “The Adam Francis Plummer Family” - Photograph courtesy Paul Johnson Family taken in ECO City Farms by @ecocityfarms

34

2

4 months ago

ECO City Farms and CNPP (Community Native Planting Project) have been working together for about two years in clearing out invasives on our farms to restore the space to a native plant garden. We do this periodically with the help of volunteers.

On Thursday, June 11th, 3:30 pm - 6:30 pm, we will be working at ECO’s Bladensburg Farm (6100 Emerson Street, Bladensburg, MD), and we can use more hands.

If you have any free time, join us at the farm. Please sign up on Give Pulse. Link in Bio.

We will have a bit of food to get us through the session. Thank you so much. by @ecocityfarms

20

0

4 months ago