Our Growing Spaces

The Farm has two kinds of growing spaces: annual vegetable production plots and our demonstration plots. Growing vegetables takes up the majority of our intensively cultivated acre. This is where we grow produce for year-round donation to food security organizations. Our demonstration plots – the Cackalacky Heritage Garden and the Southeast American Indian Garden – are used more for class visits and seed-saving endeavors that foster collaboration with partners across Duke's academic departments.

Annual Production Plots

The majority of both our land and labor goes towards our regenerative annual vegetable production. This encompasses our four main quadrants, as well as our high tunnel which allows for season extension.

Cackalacky Heritage Garden

The Cackalacky Heritage Garden is dedicated to crops that used to be grown extensively across the Carolina Piedmont. Specifically, this includes cotton, tobacco, peanuts, indigo, and a range of crops that were important to Native and enslaved peoples in this area.

Southeastern American Indian Garden

Sponsored by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians nation and the Cherokee Nation, the Southeastern American Indian Garden features crops of cultural significance to American Indian nations native to the Southeast.