Sweet Peas Urban Gardens, LLC

The team at Sweet Peas Urban Gardens believes that urban farming is fundamental to the creation of healthy, sustainable food production for our growing metropolitan society. As more folks flock to revitalized inner cities and neighborhoods, the demand for locally produced fresh food is expanding, catalyzing a re-evaluation of the potential of these traditionally non-agricultural landscapes. Moving from rural fields of row crops to dense neighborhood farms and gardens constitutes an urgent and exciting transition.

Sweet Peas Urban Gardens has emerged to be one of the most successful pioneers of this transition in the Triangle. Started by Tami Purdue on her own residential property, Sweet Peas Urban Gardens stays true to the name; this urban farm is located less than 2 miles from downtown Raleigh. The team grows over fifty-five varieties of microgreens and vegetable shoots exemplifying the precepts of the urban farm movement. The farm participates in the annual Eastern Piedmont Farm Tour sponsored by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.

Tami Purdue, the owner of Sweet Peas, is trained as an accountant and has a twenty year track record managing a very successful IP law practice in the Triangle. Her own "foodie" journey led her from rapt engagement with entertainment cooking, to organic gardening, to a profound fascination with all the ways food culture underlies manifold concerns of health, justice, identity and personal expression. What started out as avocation has turned into an ardent quest to seek mentors and fellowship, to fuse blue sky thinking with cash register reality, and to weaving a brocade of allies from the Interfaith Food Shuttle to NCSU to going businesses like The Produce Box, and Farm to Fork Meat, Raleigh Provisions and many local farmers' markets, to name a few.