This is a nice little find on a relatively sparse area along Salem Street. Expanding from their…read moreFarm Soap Company in Franklinton, Carden Farms has opened a farmer's market in Apex. Although it still seems to be getting itself organized, there's a lot of potential here for anyone wanting to shop local. I spoke to one of the owners (Carol) during my visit, who proudly explained their goal was to source as much from North Carolina as they could. And for those few things not from NC, nearby states were represented. It's late in the season for produce, but Carden still has some nice winter squash from the NC mountains and tomatoes available. And unshelled pecans -- a southern staple -- are sitting in a bin outside the door. NC honey, clover and wildflower, is available inside. What makes Carden unique is the non-food inventory: bird houses made with real tree bark and moss, local firewood, and the natural soaps from the "home farm" Carden Farms in Franklinton, and various made-in-NC (or USA) knicknacks. The natural sponges from Florida are larger than I'd expected; and the local (from Apex) hand-made crochet scrubs are cute and equally as colorful as their box-store counterparts, but sans synthetics. In the other half of the store is a freezer with local grass-fed meats and a cooler with eggs, all reasonably priced. Eventually, as Carden gets fully up and running in this location, they plan on adding breads, cheeses, and boiled peanuts. I'm not sure when this will all happen as they're still working hard to organize everything. And surprisingly, to complete the total farmers market concept, according to their website, Carden will also offer North Carolina seafood on Saturdays. I can't wait to watch this shop expand and hope it becomes a nice alternative to the trek to the Raleigh Farmers Market.

Beaver Creek Crossings is a go-to destination for shopping, dining, and services in Apex, NC!!! It…read moreis a huge plaza featuring large stores everywhere you look as well as a big movie theater, Beaver Creek Cinema! The mix of stores include T.J.Maxx and Homegoods, Ulta Beauty, Ross, Dick's Sporting Goods, Uptown Cheapskate, Old Navy, Bath & Body Works, Kirkland's, Five Below, and Family Dollar / Dollar Tree. The food offerings include American, Mexican, Greek and Mediterranean, Indian, and Japanese cuisine, with sweet treat / dessert cafes as well. Beaver Creek also is home to a great variety of different services, from contacts and glasses, to urgent care, to dancing, to beauty and wellness, to martial arts, to real estate, to telecommunications. It is a great place to hang out, take a stroll, and/or socialize with family and friends or visit on your own! The plaza looks shiny new and modern and is very clean and well-maintained. In addition, Beaver Creek Crossings hosts events like the Apex Farmer's Market every Saturday from 9AM to noon, April through October, as well as a local Makers Market every last Thursday of the month from 6 to 9PM that features tasty food and live music. There is so much to see, buy, eat, explore at Beaver Creek Crossings - I would definitely recommend enjoying quality time there!!!

We had just went food shopping when the Cyclospira virus surfaced. I eat a lot of fruits and salad…read moreand consequently deep sixed all the fruits and vegetables we had just purchased. Today for the 1st time we went to the Raleigh Farmers Market and was absolutely shocked at their offerings. All the vendors are eager to serve and please so, we loaded up on fruits and vegetables. I'm so happy I'm back to my normal diet. From this day forward I will always support the local farmers and never again buy fruits and vegetables from the grocery store.

We LOVED this place. I've been to large farmer's markets before ( some bigger, some smaller) but…read morethis one is great. It has a lot to offer w\o being too big or small. Visited recently late on a Sunday ( maybe an hour before they closed) Great location with plenty of parking. Besides fresh produce, it also has fresh fish, a seafood restaurant, and a few other specialty shops. Open 7 days a week, I would go all the time if I lived in the area. But like most farmer's markets, "most" prices are no cheaper than your local grocery store, but the selecatiosn here are great. Espeially now in the Fall with tiomns of pumpkins & gourds, Saw stands with huige selections of plants & shrubs for home gardens & landscaping. Bought some fresh NC corn & honey. One stand had a HUGE selection of almost every pepper I ever heard off. Cant wait to go back. ( no pets!)

Came out here with the kiddos to enjoy the haunted nights! It cost about $33 a person for us to get…read morein. We purchased our tickets online and scanned them at the gate. It was busy when we arrived but they have plenty of parking and plenty of people guiding. There were four haunted attractions and the lines seemed long as heck. After getting in line we realized they moved pretty fast! Couldn't take photos inside the attractions. The staff were all friendly and stayed in character the whole night! We all enjoyed our selfs and really enjoyed the kettle popcorn and mini glazed donuts!

Fright night on Phillips farm was so exciting and scary, in a good way! Actors costumes were movie…read morequality and realistic. They had 4 scary attractions, fun Halloween decor, and lots of yummy concessions including mini donuts, popcorn, pizza and hot dogs. For adults, they also have a bar. Pay a visit before its over!!

I've generally been pretty pleased with Papa Spud's. I've been seeking to purchase organic and…read morelocal now for maybe about seven or eight years now. I switched from Whole Foods to Weaver Street Market back in 2012, and then when the Durham Food Co-op opened I started going there also; however, without a car the distance just got to be too much. It was nice sometimes to read the news on my phone while on the bus system, but I decided it just took too much time, energy, and effort to go from Raleigh to Chapel Hill or from Raleigh to Durham for food shopping. So the system I have now is to buy grains and other non-perishables from Thrive Market and then fresh produce via Papa Spud's. The first order that I made from Papa Spud's was in February of 2017. I like the newsletters that they include in every box and I read them when the box arrives. There's news about farms in the area and farming, recipes, storage tips and other content. So other than that a few times I was away and forgot to cancel the order in time. But I still remembered before the actual delivery. So I just let them know that far enough in advance and they could just donate the box to charity. I had to pay for the food, but I didn't have to deal with a box of spoiled food when I got back that could attract bugs, etc. And plus the box went to charity. Overall I'd say it's been good quality. In terms of quality I remember that Papa Spud's ran a newsletter piece about food waste and people's expectations of what food ought to look like. They pointed out that a lot of food that wouldn't be likely to cause a health problem in a human nevertheless gets thrown away (or possibly eaten by animals) because people don't want to buy it and eat it. Or when they are at a grocery store they decide to pick something else. Maybe say for example because it is oddly shaped. Or another example would be that purple carrots may not sell as well in a store than orange carrots. Looking in the history section of the Wikipedia article on carrot one can see that carrots actually can range in color. There is a photo there with carrots of all different colors arranged in a circle. In the article it talks about the question of whether orange carrots were grown in the 17th century by Dutch growers to honor the Dutch flag (which was orange as it was based on the flag of Prince William of Orange-Nassau). So I had heard that before. A person by the name of Jonathan Bloom who lives in Durham wrote a book called American Wasteland about food waste in the United States which made similar points to the Papa Spud's newsletter article. Even so I could comment that they provide a way for customers to let them know if food arrives in a damaged state. I could say that I have used that so far on one occasion when I saw some mold on a strawberry. Rob M. also responded in a comprehensive way to a question that I had related to the extent of tobacco farming in the area. I read a bit about organic tobacco farming some time ago. As far as I know there hasn't been any major finding that smoking organic tobacco doesn't have the same health effects as smoking conventional tobacco. One final comment is that there are other delivery services. So doing Google searches I landed on a website called LocalHarvest.org (my brother works at the University of British Columbia Farm and had heard of the site). There was a review of one of the delivery services which stated that this provider doesn't say the source farm for the produce. The review said that they didn't want to use that because of labor conditions at certain farms. Papa Spud's will report the name of the farm although there isn't any way to search for a particular farm. In my case I'm often just buying the same veggies from the same farms (sweet potatoes, collards, kale from Wise Farms and Cox Farms). I believe I also purchased from both of their farm stands when I used to go to the North Carolina State Farmers Market. I don't know the labor conditions on all the different farms in the area, but I think it was that review that led me to pick Papa Spud's.

customer service could use a lot of work. Not helpful and condescending when we were trying to…read moreremedy the situation, which was just simply giving them our new credit card information. Big bummer. We went with another local instead.

Went to Millstone Creek Orchards to see the Highland baby cows, and apple Orchards. They grow more…read morethan just apples, they have blackberry bushes and numerous varieties of apples. They were selling fresh pick strawberries and strawberries, slushy and apple cider slushy's. They also sell ice cream and seasonal mini donuts with icing, right now strawberry donuts were in season. It was a beautiful day to explore this Orchard and the people working here are very friendly. They do have playgrounds for children and a restaurant on property..

While visiting our daughter, we decided to go apple picking. The day that we went (8/30) was the…read morefirst day of apple picking season. You have to purchase tickets online (no on-site sales) and it's $18.95 pp which gives you access to the apple orchard, apple tasting, hayride to the orchard, cider pressing demonstration with a fresh cider sample and access to the catch and release fishing pond. They suggest that you bring your own pole and bait. You also get to sample an apple cider slushee which was refreshing after being in the sun picking apples. If you want to pick apples, it's an additional cost based on whether you want a 1/4 peck or 1/2 peck. You have to purchase that when you purchase your event ticket. The apples that they had available were Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Fuji and a really tart apple that's good for baking (I forget the name of the apple). They also have Arkansas Black apples but they weren't ready for picking yet. We had a great time picking apples. We're from South Florida where you only see apples in the grocery store. There's a play area for the kids to run around and play. It's a fun activity, especially if you have kids.

This place is really cute. The selection of locally sourced items is great, they range from pasta…read morefrom Melina's and Redneck BBQ Lab Sawse to fresh seafood and produce. I need to make it a point to visit more often to support local.

I passed by this cute little farm stand/market on my backroads way of taking my oldest son back to…read moreNC State and decided I would stop by on my way back into Holly Springs. I was very surprised to see all of the local sauces and condiments on display. I was pleasantly greeted and it was a very pleasurable experience. There's local beef, pork, and seafood along with some very beautiful and fresh vegetables. I was also taken back to my childhood when I spotted NEHI sodas in the soda case. I will definitely be frequently this to support local farmers. I purchased a watermelon, cabbage, local pork sausage, frozen field peas, and sodas.

amazing produce selection and very friendly staff!!! the prices are great and they have a $25 bag…read moredeal!

Excellent food and ambiance. Every time I go, the clerk at the counter has a great smile and…read moresouthern hospitality. The shoppers are kind and community centered swapping recipes while sharing their favorite produce of the week. So happy I found this place.