Blog

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 through a crowd for Mapleview Ice Cream or trekking past multiple pastures to gather eggs at the Fickle Creek Egg Mobile. Want to get away…
Continue Reading

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 when she found the land for sale. In 2012, Matt Ball, who lived on the property, joined her team. With the help of two part-time…
Continue Reading

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 camper and began restoring the house, and somehow managed to start farming, too. After just two years they started selling their produce and eggs at…
Continue Reading

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 and Joanna plant and harvest together in Efland on a few acres of land known as Dancing Pines Farm. A visit to Dancing Pines makes…
Continue Reading

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 communication. Darin is a UNC professor who studies the neurobiology of addiction. They gardened at their house, giving away the extra food (in particular blueberries)…
Continue Reading

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 that’s now the site of the Carrboro Farmers’ Market. With Mike’s support, Cathy began selling produce in 1991. She didn’t think she could get in to the…
Continue Reading

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 Forestry (Betsy) and wanted to live in the country and farm. There were few local markets; Weaver Street Market didn’t exist, the Carrboro Farmers’ Market…
Continue Reading

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 and a unique “high tunnel” for year-round growing. There’s a hopyard and a densely planted “demonstration garden” that shows gardeners what is possible with a…
Continue Reading

Jillian and Ross Mickens have done what many only dream of: turned an interest in “where food comes from” into a full-fledged farm. Working with a former tobacco farm, they’re growing produce, flowers, and nutrient-dense microgreens. Influenced by popular press about food, the pair began growing their own vegetables. Their backyard garden “got out of…
Continue Reading

Debbie Donnald and Audrey Lin never take a break. The founders of Two Chicks Farm in Hillsborough spend their summers growing produce in the fields and in shade houses, and their winters growing in hoophouses and ramping up production of their preserves: fermented krauts and kimchis, pickled vegetables, and their infamous pepper jelly. They attend…
Continue Reading