Food, Fun, and Farms on the Upstate Farm Tour

Visit Local, Sustainable Farms, Sample the Delicious Food of the Upstate, and See Where Farm-to-Fork Begins

The 7th annual Upstate Farm Tour, happening Saturday and Sunday, June 1-2, from 1–6 pm each day, showcases the agricultural bounty of the Upstate and taps into the region’s passion for local, sustainably produced food. Over 3,000 farm visits were made on the tour last year.

This self-guided tour presented by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and sponsored by Whole Foods Market, features 24 farms located throughout the Upstate in Anderson, Oconee, Pickens, Greenville, Laurens, Greenwood and Spartanburg Counties.

Some of the many other unique things to see and do on the tour: See cute baby farm animals, pick your own berries, hug a cuddly Alpaca, and take a hayride.  Learn how farmers grow the gorgeous sustainable produce you buy at the Farmers’ Market and humanely raise livestock on pasture in natural environments. There are also two sustainable dairies on the tour where visitors can how goats’ and cows’ milk is transformed into artisan cheese, milk, yogurt and out-of-this-world fudge, a mushroom farm, and aquaponics (they raise tilapia!) and a vermicomposting operation, a flower farm and an old-fashioned mill.  Plus, visitors can buy farm-fresh produce, fruits and meats from the farms on the tour and then take them home and create their own farm-to-fork feast!

Tour tickets, good for both days, are $25 per vehicle in advance and $30 on the tour weekend or you can choose to pay $10 per farm (available for purchase at all of the farms during the tour). Cycle groups count as one vehicle. Tickets can be purchased online now at www.carolinafarmstewards.org/uft/ or at Whole Foods Market in Greenville.

The tour is self-guided. Choose the farms you want to visit on the interactive map at www.carolinafarmstewards.org/uft/ to plan your tour. Visit any farm in any order. And, don't forget to take a cooler so that you can bring home some of the farm fresh products for sale at many farms!  No pets allowed. The tour is rain or shine. Proceeds from the tour support the work of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.

Complete information about the tour and the farms, with interactive maps and driving directions, plus tour tickets are available at www.carolinafarmstewards.org/uft/.

Gardening for Good in TOWN Magazine

Gardening for Good was recently featured in the "Giving Back" section of TOWN magazine.  Check out the article on pg. 42 in the August 2012 issue HERE.