Our Produce
The varieties we carry regularly and hunt down at their best — grown by small local farms across the Carolinas and picked at their peak. Here's what to look for at the stand, and what to do with it when you get it home.
The varieties we carry regularly and hunt down at their best — grown by small local farms across the Carolinas and picked at their peak. Here's what to look for at the stand, and what to do with it when you get it home.
Three things worth planning your week around.
Grown in South Carolina's famous peach country and left on the tree until they're ready — because a peach only sweetens on the branch, never in a truck. Rich, honeyed flavor with just enough acidity to keep it interesting, and flesh that slips cleanly off the pit. Eat them over the sink, grill them with a little brown sugar, or put up a batch for winter — freestones were made for slicing and canning.
Big, glossy, and picked ripe just up the road. Sweet up front with that wild tang underneath — the balance that makes blackberries the best baking berry there is. A pint rarely survives the ride home; a quart means cobbler with vanilla ice cream, blackberry jam, or a handful muddled into lemonade.
Western North Carolina heirlooms in every color the summer makes — smoky Cherokee Purples, giant pink Brandywines, Carolina-born German Johnsons. Picked ripe this week, never gassed green in a warehouse. Meet the whole cast below.
Picked young and tender, never club-sized. Summer squash should be sweet, firm, and never bitter — that's why ours comes in small and often.
Little scalloped flying saucers with dense, buttery flesh that holds its shape under heat. Halve and roast the bigger ones until the edges caramelize; sauté the babies whole in brown butter. Sweeter and firmer than it has any right to be.
The Southern staple, picked small so the skin stays tender and the seeds stay invisible. Delicate, faintly nutty sweetness — the backbone of squash casserole, and unbeatable sliced thin and sautéed with Vidalia onion.
Deep green with white racing stripes and a firmer, nuttier bite than standard zucchini. It keeps its texture when cooked, which makes it the pick for grilling, kebabs, and anything where mushy is not an option.
Golden-skinned and noticeably milder and sweeter than green. Beautiful shaved raw into ribbons with lemon and parmesan, or grilled in thick planks that pick up char without falling apart.
Eggplant is at its best small, fresh, and thin-skinned — pick them young and you never need to salt away bitterness. We carry a whole spectrum.
Miniature and violet with white streaks — the eggplant for people who think they don't like eggplant. Creamy, sweet, and never bitter, with skin so thin you don't peel it. Halve lengthwise, brush with olive oil, and they're grilled in five minutes flat.
The slender Japanese type: thin, tender skin over silky flesh that turns custard-soft when cooked. It drinks up sauce, which makes it the one for stir-fries, miso glaze, and soy-garlic anything.
Pale rosy skin over mild, faintly sweet flesh with almost no bitterness. One of the most tender eggplants we carry — treat it gently and it rewards you.
Rose and ivory streaks with creamy white flesh, mild and delicate. Roast thick slices until golden — it tastes as good as it looks on the cutting board.
The deep-purple globe built for eggplant parm, baba ganoush, and ratatouille. Ours are picked small and glossy — heavy for their size, firm, and never spongy or seedy.
From blistering-mild to bring-the-milk, plus sweet bells in colors the grocery store doesn't carry.
The tapas classic. Toss them in a screaming-hot pan until blistered, hit them with flaky salt and a squeeze of lemon, and eat them by the stem. Mild, sweet, faintly smoky — except about one in ten, which bites back. That's the fun.
Grassy, bright, and dependable — the most useful pepper in the kitchen. Fresh ones have a snap and fruitiness the jarred stuff loses entirely. Poppers, pico de gallo, cornbread, or split and charred alongside anything grilled.
Thinner-walled, sharper, and two or three notches hotter than a jalapeño, with a clean, crisp heat that doesn't linger too long. The salsa pepper — it slices thin and keeps its crunch raw.
Serious heat wrapped in something almost tropical — apricot, citrus, a floral edge you smell before you taste. That fruitiness is why it makes the best hot sauce there is. A little goes a very long way.
Deep violet skin over crisp white flesh — mild, sweet, and startling on a crudité board. Keep it raw: the purple is at its best uncooked, and so is the crunch.
Ivory-colored, delicately sweet, and softer-fleshed than a green bell with none of the bitterness. You'll almost never see one in a supermarket — which is most of the reason to try one.
Grown in western North Carolina and picked ripe — never gassed green in a warehouse.
The big pink beefsteak that made heirlooms famous, dating back to the 1880s. Rich, old-fashioned tomato flavor with the perfect push-pull of sweetness and acidity. One thick slice is a sandwich's whole personality.
A North Carolina heirloom through and through, and locals know it. Huge, meaty, and low-acid with very few seeds — the definitive tomato-sandwich tomato. White bread, Duke's, salt. That's it.
Dusky rose-brown with green shoulders and a smoky, wine-dark sweetness that tastes almost savory. Widely considered one of the best-flavored tomatoes on earth — many of our regulars won't buy anything else.
Yellow with red marbling inside and out, like a sunset in cross-section. Mild, low-acid, and gently sweet — the one to hand people who find big heirlooms too intense. Beautiful sliced with just salt and good olive oil.
Sunny orange-yellow, juicy and mellow, with a mild sweetness and low acid that's easy on sensitive stomachs. Makes a golden tomato soup and brightens any caprese.
Green, red, and yellow streaks with a bold, tangy-sweet punch that's bigger than most striped tomatoes. The one people photograph before they eat — and then come back for because of the flavor.
Supermarket tomatoes are hybrids bred for one thing: surviving a truck. Thick skins, uniform shape, picked green and gassed red — flavor is an afterthought.
Heirlooms are the opposite. They're old, open-pollinated varieties passed down for generations because of how they taste — thin skins, odd shapes, colors all over the map, and flavor that hybrids simply can't touch. They're too delicate to ship, which is exactly why you buy them from someone local who picked them ripe this week.
That's the trade we'll make every time: a tomato that lasts three weeks on a shelf, for one you'll remember three years from now.
Varieties rotate with the season and the harvest. The freshest list lives here:
What's Fresh Now This Week's Harvest List