Carey's Farmstand / Carey Farms — Wagener

When sweet-corn season arrives at Carey Farms, the instructions are waiting in a mailbox.

Follow the signs into the field, pick the farm’s bicolor corn, and use the honor system. It is a small detail, but it explains something important about this New Holland farm.

Carey Farms describes three generations contributing to the operation. What began with poultry grew into beef cattle, hay, feed corn, sweet corn and cotton. The family has spent about 20 years building its Angus-cross herd, now keeping roughly 30 to 40 cow/calf pairs at a time. The cattle are rotationally grazed, fed hay grown on the farm and finished with supplementary grain.

At 2494 New Holland Road, Carey’s Farmstand brings that work closer to the people buying supper. Carey Farms beef is sold by the cut and in periodic bundles, while the stand also makes room for goods from other local producers—milk, pimento cheese, coffee, baked goods, chicken, pork and seasonal produce as available.

The farmstand has also become a gathering place. Seasonal markets bring makers, food trucks and families to the farm; this November, Christmas at Carey’s Farmstand will add vendors, a letter-to-Santa station and a kids’ play area.

But the easiest detail to remember is still that mailbox. A family grows the corn. Neighbors walk into the field. The exchange works because somebody trusts somebody else.

That is Carey Farms in miniature.