Tom Albright opened his roadside stand when he was 6 years old.
"He sold vegetables out of our garden in the back yard and didn't even know how to make change," his father, Milton Albright, recalled. "One old man used to cheat him out of a nickel now and then.
"There wasn't much traffic along Sweet Air Road, and he was lucky to bring in $15 a day, but he put himself through college with the money."
Tom Albright, 36, is still going against the odds, making a living for his wife and two children in a time when farm conglomerates threaten the existence of the small farmer.
Milton Albright and his wife, Paula, now help their son and his family at the vegetable and flower stand in front of the elder Albrights' home across Sweet Air Road from the Jacksonville Volunteer Fire Department in Baltimore County.
"Tom's the owner," says the elder Mr. Albright, 74, a retired Towson State University electrician. "My wife and I just help out."
"They're the cream on this whole thing," says Tom Albright. "They work for free. Won't even let us take them out to dinner."
For people like the Albrights and their customers, the lush rewards of that hard work are streaming from the fields to vegetable stands and farmers' markets across Maryland. Local corn and tomatoes are arriving in quantity, a little late because of a cool spring. Cantaloupes, summer squashes, cucumbers, beets and eggplants are here or will be soon. Vegetables that need a nip of chill for best taste, such as broccoli, cauliflower and kale, will be along later.
On one hot day recently, Paula Albright was watering seedlings in the greenhouses behind her home.
"I'm three hours behind, and they're beginning to wilt," she said as she pulled the hose along. "Had to mind my two grandchildren this morning." She waters thousands of vegetable and flower seedlings three or four times a day, and that's the easy part.
For three months starting in March, the elder Albrights work in the greenhouses seven days a week, planting seeds and caring for the sprouting plants. The heavy work comes when they transplant their sturdy seedlings to the fields, five acres a week for 12 weeks, give or take. The Albrights grow all their own vegetables and flowers. The only things they buy from other farmers are fruits.
