Stanley Hughes, of Hurdle Mills, still farms the land his grandfather bought in 1912. His Pine Knot Farm, near the Orange and Person county line, is one of 30 operations on this year’s Piedmont Farm Tour. Photo by Kirk Ross.
Spring annual marks Earth Day celebration
By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer
Stanley Hughes isn’t the kind of fellow you meet every day in downtown Carrboro — just Saturday. That’s when Hughes is in his spot at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market, moving dozens of head of broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower and stacks of collards and kale.
Most of the time you’ll find Hughes hard at work on one of the many fertile plots of land he farms around Hurdle Mills. Some of the land he owns was passed down through his family, who moved to Hurdle Mills in 1912. Some of the land he leases from cousins or neighbors.
Hughes’ operation, not far from the Orange and Person county line, is known as Pine Knot Farm. The farm won the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service’s 2004 Small Farm of the Year award and is one of 30 farms in Orange, Alamance and Chatham counties featured on this year’s Piedmont Farm Tour. The tour runs on Saturday and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
This land
It’s tobacco land, mostly, or at least it was, until the decline of the crop began and those like Hughes looked to other ways to make their living on the land. Not so many do anymore, but it wasn’t long ago Hughes said, when springtime in the rolling hills around him meant getting the land ready for planting.
“You would come down the road and so many people were out working you could smell the soil,†Hughes said.
He works out of a small concrete-block home that used to belong to his uncle. Behind the house are two of his primary fields. The soil is not the bright orange you see in many parts of the clay belt, it’s duller and crumbles. Wet from a recent planting, the fields are rowed out and planted with cold weather crops.
“Got collards, broccoli, Chinese cabbage, some red kale and the regular green kale and some kohlrabi,†Hughes said. “Over the hill by the pond I’ve got bok choy, cauliflower and broccoli.â€
Right now in the fields, there are 28,000 plants and all of them in soil certified organic. Once the cold weather crops are gone, he concentrates on sweet potatoes. They’ll sell through the fall, but he recommends saving some back for the holidays.
“That’s when they start getting their taste.â€
Add in a few head of cattle, some chicken and hogs, and you can understand why Hughes is known for having one of the most diverse farms around.
New gold
And he’ll have a tobacco crop this year, too. He’s planning on 30 acres, all of it certified organic as well and all of it already spoken for by the Santa Fe Tobacco Company.
“I’ve been with them since they started in 1996,†Hughes said. He never took to tobacco himself, he said, but remembers how much it was part of the family. Most of his relatives chewed or smoked and there were aunts who dipped snuff.
Hughes has been farming for decades, but has been a regular at the farmers’ market for only five years. In the beginning, it was mostly to earn gas money and move some sweet potatoes. Gradually, he started to get inspired by some of the more exotic cold-weather varieties being sold at the market.
Now, during the week he moves most of his crops through Eastern Carolina Organics, a farmer-owned distribution service based in Pittsboro created through the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association with help from Tobacco Trust Fund Commission money.
Sitting on a tobacco planter he’s modified to work for planting kale, Hughes offers a headshake and a “nah†when asked if he ever thought he’d be growing kohlrabi and Chinese cabbage along with organic tobacco.
But you’ve got to change with the times, he said, and be on the lookout for new markets.
And you’ve got to be willing to work at it. He’ll spend much of the afternoon getting an order together to take to Pittsboro, and many days doesn’t see home until well after dark.
This weekend, though, he’ll be around Pine Knot waiting for people on the farm tour and representing a little piece of northern Orange County he wouldn’t trade for the world.
For information on the annual farm tour, visit the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association’s Web site at http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org. The tour costs $20 per carload in advance and $25 on the day of the tour. A kickoff celebration is planned at Weaver Street Market, Thursday, April 21 from 6 to 8 p.m.