Gregory Brown of Greenleaf Farms sold his garden fresh produce at Doko Farm on Cedar Creek Road. | Photos: Barbara Ball
BLYTHEWOOD – Three Blythewood farms offering their own produce and featuring a number of artisans participated in an 11-county Ag + Art Tour last weekend, opening their front gates to hundreds of visitors Saturday and Sunday.
Visitors loaded up their cars with farm produced eggs, fresh
flowers and vegetables, artwork and took fun photos of their children posing
with barnyard animals. Musicians performed at some of the farms on back-to-back
sunny days.
Many told the farm owners they would be back, using the tour
as a year-long guide to find locally grown food and handmade artisan treasures.
The Purple Tuteur Farm on Langford Road, which grows and
sells a wide variety of garden flowers to local florists as well as to the
public, featured not only its blooming gardens, but several vendors – May
Vokaty’s Molly Creek Soaps; Sculptor Ellen Emerson Yaghjian’s hammered copper
artwork, and others.
Doko Farm on Cedar Creek Road offered a virtual petting zoo
as well as a vendor from Elgin selling shabby-chic cottage furnishings, a
gardener selling his potatoes, flowers, and round green squash and graphic de signer Caroline McKay’s note cards, some of which
were designed from the farm setting, and a specially designed Father’s Day
card.
Fabel Farm on Hinnants Store Road featured not only the
farm’s own vegetables but several vendors including Kevin Cullis’ demonstration
of turning a block of cedar into a charming potpourri pot topped with an
intricately carved silver lid.
For those families who toured Blythewood’s Ag + Art farms, it was a weekend in the country they will remember.
Master Gardner Linda Bradley, owner of Purple Tuteur Farm, conducts a garden tour on Sunday.
Pam Rodrigus of Moxie Creations sold her shabby chic creations.
Paula Green, left, and her pup, Sebastian Wolfington, shop May Vokaty’s Molly Creek soaps at the Purple Tuteur Farm on Langford Road.
Karen Bickley and Linda Martin sold fresh cut bouquets at Purple Tuteur Farm
Sculptor Ellen Yaghjian displays her copper creations.
A quarter in the slot provided a handful of chicken scratch.
A variety of fresh, homegrown onions were on sale at Fable Farm.
Craftsman Kevin J. Cullis created exquisite potpourri potsfrom cedar blocks at Fabel Farm on Hinnants Store Road.
Craftsman Kevin J. Cullis created exquisite potpourri pots from cedar blocks at Fabel Farm on Hinnants Store Road.
Purple Tuteur farm is named for the unique trellises (tuteurs) in the garden.
BLYTHEWOOD – Influenced by her grandmother, who grew roses, Linda Bradley has had a life-long love of flowers.
“As I grew,” Bradley said, “so did my interest in growing flowers. I enjoyed working in our home garden with my father. In college, I studied botany and horticulture, among other things.”
In the mid-2000s, Bradley began improving the soil in her backyard gardens and planting perennials.
By 2016, after becoming credentialed as a Master Gardner and retiring from a lifetime of work in IT, Bradley said she continued to expand her knowledge and relished being part of a community of avid growers.
“This was also the year when my mother passed away, and I began this journey in earnest,” Bradley said.
So it was only natural that she would launch a new career in cut-flower farming. Bradley’s flower farm, Purple Tuteur, is located on Langford Road in Blythewood.
This weekend, Bradley’s farm will be one of four Blythewood farms showcased in the inaugural Richland County Ag + Art Tour.
“Honoring the memory of my family through this mission gives me great joy,” Bradley said. “I remain connected to them while making others smile through the beauty of fresh flowers,” Bradley said.
Farm owner Linda Bradley gathers flowers.
The farm’s name, Purple Tuteur, is derived from a sort of garden trellis, or tuteur. Two imposing tuteurs, stand about eight feet tall in Bradley’s front garden.
Traditionally, tuteurs are used to elevate and support plants in the garden and are usually made of a few sticks and some twine tossed together to corral wayward tomato plants, or they can be permanent and ornamental structures.
“The free standing trellises add structure and interest and are used to save room in the garden,” Bradley said. “By serving as a frame for plants to grow up instead of sprawling on the ground, more can be grown in the same space.”
Bradley’s tuteurs, made of rebar, were created and installed by gardener Jenks Farmer, a popular gardening contributor to Southern Living Magazine and other publications.
One of Bradley’s tuteurs is painted purple and the other one has been allowed to rust naturally like abandoned farm machinery in the field.
While many cut-flowers available in the United States are imported by airplane from South American countries with dubious policies on chemicals and labor, flowers harvested and delivered to the customer without ever seeing the inside of an airplane or a tractor-trailer are fresher and last longer in the vase, according to Bradley.
She has different markets for her flowers. She sells bouquets at the Lake Carolina Farmers Market every week and alternates between Blythewood Farmers Market and Sandhills Farmers Markets, attending two markets each week. She also delivers fresh bouquets to her customers’ homes and businesses through a subscription bouquet service. In addition, she sells flowers to local florists and event planners.
“Local flowers are truly fresh, often cut the same day that you see them,” Bradley said. “Fresh flowers last longer, smell better and they contribute to our local economy.”
Eventually, Bradley said she would like to host workshops on gardening topics at the farm. For a complete list of flowers she grows and the seasons they are available, visit her website at www.purpletuteur.com.
To visit Purple Tuteur Farm, on Langford Road, join the Richland County Ag and Art Tour this coming weekend, June 29 and 30. It is a free event that allows you to tour local farms while also enjoying local artisans.
At Purple Tuteur, wander the gardens while seeking solutions to your gardening woes from Master Gardeners there. Several artisans will be painting, making jewelry and throwing pottery at the farm.
While in Blythewood, visit Doko Farm on Cedar Creek Road and see their heritage pigs, turkeys, lambs, and goats and take home some pasture-raised meat. Artisans, including a woodworker, painter and a bluegrass band will be performing.
Head a little farther north from Doko Farm and visit Fabel Farms on Hinnants Store Road to get some vegetables, honey, and wool products and see more artisans.
Finally, head south to visit Carolina Bay Farms in Hopkins and City Roots Farm in Columbia. The farm tour will run on both Saturday, June 29, from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. and Sunday, June 30, from 1-5 p.m.
For more details, including the addresses of the farm, what each farm offers and times for guided tours, visit https://agandarttour.com/richland/
BLYTHEWOOD – Three Blythewood area farms will participate in Richland County’s inaugural AG + Art Tour, June 26-27.
The tour will feature not only working family-owned farms and their produce, but local artisans and musicians as well, many of whom will be performing at the various farms.
The tour features some of the beautiful farms and products that the Richland County rural area has to offer, according to tour officials.
Eleven farms throughout the county will be open for touring on Saturday from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 – 5 p.m. The tours are free.
Visitors can begin their self-guided tour at any of the farms. The day is meant to be leisurely and enjoyable, so it will probably not be possible to see all the farms in one day.
Bring a cooler with an ice pack and pick up some fresh veggies, let the kids enjoy a hay-ride and barnyard animals, watch artists at work, and enjoy a day in the country!
Food, drinks and treats will be available for purchase at many of the farms.
At the first site they tour, visitors can register and pick up a tour booklet that will serve as a guide to the various farms and their offerings.
