Chappell Peaches

For the last couple years, our visit to Chappell Peaches has always included long discussions with owner, Ken Chappell. We love his crazy breadth of knowledge on all things peaches, but as they approach the farm’s 100th birthday next year, we thought we’d take some time to visit with the future of Chappell Peaches.

Evan and Margaret are Ken’s children and the next generation of Chappell Peaches. Since they were kids, they have worked just about every summer in the orchard or at their farm stand in Eagle Springs. Margaret was even the Peach Queen in high school (see pic below).

Margaret went to college at UNC and actually worked as a middle school teacher right here in Cary for 8 years. Even during all that years, she would still come help on the farm during summers. In 2020, she felt a calling to go back home and returned to the farm helping run the stand and organizing all the farmer’s markets.

Evan went to study Agri-business at NC State, returning to the farm right after graduating. Since then, he’s been helping his dad run the orchard and absorbing as much of Ken’s multi-generational knowledge as he can. And although Evan may not have ever been a Peach Queen, he does now serve as the President of the NC Peach Growers Society that crowns that Queen each year.

Ken is still running the show and very active, but Margaret and Evan are taking on more each year and have played a big part in expanding the farms reach. Along with their roadside farm stand, you can now find Chappell Peaches at 4 farmers markets where they sell over 30 varieties of peaches and apples.

Farming is a hard business. And there aren’t exactly a ton of young folk pounding down the door to take on long, physical, unstable work for almost no money. Which is why seeing so many young farmers stepping up in our visits this year has left us inspired.

In a world full of people using AI to reduce their workload, farmers are rolling up their sleeves and showing us there’s no replacement for hard work.