Morgan Davies, along with her husband Mark and mother, Cynthia Goff, took over ownership of The Ten Acre Garden in December of 2023. The Ten Acre Garden is located in Canton, NC and has a farm stand, u-pick produce and flowers, and on-farm activities too like classes, live music, and wood-fired pizza nights.
What has it been like to be the new owners of an established farm?
Living internationally, in Hong Kong and Germany, we came back to the states for a family reunion and visited The Ten Acre Garden. We were building a small library on homesteading and with the shortages of food through COVID, we wanted to grow food. We learned that The Ten Acre Garden was for sale and I called my mom in Ohio and she decided to go in on this farm with us. We had been all over the world traveling, but what we really wanted was a piece of land to be rooted to.
Being new owners has been great for business but now that we are doing some things differently, we have had to do some educating with the current customer base–I don’t think Danny [Barrett, the former owner] raised his prices in quite a while! We almost had to rebrand and our customer base has transformed quite a bit. I love the name, I love the views, I love the space and I really want to share this land with as many people as possible. I heard someone say, “Oh yeah, the farm that used to do the pizzas” and I tell them to come out and get pizza!
What kinds of u-pick do you offer and what can folks expect when visiting?
We are currently planting our u-pick veggies. We have strawberries now through June, and soon we will have raspberries and blackberries, too. We have cut flowers and perennial flowers available for u-pick. We have a variety of herbs like basil, mint, parsley, and so many more. We planted a big sunflower path that should be ready to harvest in August. Sometimes folks are expecting certain crops to be available, and we let them know that this is what our farm can realistically grow in this climate.
We are open Thursday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. We are a busy farm so showing up later in the day doesn’t necessarily guarantee produce availability. We are mostly outdoors and have restrooms. Dogs are allowed on leash but not allowed in the u-pick fields. All of our events are family friendly. We manage our crops differently due to the u-pick aspect, so sometimes certain crops need breaks or are rotating. We really want people to come out and stock up on produce to make their pesto for the year or to try new things!
How important is agritourism for your farm business? How did Helene impact that?
Since we are a u-pick farm, we are heavily reliant on agritourism. We are only 10 acres, but we are a small farm with a big garden and a small staff of four. If we aren’t having people coming to pick, we are relying on people coming out to the farm. We are trying out the Mill Town Farmers Market. We try to look at seasonal offerings too, like planting pumpkins in the fall. We really want to embrace this agritourism community!
While we didn’t lose power or anything, we lost our entire strawberry patch. We put out an ask to the community to help cover the cost of that loss and they came through. With funds and workdays, we got it replanted and folks were so grateful to have a place they could still come and feel a little more normal. It was truly community supported. The storm helped us see what kind of foods people are buying and what is practical through times of crisis.
What are the hardest and best parts about farming?
Sometimes we have to turn people away because they come on Sunday and lots of the u-pick produce has been picked through. We grow what we can grow but aren’t a huge farm. Finding that balance is challenging and can be frustrating at times. We want to be able to do it really well.
As someone new to farming, we have learned a lot in our second year by what went well and what didn’t. I’m handling the cut flowers this year and it can be a little intimidating so I just take myself into the greenhouse and give myself a pep talk. The greenhouse…it’s an escape, it’s full of greenery and I can just simply watch life and watch things grow. We don’t have the institutional or generational knowledge which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it gives us a lot of space to learn and grow.