Farmville for real: Farm tour is food for thought, bellies

Tour locations open June 29. All open 1-6 p.m., except meal stops.

People really should see firsthand where their food comes from …

If I heard it once, I heard it a hundred times while visiting a number of North Georgia farms recently. At Melon Head Farm in Clarkesville, where Harold Kennedy leaned down to pick a stalk of asparagus for me to sample right there in the field, sans hollandaise. Or at LoganBerry Heritage Farm in Cleveland, where Sharon Mauney handed me a just-spun, fresh-off-the-vine strawberry milkshake. Or at Mtn Honey, also in Clarkesville, where Virginia and Carl Webb sent me off with a bear-shaped bottle of liquid gold made before my very eyes in the "honey house" of their award-winning apiary (essentially, a bee farm).

Want to see for yourself what all the, uh, buzz is about? Then head north for next weekend's third annual Georgia Mountains Farm Tour. The growing-like-a-weed event (four additional farms have jumped aboard this year) aims to put folks on more familiar footing with sources of fresh food by throwing open the proverbial barn door to visitors.

You’ve heard of farm to table? Think car to farm. A $35 pass is good for a carload of guests to visit up to 16 locations spread over two days and five unbelievably scenic North Georgia counties (plus two farms right across the borders of North and South Carolina). You can tour farms, ask questions, and buy food practically fresh out of the ground. There are even official meal stops if you’re not inclined to simply gnaw on a head of arugula while zipping between farms.

Each farm is open on only one afternoon: seven of them on June 28 (a Saturday), and the other nine on June 29 (a Sunday); see box for details. Still, it will be mighty hard to hit every stop unless you drive faster than a moonshiner and barely stop to smell the roses.

But why would you even want to do that?

"I'd describe this as a cultural event. It's not a farmers market on wheels," said Justin Ellis, who runs the Georgia Mountains Farmers Network, which organizes the tour. "You should be able to see three farms in a day. But if you find two you just love and you want to stay longer, well … Remember, we'll do it again next year!"

Go to www.georgiamfn.blogspot.com for complete information, including how to order tickets. Meanwhile, check out our insiders' guide to getting the most out of the tour.

Basic dirt

When: 1-6 p.m. June 28-29

Where: 14 farms, two restaurants/restaurant gardens in Rabun, Habersham, White, Franklin and Stephens counties (Georgia) and very nearby locations in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Admission: $35 per carload for a weekend pass, which includes a bumper sticker and descriptive brochure and map, if purchased after June 16 or on the day of the event. Purchase passes online (credit card only) through June 25 at www.soque.org, or in person (cash or check) at: Soque River Watershed Association (Clarkesville), Northeast Georgia Locally Grown Market locations, Clarkesville Farmers Market, Simply Homegrown Market (Clayton) or Habersham Chamber of Commerce (Cornelia). Walk-in visitors also can pay $35 at any of the stops on the day of the tour; however, the bumper sticker/brochure will be available at only two locations each day: LoganBerry Heritage Farm and Mtn Honey on June 28, and Mill Gap Farm and Taylor Creek Farm on June 29.

What else you'll have to pay for, and how: Food, fresh produce and other items purchased at the farms and at the official meal stops are not included in the cost of admission. Most of the stops do not take credit cards, so you'll need to pay with cash or a check. The same goes for admission passes purchased on the day(s) of the tour.

If it’s Saturday, this must be Clarkesville

The tour is smartly organized according to geography: The June 28 stops are all located in White and Habersham counties (four are in Clarkesville). On June 29, the tour moves farther north and east to Franklin, Stephens and Rabun counties in Georgia and to Long Creek, S.C., and Otto, N.C.

You should plan on spending up to an hour or more at each location, as most of the farmers plan on offering their own tours within the tour; answering questions about eating and growing sustainable foods, and, of course, selling fresh produce and other products like homemade jams and pies. It’s BYOC … Bring Your Own Cooler.

While the clustering of nearby farms reduces the amount of driving that tourgoers will have to do on each day, it also means the tour takes place farther away from metro Atlanta on June 29 (a Sunday) than it does on June 28 (a Saturday). So if you’re driving up from the Atlanta area for Day Two, leave earlier and plan to arrive home later. Or you could take in Day One, then overnight in one of the reasonably priced hotels/motels located in and around scenic Rabun County and be well rested for Day Two.

In fact, one of the June 29 tour stops, Sylvan Falls Mill, located in Rabun Gap, is also a B&B. To check availability and rates during the tour weekend: 706-746-7138 or sylvanfallsmill.com.

What does your garden grow?

The good news is you can plan your own route and schedule each day. To do so, go to www.georgiamfn.blogspot.com, where you'll find downloadable maps, along with a brochure featuring full descriptions of all 16 stops on the tour.

One of the first things you’ll notice is that not all of the featured “farms” are actually farms. The Old School Garden in Clayton is actually a community garden comprising more than 100 member gardeners and their individual plots; they teach monthly organic gardening classes and donate some of what they grow to local food charities. Sylvan Falls Mill in Rabun Gap is a working grist mill that grinds grains from some of the local farms into flour and grits.

Meanwhile, when it comes to the more traditional farms, none is bigger than three acres and no two are exactly alike. Leah Lake Farm in Otto, N.C., grows vegetable and salad greens, including over 25 different types of lettuce, and specialty cut flowers. Along with heirloom vegetables and grass-fed beef, LoganBerry Heritage grows so many different types of garlic, it has its own GarlicFest in August.

You'd be forgiven if you thought you'd stumbled across a little piece of California at Melon Head Farm, where Harold and Joni Kennedy have somehow figured out how to grow artichokes as big as balled fists inside their special "hoop house." And with sandy loom soil, instead of the red clay more typical of North Georgia, parts of the Kennedys' spread feel like a little piece of Cordele, aka the "watermelon capital of the world." (Fun fact: Melon Head was named for Harold's balding dome, not the farm's bumper crop of watermelons.)

Tourgoers sometimes show up with pen and pad in hand, so they can ask questions and take notes, the Kennedys say. That’s the dream scenario at Taylor Creek Farm in Toccoa, where Chuck and Michelle Taylor traded life on a sailboat for organic farming about four years ago. Working on Chuck’s family land, they use natural and sustainable methods to produce eggs and poultry and grow everything from cucumbers and kohlrabi to pole beans and sweet potatoes.

They’re eager to help others to do the same, which is a major reason they’re participating in the tour.

"We'd like as many communities as possible to be able to feed themselves organically," Michelle said. "It's good for them and good for the environment."

What’s to eat?

It's hungry work, watching food grow! Most of the participating farms will have fresh produce and related foodstuffs for sale (they're promising organic chow chow and red, white and blue potatoes at Shade Creek Farm in Eastanollee, for instance). Some will even offer free tastes. At Mtn Honey apiary, after safely checking out a busy beehive from behind glass and seeing honey being made, tourgoers can sample several different varieties of honey on biscuits.

But man does not live by organic chow chow alone. Luckily, there’s an optional meal stop each day, with menus in keeping with the tour’s overall theme of cooking with fresh, locally grown produce that’s in season.

"I have absolutely no idea what we're going to (serve) yet," Jeff Morris, owner/chef at the Copper Pot restaurant in downtown Clarkesville, chuckled several weeks ago. "The garden will give what it's ready to give."

That would be CopperPot Gardens, which is located about 2 miles from the restaurant, on land behind Morris' parents' house. It's the site of the June 28 meal stop (note: It's not at the restaurant!). On June 29, the meal stop moves to Fortify Kitchen & Bar in Clayton, where they regularly feature sustainable food from local farms (you can also get a farm-fresh meal on that Sunday at Belle's Diner at tour stop Chattooga Belle Farm in Long Creek, S.C.).

Two important things to know about these meal stops: They open at 11 a.m., so you can fuel up before getting in the car to start driving to farms (depending on their popularity, they could run out of food). And the cost of eating at these stops is not included in the tour admission fee. You'll have to pay for all your meals there.

Missed one of the official meal stops? Head toward Clarkesville on the Saturday, and Clayton on the Sunday. Each one boasts a handful of nice eateries. And some fast-food restaurants — if, sigh, you're willing to make the farm tour drive of shame.