Nobody in Alabama tells you where they farm by the compass. They tell you the Tennessee Valley, or the Black Belt, or down in the Wiregrass — and the dirt really does change with the name.
The Birmingham District is what’s open. It’s the old mineral country in and around Jones Valley, and the ring we drew runs about an hour out of the city in every direction worth driving: Shelby County to the south, Chilton County’s peach ground past that, Blount County over the ridge to the north. Ten farms, all ten of them in Alabama.
The ring is drawn by drive time, not by county line. An hour out of Birmingham reaches Clanton going one way and Oneonta going the other.
And the standing rule, on every page of this thing: call or check their own page before you drive out.
Iron country that turned into a city, ringed by ridges. Pasture and orchard ground start about twenty-five minutes out, and the peaches begin where the hills flatten toward Chilton County.
One ring so far, drawn an hour out from the city in every direction it makes sense to drive.
Nothing here yet. When it opens it’ll open the way Birmingham did — one ring at a time, starting with Huntsville and Decatur, and nothing goes in that we haven’t read in the farm’s own words.
Farm up on the river? Send us your place and you’ll be in the first batch.
Empty so far. It’s cattle and row-crop country more than it is u-pick country, so the listings will come slower here — and we’d rather come late than pad the page.
Know who’s selling off the place down there? Tell us who to call.
Also empty, and further off. Peanuts, satsumas and a growing season that runs weeks past ours — a different calendar than the one we keep, and we won’t write it until we’ve read it. Dothan and Mobile first, when we get there.
Farming south Alabama? Send us your place.
Every farm on this page is here because somebody read its own words and wrote them down. If that’s your farm and we got something wrong — or if you’re not on here at all — we want to hear from you. No fee, no ads, no catch.