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Farm Tour Tips

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Staff

By Emily Buehler

This weekend is the 14th annual Piedmont Farm Tour, a chance to visit 40 of our area’s small farms. With over 9,000 visits to farms by over 300 families last year, our tour is the largest in the country! And it boasts everything from grass-fed beef and free-range chicken operations to biodynamic fruit production. There’s even a shrimp farm and a fiber farm on this year’s tour! Pick up a copy of the brochure to read about all the farms.

Last year on the tour, I stood with farmer Cathy Jones at the edge of a field at Perry-winkle Farm. “No one wants to hear about vegetables anymore,” she lamented as we watched visitors gather around the pigs in the next field. While pigs and goats may get the most visitors, a scenic drive to a vegetable farm makes a great day. Some of the many excellent choices:
1. Bluebird Meadows: They’re just getting started and already their CSA is sold out! Be sure to drive out on beautiful Walnut Grove Church Road.

2. PLANT at Breeze Farm: Dreaming of farming yourself someday? Visit the new farmers at Breeze Farm, and next year you might be signing up for a PLANT class too.

3. Four Leaf Farm: Think you don’t have enough land to farm? Then see how Tim and Helga grow everything from pea shoots to kiwis on only one-fourth of an acre.

4.Timberwood Organics: This is where I’ll be heading on Farm Tour weekend. I want to know how they still had spinach to sell after the nine-degree frost last December!

5. Dancing Pines Farm: Bill and Joanna work full-time and still make this incredible farm happen. You’ll be inspired.

6. Maple View Farm: As if local ice cream weren’t enough of a draw, we’re all dying to find out more about the new Maple View Agricultural Center.

7. Eco Farm: Don’t let all the animals fool you. The folks at Eco Farm are great vegetable growers as well!

8. Perry-winkle Farm: I admit, I wanted to see the chickens’ “Egg McMansion” too. But seeing Mike and Cathy’s cared-for gardens really warmed my heart.

9. Turtle Run: The most fun I’ve ever had on the Farm Tour was following Kevin’s tour around Turtle Run (although I was too big to ride in the Mulch Mobile).

10. Piedmont Biofarm: If you’ve never been to the Plant at Piedmont Biofuels, visit now. You’ll tour Screech Owl Greenhouse and you’ll want to go back for a plant tour too.

The farms are wonderful, and the Farm Tour also provides an excuse to visit towns in your county that you never get to. Heading north? Have lunch first in historic Hillsborough. Heading south? Stop by Chatham Marketplace or the Pittsboro General Store for a break. Going out to Saxapahaw? Great food can be found at the Saxapahaw General Store — I know it looks like a Shell Station, but trust me. Whatever you do, get outside this weekend and tour farms!

Brochures and buttons are available at all three Weaver Street Market locations, the Durham Farmers’ Market, Chatham Marketplace and Harmony Farms in Raleigh, or online at carolinafarmstewards.org. Questions, call the CFSA at 542-2402.

1 thought on “Farm Tour Tips”

  1. Mary DeMare says:
    April 23, 2009 at 1:16 pm

    Thanks for mentioning Chatham Marketplace! We love the Farm Tour and seeing so many people get to know their farmers.

    Not only do we sell buttons, but we sell the fruits (and veggies and meat) of the labor of many of the Farms on the tour ;).

    Call if you can’t find us!
    (919) 542-2643

    See you this weekend!
    Mary DeMare, General Manager Chatham Marketplace

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