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Blue Ridge Food Ventures

In the past, one of the solutions for farmers who needed to process quantities of a food product was to build a community kitchen. Later, community canneries were built at a central location for...

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Market fresh

You throw on your comfy shoes, a touch of sunscreen, and a big hat and grab a canvas bag. It’s Saturday morning and the tailgate markets are open for business.

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In search of the perfect tree

There. Could that be the one? Robust, evenly distributed branches—but a little too portly. “Like a little fat man,” the boy, about 11 or 12, thought to himself. That won’t work. Breathing through his...

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Young sprout is full-on organic

Birke Baehr has become famous in this past year, but on a Tuesday afternoon you might find him at a modest farmer’s market held in a church parking lot banked by tall lush woods in a residential area...

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Tobacco’s Golden Days

In the sliver of time that lines the far edge of summer, burley tobacco is tinged with a thin, spreading ring of gold. Baking under the summer sun, it gives off a surprisingly gamey aroma, reminiscent...

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Avery County farmers grow it on their own

Trosly Farm owners Kaci and Amos Nidiffer grew up with farming in their families. Shortly after Kaci and Amos married in 2007, the couple purchased a relatively small parcel of land and old farmhouse...

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A place at the table

Located where the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains pinch Virginia to its narrowest point, Meadowview once was an agricultural center. The railroad’s arrival in 1856 opened the remote part of the...

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Saving the seeds of wisdom

Before “buy local” or “grow your own,” gardens at the home place were a necessary way of life. Folks bent over the earth as beads of sweat dripped from their brow into the dirt. They walked the garden...

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Connecting growers to new customers

Two of North Carolina’s leading local food and farmer advocacy organizations have partnered for Connect2Direct, a major new initiative to increase farmer direct sales and expand local food access.

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Apples to Apples

Solar panels and windmills, chickens and berry patches—there’s plenty to look at on Big Horse Creek Farm in the highlands of Ashe County, North Carolina. But perhaps nothing is more striking than the...

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Taste of the Mountains

Chefs, brewers, distillers, bakers, farmers, and country cooks are preserving traditions and redefining the flavor of Southern Appalachia, from A to Z.

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Farm to Mug

Whether he’s scavenging the countryside in search of honeysuckle and dandelion, scouring mom-and-pop farms for fennel and carrots, or tracking down local honey and sorghum cane juice, Todd Boera is on...

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The Poet Behind the Plow

The tumbling waters of Wolf Creek have flowed down from Neel’s Gap for a century since September 14, 1917, when acclaimed poet Byron Herbert Reece was born in a one-room hand-hewn log cabin.

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Ahead of the Herd

Behind the tractor and gumboots and Tennessee accent, John Harrison has the restless curiosity of a cutting-edge innovator.

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Syrup Sweetens Life in Ashe County

Cold winters mean good business at Waterfall Farm, where a simple venture tapping “a few maple trees close to the house” in 2006 has evolved into one of the few commercial maple syrup operations in the...

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The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree

There’s something deeply resonant about the continuity of family farms, working the same land backward and forward in time. The heritage is particularly rich when the crops grow on trees.

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Rooted in History

In the remote community of Boogertown, a narrow gravel road threads its way to the end of Wilson Hollow and a farm cradled in seclusion a few miles from Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

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Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?

What’s sweet, drips with juice, has a creamy texture somewhat like a mango, is harder than a banana but softer than an apple, and is “like kissing your Gramma’s cheek”?

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Blount County Patriarch

Life in the Great Smokies in the 19th century and during the pre-Park days of the 20th century might justifiably be described as arduous, hardscrabble, marginal, or demanding.

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Raising funds to help food banks

The challenge raises funds to purchase produce from local farmers which is donated to people in need who visit food banks/pantries.

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Get Along, Little Doggie

My grandfather had two farms. One was down Old Russellville Pike where he kept pigs and grew a little tobacco and hay. He had cattle too—a nice herd of Herefords, that stocky, breed of beef cattle with...

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The Silo In My Mind

That summer day in 1964, my friend Andre and I headed up our street, not knowing where our journey would take us. The day was young and the sun beamed brightly, and we were eager for an adventure.

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Invasive insect threatens to spread

The Spotted Lanternfly is an invasive species that destroy fruit crops, trees and plants by hopping from plant to plant, crop to crop, and tree to tree.

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Corn cannons, pumpkin chunking, and hayrides

Autumn is the time for a visit to a farm.

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Photo Essay, October 2021

Thank you to the readers of Smoky Mountain Living for sharing your images with us!

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A Compass and A Map

I have lived most of my years in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, but I’m a North Carolina girl at heart. Born in the town of Williamston, those early years were lived among my mama’s...

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Time to shear the sheep!

Sheep Shearing Days will include demonstrations of shearing, carding, spinning, and weaving the fleece into woven goods.

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The importance of working cats

I was cleaning the field for spring planting and discovered I had forgotten to return the crow netting to the shed for the winter. Discovering the rolled-up netting wasn’t a surprise; a lady farmer...

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The Critter Kegger

Here at the farm, we’ve had an influx of undesirable critters. I don’t know who posted a “Welcome” sign at the entrance of our property, but Poppa and I would be much obliged if the critters would just...

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