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Workforce Development and Leadership Extension Internship

By: Mike Ribblett

Mentor: Dave Myers

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About Me

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Anne Arundel County- Millersville
University of Maryland, College Park

Institute of Applied Agriculture Studying Ornamental Horticulture

Musician In MSOM
Bachelor's Degree in Urban Forestry
Career Path

Nursery or Greenhouse work
Maryland State or AAC, DNR
Forest Management or consultant

-A little about myself, I was born and raised in Anne Arundel County and I live in a small section of the county called Millersville.

-Growing up I had always loved the outdoors and going to all of the different flower farms and gardens centers around the county and nearby counties. I decided to take that interest to the next level which is studying it full time at the University of Maryland.

-I’m currently a student with the Institute of Applied Agriculture which is a 2-year certificate program within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

-After this year I plan to continue my education by completing my bachelors degree in Urban Forestry and earn a minor in Landscape Management.

-Hopefully moving forward with these degrees I would like to work in the nursery or greenhouse business but ultimately I would like to find work with the Maryland State or County Department of Natural Resources.

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History of the Anne Arundel Extension Office

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1910

1913

1966

1996

1998

2008

Present

1705

1809

1978

Very Briefly for those who don’t know I am going to briefly touch on the history of the Anne Arundel Office.

Our Extension office is currently sitting on historical property inherited by charles hammond in 1705. When Charles claimed the land, he gained about 500 Acres and build the Hammond Manor House. He would go on to call this “Howard’s Adventure” after his father in Law.

-Throughout his life Charles’ family would continue to grow. One of the prominent members of the family Philip Hammond Sr. (Charles' son) would go onto to marry Rachel Brice of the Brice family (which is a very important family is Annapolis history)

-At the time of Philips death in 1760 he would add over 20,000 acres to his families estates and properties.

-Philip had a son Rezin *Rae-son* Hammond who would eventually inherit the original “Howard’s Adventure” and increase it to an astonishing 9,000 acres in 1809 at the time of his death.

-Now over the next hundred years or so the Lands would be divided up among the Hammond Family and sold off to farmers of smaller size

-Where history picks up is, in 1910 there was a Typhoid Fever outbreak at the Naval Academy and the Navy decided to source its own milk.

-In 1913 they bought 800 acres of “Howard’s Adventure” to begin constructing the dairy farm and milking cows to provide to the Midshipmen

-At the height of the Dairy Farm, there was a herd size of about 425 cows, with about 225 being milked with about 1,100 Gallons being produced a week while the midshipmen were in session.

-In 1966 however the Comptroller of Congress proposed to discontinue the Dairy Farm due to its cost to operate and citing it no longer being used for “Health” reasons as it did 50 years ago.

-However this was rebuffed by the House Armed Services Committee which wrote into the 1968 Military Authorization Act an order to keep milking.

-A Few years later in 1978 the original Hammond Manor House was burned down by Vandals.

-In 1996 an order was put out to halt operations and to sell of product as the dairy was no longer economically viable for the Academy to run the dairy and in 1998 the Dairy was officially shut down.

-A little fun fact was when the Naval Academy had its mascot Bill the Goat, he would be stored and kept at the Farm and would be stolen by rival football teams (Most notably Army). Even while my mentor Dave Myers worked here on the Dairy Farm during operations he would mention that the Goat would be stolen all the time.

-In Recent history, in 2008 the Naval Academy offered to lease the Land in a 30 year deal with Anne Arundel County.

-Over the course of the years several farmers have continued to farm the land while on a sub lease from Anne Arundel County, all of which has been crop farming either corn or soybeans

-In 2013 the Extension Office was refurbished from an old barn and its where I work out of present day, and what is rest of “Howard’s Adventure” is 140 acres renamed to be “Hammond’s Connection”.

Presently, the Naval academy is considering putting a solar “farm” or a solar generation project here to generate electricity. They have completed Phase 1 of the project but are now on phase 2, seeking public input into what is going to happen.

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Anne Arundel Urban Farm Research Clinic/Demonstration

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What is our goal?

“We want to bring accessibility and experience to help lead urban farmers in the topics of planning, land use, and IPM strategies” -UME website

-How can we make smaller farms more productive

How do we do this?

Having farmers and visitors
Proving this can be done with the amount of space
Try out different crops to test what can be grown in MD environment
Supporting other Urban farmers with our knowledge
Show this can be done with limited people and equipment

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So what is the Urban farm?

In its original essence the Urban Farm is a research project based off of Dave’s Idea of “maximizing agriculture production while protecting our natural resources for future generations”

-Since then we have branched out and evolved to how can we get this idea to other urban farmers in Anne Arundel County

-In our county this is an ever present need. Over the course of 70 years we have lost 78% of farmland and this project was born out of the idea of how can we take the rest of the farmland we have and save it for future farmers

-We do this by testing and proving what can be grown on smaller scale that can still be profitable with high yields, supporting other urban farmers with our knowledge, and by showing that small scale production can be done with limited people and equipment

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Varieties:

-Ironman

-Rhea

-Gladiator

-Zeus

-Autumn Winged Gourds

Varieties:

-Summer Serenade Krymsk 86

-Bellaire Lovell

-John Boy Krymsk 86

-Glohaven Lovell

Varieties:

-Gala

-Crimson Crisp

-Golden Delicious

-Crown Empire

Varieties:

-Barbara

-Cabernet Franc

-Merlot

-Petite Verdot

Varieties:

-Cascade

-Comet

-Galena

-Tahoma

Tomatoes:

-Cherry

Peppers

-Banana

-Poblano

-Jalapeno

-Beefsteak Tomatoes (1 row)

-Snap Beans (2 rows)

-Lima Beans (2 rows)

-Zucchini (2 rows)

-Cucumbers (2 rows)

-Cantaloupe (7 rows)

-Watermelon (13 rows)

Varieties: -Natchez -Ponca, Sweet Ark -Caddo -Freedom, Prime Ark

Sunflowers mixed

Varieties:

-Summer Breeze Mix

-Oil seed

-Cosmos, Sensation Mix

Research Conducted by:

R. David Myers, Extension Educator

Brian Hufker, Research Associate Volunteer

Heather Knauss, Extension Assistant, AgFS/4-H

Mike Ribblett, Student Intern UME

How do we put this into action? Well we do it by testing out different crops and by growing a multitude of crops on the urban farm.

-We are in our 3rd leaf or year of Blackberries, Peaches, Apples, Hops and Grapes.

-Each of these were planted in April and May of 2023. Each of these plants are perennial meaning after they are done fruiting they go into a dormant period. Usually during this time (which is often the winter) Dave and Brian will go out and do maintenance of our trusses and fences.

-They will also prune back to ensure proper fruiting in the spring and fall.

-The rest of our plants such as the mixed vegetables, pumpkins/gourds, the plants in the high tunnel, Barley, and Sunflowers are annual and we replant those each year (and sometimes we have to reseed which is what we had to do this year)

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Working around the Urban farm

Pulling/hoeing weeds
Pruning/trimming
Fertilizing
Harvesting
Cover cropping
Combining IPM Strategies

Mulching
Pesticide spraying
Insect monitoring

-During my internship work I would spend my time both in the office and on the urban farm. I would work in the farm during the morning hours until lunch because it was less hot and there was less humidity. If we were working on a bigger project or task we would go outside in the afternoon as well.

-I learned different skills from Dave such as fertilizing, cover cropping and pesticide spraying. I was with Dave as I learned safety practices and how to properly mix pesticides but I did not spray since I don’t have my commercial pesticide applicator license (although I do have my private applicator license).

-What I learned from Dave was that we base most of our work around combining IPM strategies so that we could get the most success out of our produce.

-Because it’s just the 3 of us working together we do have to rely on the use of herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides. It is a necessary part of farming which is needed to maintain a healthy crop.

-Fortunately for us, we use precise spraying (which means that Dave wears a backpack sprayer and PPE and goes around and directly sprays the areas that need to be sprayed the most

-We also use limited machinery, which is one tractor that Dave has used for many years.

-with the tractor we have different attachments which allow us to strip till our cover crops when we are ready to plant seeds.

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AAUFRC Instagram Page and Blog

-When I would be in the office I would normally work on updating our Urban Farm’s Social medias including our instagram page and blog

-What I have pictured is our instagram account and one of the many posts I put together for our page! I also have next to it our Urban Farm Blog and the posts I did for that.

-Our social media has been a success this summer with over 3,300 views with 150 interactions and 40 accounts engaged. During my time here we also managed to reach the 100 follower milestone!

-During my internship Brian, Dave and I would always be taking pictures of each other and what we are doing to keep a digital photo log of what we do. This really came in handy when putting together the different social media posts and I wanted/or needed different and varied pictures.

-Typically after a major day or a major event on the arm I would put out a post which summarizing what we would do and this ended up averaging once post a week.

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AGNR Instagram Takeover + Pherm Brewing

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One of the most exciting parts of my summer was being able to do an “instagram Takeover” for UMD’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources instagram page. They ask students throughout the semester to highlight their day and to show off any exciting activities. I was asked to host a takeover because I’m working with Extension and I’m a UMD student.

-I was very fortunate as well to have my takeover while I spent the day brewing with Pherm Brewing. Pherm Brewing is a local craft beer and brewery based in Crofton Maryland. They collaborate with Maryland Farmers to use their grain and/or hops to create new and unique beers.

-While I was at Pherm for the day I was helping with the beginning stages of beer making, that is making Wort, Vorlauf, Sparging and transfer to the fermentation vessel.

-The Beer we were making was an IPA that had ingredients from local farmers. The grain we used was from Bear Branch Malters and Pherm used our Hops and spicy peppers.

-This was a very fun and unique experience where I got to gain new knowledge on a subject I am interested in.

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MACAA Farms Tours, Campus Tour, and Various Farms

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One of the best parts about being in extension is going to new places. That is something I have always loved and It is only made better by extension. Over the course of this internship I have ended up visited 11 farms

Most of that was due to the MACAA Farms but Dave and I also visited different farms, went to new places, and traveled to new events

-The first place I visited was (here at) CMREC for a specialty mushroom workshop!

-Next was the MACAA Tours where we spend the whole day touring 6 different farms around the state

-Then we had the UMD Campus tours

-The next week I went to WREC (Wye Research & Education Center)

-Dave and I then went to the USDA Beltsville Agricultural Center for a consultation visit for a researcher

-Brian and I visited Pherm Brewing Company

-and last week Dave, Brian and I visited the Commodity Classic in Queen Anne’s County

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Summary of my internship experience

Valuable Farming Experience

Learned teamwork and Collaboration

Leadership Skills

Time Management

Communication

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Thank you!

Contact information

Cell: 410-703-5524

Email: mribblett1010@gmail.com