Local Growers Alliance & Tanglewood Flower Farm

Hello! Genevieve, here, owner/operator of the Local Growers Alliance. At the Local Growers Alliance farm stands, you’ll find familiar favorites and unique specialty items to nourish you and your community. After ten years of work in the public health arena, I decided to spend one, experimental year working at organic vegetable farms. That was 2011, and my year-long experiment has become a second career! I learned how to grow vegetables from a stellar team at Clagett Farm, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Certified Organic farm in Upper Marlboro, MD. After six years in Upper Marlboro, I started Somerset Produce on 1/4 acre of leased land in Sandy Spring, MD. In 2019, I managed two acres of vegetables with fields in Sandy Spring, Silver Spring, and Ashton, MD and sold produce at three weekly markets. In 2022, I stopped growing my own produce in order to focus on coordinating the Local Growers Alliance. I now work on the participating farms as needed and do lots of field prep at Tanglewood Flower Farm in Ashton.

Growing for local market means the farms in the Local Growers Alliance can choose to grow varieties of foods and flowers with exceptional flavors and appearances even if they require extra time and attention in the fields, or need to be handled very gently after harvesting. Our growing practices improve soil quality and are healthy for the planet and all its inhabitants. We take great care to be good stewards of the land, responsible business owners and colleagues, and engaged members of the local agricultural economy. I invite you to enjoy the fruits of our labor!