Pine Knot Farm

 

Stanley Hughes, of Hurdle Mills, still farms the land his grandfather bought in 1912. Photo by Kirk Ross.

CFSA Description:

Pine Knot Farm
Stanley Hughes
8906 Hester Road, Hurdle Mills – 1 mile from the intersection of Walnut Grove Church Rd. & Ormond Rd.
A third generation minority farmer raising certified organic sweet potatoes, soybeans, collards, cabbage, kale, turnip greens and 20 acres of organic tobacco. This year you’ll also see pastured poultry and grass-fed steer. Stanley sells his tobacco to the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company and markets his produce at the Carrboro and Durham Farmers’ Markets and through Eastern Carolina Organics (ECO). (919) 644-3276

Recent Stories

(05/24/07) Editorial (Exile on Jones Street)
Giving up corporate pork
After a long weekend of negotiation between my conscience and my palate, I’ve finalized an internal agreement to give up corporate pork. (Click on the link to read more.)

(04/18/07) Feature story:
Farm tour this weekend

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. (Read the rest of this story.)