You might’ve sampled Fiddlehead Farms jam at the Co-op Fair or at the Curds and Crafts Festival last weekend. After meeting owner Emily Boynton, we asked her some questions about her small farm in Pittsboro.
Why did you start farming and making jam?
My husband grew up in the woods of northern Michigan and I grew up in Texas, spending time on the farms of friends and family.
I have always been a lover of food, cooking, and farmer’s markets and have had a vegetable garden everywhere I’ve ever lived. Living in a log cabin and growing our own food was always our dream– in fact my husband presented my engagement ring hidden in a little log cabin built out of Lincoln Logs and surrounded by plastic farm animals.
In 2003 we got married and moved from Michigan to Durham. I left behind my corporate job and took a position with SEEDS that was life changing. Working with the kids, learning the ins and outs of growing food in North Carolina, and selling at the Durham Farmer’s Market were amazing and inspiring. After we had our first child in 2006 we decided to take the plunge and move to the country, and we actually live in a log cabin that looks a lot like the model!
Originally our plan was to grow vegetables and sell a little bread and some baked goods to fill out the table in the shoulder seasons. As time progressed, first the baked goods and then the jams, finishing salts, and hot sauces became our main focus and why our customers were seeking us out. Eventually, all the produce we were growing was making its way into our products. Selling at market allowed us to develop relationships with lots of other farmers and producers, making it easy to find ingredients, like fruit, that we weren’t growing ourselves.
Are you full-time farmers?
We both have part-time jobs off the farm. David mainly handles the markets and makes the hot sauce, I make everything else, and we work together to maintain our market garden.
What’s your favorite thing about farming?
I love the seasonality of everything: the excitement in January of the seed catalogs, planting in the spring, the first tomatoes, late fall when most of our really hot peppers are at their peak, and then when everything slows down in the winter and we have time to reflect and plan for the next season.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with customers?
Just that making our products in small batches, using the best possible local/organic ingredients, is the most important thing we can do, and it brings us great joy. There is a lot of hard work and love in each jar!