Pictured above: Fall Bradford Watermelon
Welcome back to our weekly farm blog, chefs!
This week, we’re opening with a flash sale of Fall Crop Bradford Watermelons - all you want $10 each. We’re trying to unload, would love some help! This is our family watermelon, world renowned for its soft, pink flesh, depth of flavor and its thick, delicate and tender rind. Traditionally a late season watermelon, this cruised in the late summer and came out do the field already cooled after morning harvest from the cold Autumn nights.
Bradford okra season is coming to an end. We expect this to be the last week it’s available. Our “Coming Soon” crops are right around the corner, most of what’s listed is being grown by Hickory Bluff Berry Farm. Some of these crops are just about to break. Will keep you updated!
Still new as of two weeks ago: Candy Roaster squash and Taylor Turnip tops coming from our own soil, worked by our own hands. Supporting the restoration and saving of these crops depends on you, we grow them but they won’t survive unless people eat them. By buying and cooking with these ingredients, sharing the stories with guests in the dining room, you’re not just supporting the farm - you’re supporting the history of southern cookery, those who came and grew before us and made the cuisine of our region what it is today. These crops are a celebration of the south and the relationship of farmer and chef.
COMING SOON
- Brussels sprouts
- Kohlrabi
- Rainbow Chard
- Green cabbage
- Orange beets (pending)
- Rutabagas
- Purple top turnips
- Charleston Wakefield cabbage
- Dutch Fork pumpkins
- persimmons (limited quantities)
SPECIAL REQUEST: We kindly urge you to consider adding at least one of our own Bradford Farm grown crops to your weekly orders. We are working with quite a number of other farms to bring you the best access to regional flavor that we possibly can, but the heartbeat of our farm is our homegrown crops. We can’t exist without moving our own crops too. So please review the crops we offer under Bradford Farm Crops below and consider adding one or more of them. It helps us a ton.
Important Notes
-
Bradford Taylor turnip tops
- Bradford Candy roaster squash
- Prickly pears
- Broccoli from Dorr
- Restock Bolero carrots in 2 weeks
- Rosaine Little Gem Lettuce from Wild Hope will resume mid week (currently sold out)
- Davidson River beets in 1 or 2 weeks
⚠️ **Highlights of the week**⚠️
Fall Crop Bradford Watermelons - Bradford Farm
We’re opening up sales of our Fall Crop Bradford Watermelons this week. All you want - $10 a pop. Some of you might be a little surprised by a watermelon crop in the middle of October… but what if I told you this was actually the historical proper harvest time of our family watermelon?
The Bradford Watermelon was the most important late season watermelon in the mid 1800s and into the early 1900s before the final commercial crop was planted in Georgia circa 1922 as the shipping industry began its hostile takeover in crop diversity.
My ancestors intentionally bred this watermelon to be the last on the market. It also possessed a unique quality when refrigeration wasn’t invented or available to the masses - the cold fall nights chilled the watermelon naturally. You could go out in the morning before temperatures rose and settled in by early afternoon, harvest a watermelon and eat it right there in the field, cold!
This was the first time we have tested a crop this late, the early melons we pulled out revealed a genetic phenotype that was illustrated in hundred year old paintings and drawings of our watermelon at the markets. Summer Bradfords don’t carry the same deep lobes and super dark green skin. Another key difference was that these melons had zero disease and dealt with minimum pest pressure. They were by all intents and purposes, ideal Bradford watermelons. The watermelon that was praised in all the garden seed catalogs of yesteryear. We are saving the seeds of all the best early phenotype fall watermelons to begin only offering fall watermelons from here on out in future crops. The rest of the crop is available now on discount - these aren’t early the phenotype melons that we pulled out several weeks ago, but this is the majority of the fall crop that came in a few weeks behind the earlies.
Get em while they're cool! $10 each
Ancient Breed-line Candy Roaster Squash - Bradford Farm
Candy Roaster squash is quickly becoming one of the most well-recognized heirloom vegetables in the fall. But be careful where you spruce your candy roaster squash from! The most common ones on the market are the small banana shaped ones, which are alright. You get a passing grade and you can call it a candy roaster, buts it’s the white-washed version and the most accessible through commercial seed catalogs nationwide. It isn’t the same historic squash of the Carolinian and North Georgian Appalachian mountains.
The next most common variety is the North Georgia candy roaster, a larger banana shaped orange squash with a blue tip. These are the ones you should be keeping an eye out for. This is the variety, closest to the old varieties grown by the Cherokee and mountain folk thousands of years ago.
That brings us to the variety we grow - it’s not on any seed catalog out there, not on anyone’s shelf except for a small exclusive group. Our original seed came through some family friends who gave us a candy roaster they couldn’t eat which came from their friends - an old Southern Appalachian mountain couple who had this candy roaster squash growing in their family for generations. It was grown and maintained in its native land for thousands of years and it is, as far as we are aware, the closest match to the candy roaster squash the Appalachian Native American tribes grew in the Carolinas and Northern Georgia. It possesses unique qualities setting it apart from other candy roaster squash on the market that chefs wait an extra month or two for every year. These one pictured above is the largest one we have ever pulled out of the field, about 50lbs. The typical fruit weights between 12lbs and 22lbs. A wide range of shaped and sizes because the genetic pool has not been selected down, it has more genetic range because the genetics have not been tampered with for more consistency which big seed catalogs want. The variation is the magic!
NEW! Taylor Turnip Tops - Bradford Farm
Taylor Turnip Tops—the finest turnip tops we’ve ever grown, tasted, or shared with a kitchen. Unlike the common turnip greens most folks know, these beauties carry none of the bitterness. They’re mild, bright, and tender enough to enjoy raw. Their pencil-thin, stringless stems are sweet, crisp, and juicy—an unexpected pleasure for anyone who thinks they know turnip greens. It’s this unique quality that keeps chefs coming back to them every year.
These seeds came to us years ago from our dear friend Bill Taylor, whose family had stewarded them quietly for generations. When we grew our first seed crop, it was clear: this wasn’t a standard turnip at all. They don’t make a root—only greens. But when the greens are this remarkable, you’ll never miss the bulb.
Like many heirlooms we tend, the Taylor Turnip Top had never left Bill’s family garden, never been offered beyond their fence line, and certainly never been plated in a restaurant—until now. Sharing this variety with chefs and diners is one of the most meaningful ways to keep rare flavors alive. Your creativity and your menus are what turn preservation into a living, breathing tradition.
When you purchase and serve these greens, you help protect an at-risk heirloom and support the ongoing work at Bradford Farm—traveling the country to find vulnerable seeds, reviving them, saving them, and placing them back into the hands of thoughtful cooks. It’s a partnership we’re deeply grateful for.
If you’d like a deeper look into the story, The Post and Courier published a wonderful piece on the Taylor Turnip Top—well worth the read.
DISCOUNTS & PROMOTIONS
Heirloom tomatoes - mixed flat - Clem’s and Dale Acres
Buy 2 flats - $5 off
Buy 4 flats or more - 10% off
Standing orders
- Reference - a la carte price - $55 each
- 1 flat per week - $53
- 2-3 flats per week - $51 each
- 3-5 flats per week - $49 each
- 6+ flats per week - $47 each
Reach out to us if you’d like to get included on this deal!
Field peas and butterbeans - standing order options
A la carte price for comparison - $59 per bag across all varieties.
Option 1: Sign up for a weekly recurring order of any field pea or butterbean for 12 weeks - $57/ bag
Option 2: Sign up for weekly recurring order of any combination of 2 or 3 bags for 12 weeks - $56/ bag
Option 3: Sign up for weekly recurring order of any combination of 4 bags or more for 12 weeks - FREE Winter Squash Sample Box (Value of $30) + 1 free bag, $55/bag every week after (total value of at least $280)
*note - you can switch varieties of peas and peas anytime, any week. Just notify me!
Key:
** - limited availability
*OUT- currently out of stock
*OFS- out for season
NEW- recent addition
(SlowFood AOT)- appears on the SlowFood Ark of Taste for its exceptional qualities, flavor, story, and historical significance and/or usage.
✅ Bradford Farm Crops: ✅
-Bradford collards bagged/chopped (spring crop)
-Bradford collards whole plant (spring crop)
-Hybrid green cabbage *OUT
-Purple cabbage
-Shredded hybrid cabbage
-Shredded purple cabbage
-Bradford Okra (through October)
-NEW! Candy Roaster squash (SlowFood AOT)
-NEW! Taylor Turnip tops (heirloom)
🤝 Partner Farms: 🤝
-Fruit
——Apples - Lively Orchards
———Fuji
———Golden Delicious
———Gala
———Granny Smith
———Ambrosia
———Jonagold
———NEW! Arkansas Black
———NEW! Pink Lady
———Asian Pear (exclusive)
——Cantaloupe
——Watermelon
———red seedless *Almost gone
----Prickly Pear - Wild Hope Farm
-Tomatoes
——Heirloom slicer mix - Clem’s
——Grape, red
——Red round
——Gold slicer
——Roma
——Tomatillos
-Beets
——Gold
——Red
——NEW! Pink candy
——Davidson River Red - Clem's *OUT 1-2 weeks
——Baby Davidson River Red - Clem's *OUT 1-2 weeks
-Roots
——Bolero - Clem’s Organic Gardens *OUT 1-2 weeks
----Parsnips - Clem's Organic Gardens
----Turnips, Hakurei - Clem's Organic Gardens
——NEW! Turnips, Baby Hakurei - Clem’s
----Radish, Watermelon - Clem's Organic Gardens
——NEW! Radish, Baby Watermelon - Clem’s
----Radish, Rainbow Daikon - Clem's Organic Garden
-Potatoes
——Appalachian Gold - Clem’s
——Baby Appalachian Gold - Clem’s
----Pee Dee Sweet Potatoes
-----Large
-----Medium
-----Jumbo *OUT
-Peppers (sweet, savory, or mild)
——Green bell
----Red bell
----Italian, Carmen (frying pepper) - Wild Hope
——Jimmy Nardello - Dorr *spotty availability
——Heirloom Shishito - Dorr
-HOT Peppers
——Jalapeños - Dorr Farms
——Serrano - Dorr Farms
——Cowhorn - Dorr Farms
——Baby Banana peppers - Dorr Farms
-Squash & Zucchini
----Zucchini - Dorr Farms
——Yellow Crookneck
----Patty Pan Mixed - Dorr Farms
-Hard squash
——Butterbaby Squash - Clem’s
——Mini Spaghetti squash - Clem’s
——Autumn Frost butternut - SC
——Koginut - Wild Hope *OFS
——Delicata Heirloom - Lake City, SC
——Acorn - SC
——Blue Hubbard - Amish
——NEW! Red Kuri Hubbard - Amish
-Greens
——Kale, Scotch Curly - Dorr
——Kale, Tuscan (Lacinato, Dino) - Wild Hope
----Mustard, Curly - Dorr
----Rapa- Dorr
-Legumes
----Peas, Red Ripper (fresh-frozen) - Johnny McNair
----Butterbeans, Green (fresh-frozen) - Johnny McNair, Josh Johnson
----Butterbeans, Speckled (ff) - Johnny McNair, Josh Johnson
----Peas, Pinkeye (ff) - Johnny McNair, Josh Johnson
----Peas, White Acre (ff) - Johnny McNair, Josh Johnson
-Eggplant
——Italian Purple
-Sweet corn
-Cucumbers, Kirby
-Green cabbage
-Blue Lake Pole Snap Beans - Dorr Farms
-Broccoli - Dorr Farms
-Pecans (fresh, shelled, halved) - Johnny McNair
Coming soon:
MORE COMING SOON
….let us know if there is something else you are interested in that isn’t on our list