Hidden Maryland - Eugene L. Meyer finds a farmer--in Silver Spring. Maryland Life, July/August 2007

Meet Charlie Koiner, urban farmer.

No, he's not some eco-hippie-yuppie-boomer-radicchio-growing, certifiably organic, ergonomic, sustainable, free-ranging, trendy, counter-culture dude.

Charles Koiner, 86, just happens to farm his one-acre plot a couple of blocks from booming downtown Silver Spring, the phoenix-like center of Montgomery County, with new high-rise condos and commerical glitz nearby, much as cookie-cutter subdiisions increasingly crowd country farms. He fertilizes. He even uses pesticides.

"I've always been raising sort of a garden, you know what I mean?" he says one early spring day. But it's more than a garden. It's an institution.

Koiner is the last of the old-time farmers at the Silver Spring farmers market run since 2005 by Freshfarm Markets, an upscale non-profit whose fees, rules, and regualtions the other local famers didn't like. Koiner got a pass and remains there, a living relic. The county pays his fees. Others of his ilk were offered the same deal and chose to move on....