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ORAL HISTORY

Elise Margoles

A Maine native, Elise Margoles has been farming in the North Carolina Piedmont since the early 2000s. Since age 25 she has managed her own farm, Elysian Fields, north of Carrboro in Cedar Grove. On 40 sandy acres of former tobacco land, Elise has found success with carrots, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, melons, and a variety of other fruits and vegetables. More recently, she has also ventured into pastured pork. She maintains a robust CSA of over 100 subscribers and has sold her produce at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market for a decade, first at the Wednesday Market and now on Saturdays as well. Inspired by some of the generation of Triangle farmers who began farming before she did, such as Alex and Betsy Hitt and her neighbor Ken Dawson, Elise now acts as an experienced mentor to her own interns and employees, several of whom are young women hoping to one day start their own farms.