Meet the Farmers

The Friendly Market promotes local farmers to help our community. See a photo gallery of the farms where produce and plants are grown.

The Plant Stand

The Plant Stand at The Friendly Market is locally owned and operated by Greg and Jackie Garner of Newport. They are a nursery, tree farm, and greenhouse operation. The greenhouse operation consists of over 18,000 sq ft of heated space. Their horticulturalist, Ken Garner, man ages and supervises daily operations. They grow plants from seed, rooted cuttings, and patented plugs supplied by authorized companies. The tree farm consists of more than 8,000 trees growing on approximately 17 acres. They have a wide variety of trees available in many sizes. Their container nursery has thousands of shrubs and container grown trees from which to choose.

A visitor to The Plant Stand at The Friendly Market will find beautiful hanging baskets, perennials, and annuals. They plant over a thousand different varieties of annuals, perennials, veggies, and herbs. The customer is guaranteed a superior product grown locally, already acclimated to our climate because they grow their own plantings.

Early spring items to look for in March include cold weather veggies, herbs, and flowers. As plants mature in the greenhouses, they are brought to the market. In April and May, the tables are full of new and different plants ready for planting.

As summer arrives, the focus is on drought tolerant annuals and perennials. Portulaca hanging baskets are well known for their tolerance of heat, drought, and salt spray. They also keep fresh crops of flowering annuals and herbs excellent for sprucing up holiday cookouts.

September and October brings pansies, mums and pumpkins. This year in addition to raising several thousand mums, theywill grow 10 acres of pumpkins. “The Pumpkin Patch” will open in late September at The Friendly Market providing a large area for the kids to pick out that perfect pumpkin. Thousands of pumpkins, in a real growing pumpkin vine patch at The Friendly Market, will be the highlight of fall! This will be fun, as well as, educational. Kids should know that pumpkins grow on a vine, not in a cardboard box at a large retailer.

November turns their attention to the holiday season. Their Christmas trees fresh from Boone, are all handpicked in the field. They choose all our trees from 5’-16’ tall, and transport them in trucks straight to the market. They are kept in water to preserve their freshness. They are also a dealer for the Core Sound crab pot trees. So whatever the season, come visit The Plant Stand at The Friendly Market.

The Plant Stand is a division of Garner’s Landscaping, which provides installation services, lawn maintenance, and design advice. We also design and install waterfalls, retaining walls, paver driveways, and patios, as well as, pervious pavers.

Garner Farms

Garner Farms is a family owned and operated farm. Their family works together with the different lines of products to make this a successful business, which they all enjoy and hope to continue in the future. Garner Farms strives to grow the best quality and most varieties of flavorful produce that appeal to their customers. They cater to local restaurants and continue to stay aware of new and upcoming lines of produce that are attractive. Garner Farms works hard to be 100% local in produce. They start their season in mid-April and end in late December. They specialize in asparagus, berries, corns, tomatoes, squashes, beans, freens, melons, peppers, herbs, fresh cut flowers, jams, jellies and baked goods.

Quinn Produce

Quinn Produce at The Friendly Market is owned and operated by Bo Quinn of Newport. Quinn Produce has been operating since 1999 with help from his twins, Brooke and Aaron.

Quinn Produce is a certified NC produce farm and a member of the Goodness Grows in North Carolina program. They grow a wide variety of veggies and berries available from early spring through late fall.

Produce season kicks off in April with strawberries, onions, greenhouse tomatoes, garden peas, lettuces, and more. During the next few weeks, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, carrots, radishes and more strawberries will be available. Along with the earlier produce, later in May, customers will also find potatoes, green beans, cucumbers, squash, eggplant, fresh cut flowers and much more. In June, blueberries, several kinds of sweet corn, peppers, okra, and early South Carolina peaches will be available at the market. Finally in July, Bogue Sound watermelons and cantaloupes arrive, followed in the fall by apples, plums, grapes, sweet potatoes, collards and pecans. This is just a sampling of what Quinn Produce will have to offer this year. Fresher is better. So when you think produce, think local. Please come out and visit Quinn Produce at The Friendly Market early and often because our produce changes weekly throughout the season and each season always seems too short.

Native Sons Seafood

Native Sons Seafood was started July 3, 2008. They are a family owned seafood business. Their father, Ron Sparks, has been a commercial fisherman since he could walk and has always dreamed of owning his own fish house. He never thought his oldest daughter would be his partner in the business and in the boat. Felicia Hartsough went to school for dental assisting and graduated with honors, but just couldn’t stay away from the water or seafood.

They catch most of the seafood they handle, or buy it right off the boats down east. Their goal is to bring customers and familes the freshest seafood in Carteret County. There are some things that must be purchased such as hand picked crab meat and oyster in the pints, as they do not have the building capacity or the permits to be able to supply those items; however they do have a local and very dependable supplier.

During the winter, hours vary at the store as they run the store and Felicia is the first mate on the boat. They try to catch sea mullets, speckled trout, and croakers during the winter. When spring comes, they start fishing for different types of fish such as blue fish, Spanish mackerel, sea mullets, shad for shad roe. Hard crabbing starts and peeler pots for soft crabs. They have their own shedding operation in straits on the water, soft crabs are a very time consuming process. These crabs have to be checked every hour on the hour whether it is 2 in the afternoon or 3 in morning with pouring rain. Soft crabs usually come in late March, depending on the water temperatures, along with shrimp, which means summer is right around the corner. During the summer they carry shrimp, crab meat, sea scallops, clams, and fish of all flavors: spots, hog fish, speckled trout, gray trout, black drum, red drum, flounder, croakers, spanish mackerel and a few others. They do not carry deep sea fish such as tuna, grouper, mahi mahi, or king mackerel. During the fall they go roe mulleting, which are jumping mullets with fish eggs. They try to meet orders every year but it is such a delicacy. They carry oysters in the shell but can only be purchased from their store located on Harkers Island Road, before you get to Harkers Island. They also have oyster in the pints, be sure to pre-order for the holidays so you can make oyster stuffing.

Their market hours during the summer are Tuesday-Saturday 10 am- 6 pm. Spring – Fall 10 am- 5 pm, Saturdays they close at 2 pm. The winter hours vary just call 252-728-5555. They will be at The Friendly Market Fridays and Saturdays.