Farm stands and u-pick farms near Charlotte

Charlotte grew fast enough that a lot of the farms are now subdivisions, but the ones that survived have gotten smarter about it. They sell flowers you cut yourself, run corn mazes in October, host weddings and, in a few cases, still grow food and sell it off a table by the road. This guide covers the working farms and farm markets around the metro that you can actually visit, organized by what you’d go for. Facts about each place come from its own listing or site.

Pick your own, inside the city

McLawland Farms is a working farm in Charlotte proper offering pick-your-own flowers, farm stays and events including flower-arranging master classes and guided flower tours. A flower farm inside the city limits is rare and it won’t last forever, so go while it’s there. Our read: the best two hours you can spend with a bucket in Mecklenburg County, and a better date than dinner.

The fall farms

Outlaw Acres in Monroe is a fall family destination with a corn maze, a super mega slide, farm animals, an Old West town and a pumpkin patch, admission $16 and free for ages 3 and under, per its site. It’s a farm that has decided its crop is October, and it does October well. Historic Rural Hill in Huntersville is 265 acres of historic site, farm and cultural center. It runs corn maze weekends in the fall, the Loch Norman Highland Games in the spring and a sheepdog trials and dog festival in November. Rural Hill is the one to pick if you want the farm to feel like a farm and not a theme park; the maze is cut into a real field with a real history around it.

The farm you can stay on

Juneberry Ridge in Norwood, about an hour east of Charlotte, is a farm and event destination with walking paths, clay shooting, meeting rooms, wooded cabins and what its site calls home-grown cuisine. Its stated mission is to nourish, educate and let nature lead. It’s a weekend rather than an afternoon, and it’s the answer for a company retreat or an anniversary that doesn’t involve a hotel.

The markets

The Mount Holly Farmers Market is the one with a rule: vendors must be farms within 75 miles that produce 75 percent of what they sell. That’s the 75-75 rule and it’s the reason to trust the table. Started by the Mount Holly Community Development Foundation in 2006, the market also runs a kids club, takes SNAP with Double Bucks, and adds live music and cooking demos. If you only learn one thing from this guide, learn to ask any farmers market whether it has a producer-only rule. Most don’t.

Birkdale Village in Huntersville hosts Sunday Markets in The Village, which is a farmers market inside a shopping district, convenient if not rustic. And Josh’s Farmers Market in Mooresville, where Cottage Grove Bakery sells English-style bakes most Saturdays, is the big north-side market and the one with the widest range of produce.

The farm store

Front Porch and Provisions in Dallas is a Southern restaurant and general store stocked with locally sourced products, including Riverbend Creamery ice cream, and it now serves breakfast from 8 to 11 a.m. It isn’t a farm, but it’s where a farm’s products end up when the farm doesn’t have a storefront, and the shelves double as a who’s-who of Gaston County growers. Clover Harvest in Clover, South Carolina, is the restaurant version, supported by more than a dozen local farms and purveyors.

The egg farm and the greenhouse

Two producers you can’t pick from but should know about. Simpson’s Eggs in Monroe has been family owned since 1925 and produces eggs on more than 215 acres at commercial scale; its eggs are in Charlotte grocery cases. Metrolina Greenhouses in Huntersville, founded in 1972, is the largest single-site heated greenhouse in the country at more than 160 acres. It’s wholesale, so the plants get to you through garden centers like Christy’s Nursery on Concord Parkway South, which sells trees, shrubs and flowers for the yard.

What’s not here, and why

Strawberry u-pick in May, peach stands in July and apple orchards in September all exist within a 90-minute drive of Charlotte, and none of them are in the directory yet, mostly because seasonal farm stands don’t keep websites. The strawberry farms in Union and York counties open around Mother’s Day; the peach stands line Highway 74 and Highway 521 in summer; the apple orchards are up toward Hendersonville, a separate day trip. We’ll add them as we verify them. If you run one, list it; farms and small producers list free.

The flowers, one more time

Two more stops for the people who came to this guide for the flowers. Five Blossoms Shoppe in York, South Carolina, sells local and sustainable florals, runs creative workshops and delivers farm-fresh flowers in York County. And The Petal Thing in Cornelius does custom arrangements with same-day delivery on request. Neither is a farm, but both buy from the growers this guide is about.

Before you go

Call or check the site the morning of; farms close for rain and sell out of the good stuff. Bring cash, a cooler, and shoes you don’t mind ruining. Fall farms are busiest the two weekends before Halloween and quiet on a weekday afternoon in early October, which is the best time to go with small kids. And the things to do directory has the farms, markets and parks sorted by town, for whatever is closest to you.