September 1, 2009: We have had a very good produce season. Our cantaloupes and tomatoes were especially good this year. We are still harvesting fresh tomatoes, okra, squash, cucumbers, and peaches. Our peaches will probably finish up around the middle of September. We plan on putting our pumpkin tent up around September 15th and begin picking our pumpkins around that time. We will begin giving tours of the farm on Oct. 3rd and our ninth annual farm fair is Oct. 10th. Farm fair will feature all of the usual events including the pumpkin catapult which has the ability to throw a nine pound pumpkin over 2,000 feet! Pumpkin carving, face painting, food vendors, and bluegrass music will all be taking place as well. New for this year is Pick-Your-Own Pumpkins at select times and dates. For more details about farm fair and all of our fall events please check the announcements and farm tours pages of our website.

July 11, 2009: We are currently harvesting all kinds of vegetables. Our peaches are extra large and very pretty this year. We are also picking lots of our own tomatoes. We sell them for $10 a half bushel or one bushel for $15. They are very popular for canning. Our sweet corn, squash, green beans, okra, field peas, cucumbers, bell peppers, eggplants, cantaloupes, and watermelons are producing well.

It has begun to turn a little dry on the farm. We have finished harvesting our grain for the year and planted soybeans where the grain was. Our cotton is looking good and has begun to bloom well.

The new peach orchard we set out is also looking good. The little trees have already tripled in size. We are busy trying to keep the weeds out of the orchard.

May 6, 2009: Our strawberries are doing well. They are yielding good, have nice size and shape, and have an excellent taste. U-Pick is now available Monday through Saturday. If you plan to pick a bunch, Mondays and the early part of the week are definitely the best times as it only takes a few minutes to pick a gallon since the berries are so plentiful (we don't pick on Sundays). Our squash should actually begin to produce in less than a week now. This will be the earliest in the year we have ever picked squash by far. Our tomatoes and peaches look good and did manage to survive the chilly temperatures. We should have our own tomatoes and peaches by around the middle of June.

We are excited to announce that Earth Fare in Rock Hill is now carrying our strawberries. Also, each Saturday we are now selling at the Charlotte Regional Farmer's Market. Please take a look at our Announcements page for more news from the farm.

We have finished planting our cotton for the 2009 season. Much of it has germinated and the rains we are getting this week will certainly help the young cotton. All of our produce is under irrigation but none of our grains or cotton can be irrigated.

April 19, 2009: Our produce stand, The Market at Cotton Hills Farm, is now open! Our hours are 9AM to 7PM, Monday through Saturday. U-Pick will begin sometime next week depending on the weather and how fast the berries continue to ripen. Please call The Market for details, 803.581.4545.

As expected, things on the farm are busy. This time of year we are trying our best to get everything planted. Many of our crops are planted several times throughout the year in an effort to stagger maturity. Our cotton is planted just once. However whether we are trying to plant some or all of a crop, there is a great deal of planting to be done. Getting the seeds or plants in the ground in a timely manner is very important but also very difficult.

We are also still working on installing the irrigation for our new 25 acre peach orchard. It is important to provide sufficient water to the young trees. Despite the wet season that we have had so far, we know that the weather can change for the drier in only a matter of weeks.

April 2, 2009: It has been quite rainy the last few weeks. The rain has delayed us in being able to put our irrigation system in on our new peach orchard. The rain is making our wheat grow fast now and it is looking good.

Our strawberries are coming along well. It looks like they should begin to ripen by April 17th. We have decided to go ahead and open our store on that date. We will probably wait until April 22th to start U-Pick because there will probably not be many berries until then. We plan on picking up other produce such as tomatoes from the Columbia Farmer’s Market to sell at our store along with our fresh strawberries. Our strawberries should last well into June. After April 17th, feel free to call our store at 803.581.4545 if you have any questions. We will keep you posted on how the strawberries are doing.

March 16, 2009: Spring is near and things on the farm are really getting busy. We have spent the winter working on equipment, selling and delivering many of our crops such as our straw, pruning our current orchard, and planting a new 25 acre peach orchard. Before we planted any trees, we had to prepare the land and then using surveying instruments lay off the exact location of where each tree would go. It is important to plant peach trees in a place with good air ventilation in order to keep the blooms from being killed by frost. The 3,120 trees were first started by a nursery in Tennessee and then we planted each of them by hand using shovels. Later this month we plan to install irrigation on these new peach trees. If things go well, we should begin to pick peaches out of this orchard in the summer of 2011.

Our strawberries look good and we hope they will begin to ripen in about one month. We planted more this year than last and hope to have plenty for u-pick and we-pick. We plan to open The Market when our berries begin to ripen in mid-April. Please check back for the exact date.

October 24, 2008: Thanks to everyone who came out to Farm Fair this year. It was a big success and everyone seemed to have a good time. Thankfully, the weather ended up being nice that day after a cloudy start. We are wrapping up our tours and our vegetable sales for the season. November 1st will be the last day of tours and our produce market will also close that day. We will be reopening in the middle of April when our strawberries begin to ripen.

Speaking of strawberries, we just finished planting them last week. We planted over twice as many berries this year since we had such good demand for them last year. They seem to be off to a good start. They will grow throughout the winter and begin bloom in early spring.

We are just beginning to pick our cotton. We will start harvesting our soybeans and milo next month. We’re still busy on the farm!

September 16, 2008: Pumpkin season is here again! We have begun harvesting our pumpkin crop, and it is one of our prettiest in years. August and September had less 90 degree days than usual which led to our pumpkins having a deep orange color. Pumpkins do not like extremely high temperatures.

We have decided to have our Annual Farm Fair on October 11th this year. We are excited to have the Roman’s Revenge pumpkin chunk’n catapult return this year with Captain Kim Moore. We will also have a blue grass band playing live for the first time this year. More details about October 11th can be found here on the website.

Our cotton crop was hurt this year by the dry weather. We will begin harvesting the cotton around the first of October. We also planted soybeans this year which the late rains have helped a lot. We will harvest them after first frost which usually falls around the middle of October here.

On September 15th we bedded up our rows for our strawberries which will be ready Spring of 2009. We will plant the strawberries October 15th and they will grow throughout the winter.

Hope to see some of ya’ll at Farm Fair this year!

July 9, 2008: It has been extremely dry on the farm but we have received a good bit of rain over the past few days. Our cotton does not have the size that we wish it did (due to the dry weather) but the rain we have received lately will certainly help and hopefully get it back on track. Cotton is a crop that can survive dry weather fairly well unlike corn.

Our peaches and vegetables are looking good. The drought has had little impact on them thanks to our irrigation system. We have drip tape on our vegetables and micro-sprinklers for our peaches. We started harvesting our peaches and tomatoes a couple of weeks ago. The taste is great and is really a strong selling point for all of our produce. Our peaches and tomatoes as well as our own squash, okra, string beans, sweet corn, and more are available at our market. Wholesale quantities are available also. Each Saturday morning we have been going to the Charlotte Farmer’s Market (located at 1801 Yorkmont Road) to sell our fresh produce.

We are thankful to be finished harvesting all of our small grains. Our wheat, oats, and rye all yielded well this year and we are only a week or so from being finished baling the straw. The bales of straw are sold at the farm and are often used by landscapers for covering seeded lawns.

March 27, 2008: Good News! Our peaches and strawberries survived the cold weather earlier this week. Everyone was concerned that this year might be a repeat of last year and we would lose all of our peaches for the summer. However, temperatures dipped to the mid 20s but did not stay that low for long. Also, our peaches were not as far along in maturity as they were last year during the 2007 Easter freeze. The strawberries were saved by running the overhead irrigation on them and allowing a coating of ice to form on the plants. By doing this, the plant temperature was kept around 32 degrees and the strawberries were not harmed. They will ripen in about 3 weeks, depending on the weather.

On the farm, we are already planting tomatoes. These might be killed if the weather turns cold again but we have high hopes of these plants surviving and producing early tomatoes. We have also planted squash plants. We are waiting for the ground to warm up a little more before we begin planting our vegetables by seed.

March 15, 2008: We have finished pruning our peach trees and fertilizing them for the year. They are beginning to bud and should be in full bloom by next week. We are praying that the weather stays warmer this year and that the freeze does not kill the young peaches. We also planted some sweet corn this week. It is early, but corn is usually not hurt by cold nights as long as the days are warm. We have also planted some creamer potatoes. In about two weeks we will begin planting the majority of our crops. Our strawberry plants are coming along nicely.

February 28, 2008: On the farm the pace is really beginning to pick up. We are currently applying fertilizers to some of our small grains and are pleased with how the grains look this season. We are still preparing for the next growing season and have already ordered most of our supplies. Several upgrades have taken place this year with regards to our equipment. When the weather permits, we hope to add onto a shed that we use to store hay and straw. We have already cut the necessary timber and used our sawmill to saw out the needed lumber. Construction will hopefully start within the next week and will be complete within the next month or so.

February 22, 2008: We are hurrying to finish the pruning of our peach trees. Pruning damages a peach tree if it is done after they begin to come out of their winter dormancy. The trees should stay dormant for at least another two weeks. Our strawberry plants are beginning to grow larger. We plan on planting our creamer potatoes March 1st. So the ground needs to be prepared for the planting soon. Also, we are finishing making upgrades to our irrigation system. Hopefully it will be a wetter summer than last but we still use the irrigation to apply fertilizer to our crops.

February 6, 2008: Things have slowed on the farm this time of year. Our strawberries are doing well but we are carefully watching the weather. If temperatures fall below 15 degrees Fahrenheit, damage will likely occur. We are still pruning our peach orchard and hope to be finished with that slow and tedious job within a couple of weeks. We are also making preparations for the coming year. We plan to increase our vegetable acres this year while holding our row crop acres at about the same.

New for this year are plans to sell our products at the Charlotte Farmer's Market three days a week. Last year we sold there most Saturdays but hope to sell there on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays in this coming year. We are excited about this opportunity to reach new customers.