Nobody down here says south Louisiana when they mean it. They say the Florida Parishes, or Acadiana, or up in the Delta — and the ground really does change with the name.
What’s open is the country north and around the lake. New Orleans and Baton Rouge sit eighty miles apart with the same farm ground in between them, so we drew one ring around both cities instead of two rings that would have listed the same places twice.
Ten farms in that ring, every one of them in Louisiana, every one read off its own website or Facebook page before it went in. Seven of the ten are up in the Florida Parishes — Tangipahoa and St. Tammany, where the strawberries and the dairies are. Two are inside New Orleans proper. One is in Baton Rouge.
A ring is drawn by drive time, not by parish line. This one reaches Kentwood at the Mississippi state line going north and stops at Baton Rouge going west — and a farm carries the region it’s actually in, not the region of the city it’s near.
And the standing rule, on every page of this thing: call or check their own page before you drive out.
The country north of Lake Pontchartrain that spent a while belonging to Spain and West Florida before it belonged to Louisiana. Strawberry ground at Hammond and Amite, dairies at Amite and Kentwood, blueberries and choose-and-cut pine over on the Northshore.
One ring so far, and this is where most of it sits — seven of its ten farms are up here.
The ring is named for New Orleans because that’s the drive people are measuring. The farms are mostly an hour north of it.
Both of these are in the ring above. Both are also, genuinely, farms inside New Orleans — which is rare enough to say out loud.
Two farm shares, no u-pick, no stand. In a city built on drained swamp the growing happens on the few pieces of ground that stayed high, and both of these sell a season at a time rather than a Saturday.
One farm so far, and it’s inside the city limits. Baton Rouge sits at the west edge of the ring — the rest of the capital parishes are still to be read.
Farming West Feliciana, Iberville, Ascension? Tell us who to call.
Nothing here yet. Prairie and crawfish ponds and rice, and a way of selling off the place we haven’t read enough of to write down. Lafayette and Breaux Bridge first, when we get there.
Farm out on the prairie? Send us your place and you’ll be in the first batch.
Also empty, and further off. The Delta cotton ground along the river and the piney hills west of it are two different kinds of farming that share a half of a state, and we won’t pretend to know either one yet. Shreveport, Monroe and Alexandria in their turn.
Know the country up there? Tell us who to call.
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.