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During the Piedmont Farm Tour, we decided to stop by Captain J. S. Pope’s Farm. Pulling up to a pretty farm-house in the middle of acres of gentle, rolling, grass-lined hills, I was excited to get to see lots of little lambs.
As we got out of the car, we were greeting with the smell of lamb on the grill, an enticing scent that makes my mouth water. I felt guilty eating a lamb burger in front of the lambs, but [...]

Nothing says summer like a good, juicy peach. You bite into that soft, fuzzy skin and discover the sun wrapped up in its tender, yellow flesh. The juice runs down your cheeks as you savor its sweet taste.
But in this day and age when you go to the grocery store, usually all you get are hard, tasteless peaches that barely resemble the fruit we grew up with. That’s why I am ever on the quest to find a decent peach.
That’s [...]

Ken Dawson and Libby Outlaw are long-time farmers in the Triangle region. Ken started farming full-time in 1984, but has been growing organically since the 1970′s and was selling produce to Whole Foods (then called Wellspring) since 1981. They bought the 61-acres farm in Cedar Grove in 1990. At the time, it was a worn out tobacco farm. The soil was poor and neglected. There were thousands of aphids around with no predators to keep them in control. For the [...]

We toured Dutch Buffalo Farm during the Piedmont Farm Tour back in late April. Turning off Hadley Mill Road onto Jay Shambley Road, you go by a subdivision and quickly get back into farmland. The road changes from pavement to gravel and soon you are at a quaint but very productive little farm run by Emily Lancaster and Farrell Moose.
We toured the farm with Emily’s father and then with Emily herself. The farm is not large at all. In fact [...]

The first farm Scott and I decided to tour during the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association Piedmont Farm Tour this year was the Beausol Gardens. We had driven by this farm before and thought it was charming.
Once we met Harry LeBlanc, who is the owner, along with his wife, Deb Vail LeBlanc, we were amazed to hear all that Harry is doing at this farm. Harry and Deb use a very unique system of planting and growing called biodynamic farming. The [...]

Update to this story: Seems that the farm is just a bit too far out in the country to have a restaurant succeed. Here’s a snippet from Fleming & Britt’s newsletter from August 2012: “In 2002, a decade ago, we tried fine dining with Chef Chad Blackwelder. It met with enthusiasm but with too few customers to warrant us continuing. We blamed it on the economy and sadly abandoned the project. Ten years later in 2012 we tried again, leasing [...]