The entrance to Pine Knot Farms, just north of Hillsborough in Hurdle Mills, is hard to miss this time of year. Hay bales, pumpkins and yellow mums sit under a large sign recognizing farm owner Stanley Hughes as the N.C. Cooperative Extension’s 2004 Small Farmer of the Year. A soft-spoken man with large hands and […]
Sidney Cruze
Posted inGuides
Wake farmers growing an organic industry
The stand at Hilltop Farms in southern Wake County is a converted tobacco barn. Taller than it is wide, its dark brown exterior streaked with gray, the barn once stored flue-cured leaf. Today it’s filled with farming tools, cardboard boxes and seeds trays. A recently built pine shed roof skirts the structure at about eight […]
Posted inFood & Drink
The newest suburban development amenity: A farm stand
The scenery along Green Hope School Road, off N.C. 55 in Cary, tells a familiar story; our rural landscape is being reshaped, the fields and farms replaced by housing developments. Yet as I drive past newly paved streets lined with brick houses, I discover a farm stand that is connecting people to North Carolina’s agricultural […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Market farmer
The Maple Spring Gardens stand is one of the biggest at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market. Rows of produce sit next to more than 20 buckets of flowers. Setting up the display takes hours, and every Saturday, farm owner Ken Dawson arrives at 5 a.m. to get started. Dawson is thin and wiry, with a salt-and-pepper […]