Blog

Dani and Austin Genke’s journey to Boxcarr Farms in Cedar Grove began in New York City, where they met working at a restaurant while Austin was in culinary school. When Austin graduated, Dani followed him to his first job in Las Vegas, but they knew they wanted a different kind of restaurant: one that used …
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You’ve probably driven or biked past Hogan’s Magnolia View Farm hundreds of times. Just north of Carrboro, it’s located at that spot where Hillsborough Road comes to a “T” intersection, and you’re faced not with houses or new apartments or the entrance to yet another shopping center, but with a wide green field bordered by…
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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 as naked stalks of lemongrass. The Farm is a project of the Orange County Partnership for Young Children (OCPYC ) that works to adapt refugee…
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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 often see distributors’ trucks parked on Main Street, hazard lights blinking as a man in uniform with a dolly wheels boxes of ingredients down the…
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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 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…
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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 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…
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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 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…
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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 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…
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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 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)…
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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 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…
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