Community

Long furrows stretch out across the flat expanse of tilled ground at Transplanting Traditions Community Farm. Poking up from the earth are familiar plants like lettuce and onion, as well…
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It’s always a treat to be in a restaurant and see a “we buy local!” sign. I tend to assume that restaurants buy food from large companies, since I so…
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The Farm Tour has many “favorites”—farms that get 500-600 visitors each day, where kids can ogle giant hogs, pecking chickens, and herding-dog puppies. But not all Farm Tourists enjoy wading…
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Cecilia Redding started Down 2 Earth Farms on 143 acres in Rougemont, NC. She’d been working in the food industry as an agricultural engineer but pursued her dream to farm…
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Carolyn Twesten and Steve Rankin bought a run-down tobacco farm in 2010. It had no plumbing or electricity and an antique, inoperable well.  They moved onto the land in a…
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Joanna Lelekacs started farming a month after her first date with Bill, an active farmer; a year later they were married. Now [2009], while working other full time jobs, Bill…
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Jane Saiers and Darin Knapp arrived at farming by a circuitous route involving degrees in neuroscience and psychology and an overabundance of blueberries. Jane worked for twenty years in medical…
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Cathy Jones began gardening in 1975 when she moved to this area. Her husband, Mike Perry, was a Chapel Hill native—he used to watch his dad play softball on the field…
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Alex and Betsy began Peregrine Farm west of Chapel Hill in 1981 and grew cut flowers, small fruit, and vegetables for local markets. They had degrees in Soils (Alex) and…
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Lee and Larry Newlin are farming a beautiful piece of land on the Haw River west of Chapel Hill.  The farm has eight market gardens on which Larry rotates crops…
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