Middle Creek Farms: Continuing the family legacy

Courtesy Dawson Pugh

by Summer Stevens

Summer Stevens photo

Preston Pugh inside a tractor tire at Middle Creek Farms.

Dawson Pugh wakes up every morning and gets to do what he loves. “I love to drive a tractor and I like growing food that people can eat.”

Middle Creek Farms in Engelhard farms several thousand acres and has grown corn and soybeans for over a century. Pugh’s great grandfather, Preston Mooney, started the farm in 1920, then called Middleton Farms. A potato bag from the original Middleton Farms is framed in his office, which is the house where Pugh himself was raised.

As a fourth-generation farmer at Middle Creek Farms, Pugh has seen his ups and downs in the farming industry. “Our biggest challenge is hurricanes,” he said. Five out of the last 10 years, the Hyde County farm has suffered from big storms that have all but eliminated the corn and soybean crops for the year.

For this reason, Pugh has invested in produce crops, for the principal reason that he can harvest them before hurricane season starts. He farms green beans, fresh market potatoes, broccoli, watermelon and the famous Mattamuskeet sweet onions, named after the lake located three miles from the farm.

Not that diversifying is new to Middle Creek Farms. “I remember my daddy trying new things,” Pugh recalls. “We’re always looking for new opportunities in produce and trying new crops.” Though currently the farm grows corn only for feed, Pugh would like to get back into growing sweet corn. But the hard part isn’t growing a new crop, it’s the rest of the process, such as packing it, cooling it and finding refrigerator space to

keep it in, then finding a supplier to sell it.

After harvesting, most of their current crops are sent to Pamlico Shores Produce, which Pugh co-owns with his lifelong friend, Hunter Gibbs. Gibbs handles the selling, food safety and the packing shed aspect of the business, while Pugh does the farming.

It’s a lot of work, but farmers are used to hard work and long hours. During planting season, Pugh and his team of nine employees will work 14-16 hours a day. “We try not to work on Sundays,” Pugh says. “We have a good group of guys.” Middle Creek Farms employs additional people in the summer during harvest season, but farming for the Pugh household is a family affair.

Pugh’s wife Bethany manages the onion sales, as well as does all of the bookkeeping for the business. They sell onions directly to the public from their packing shed, Pamlico Shores Produce, in 25 or 50 bags. Even their four children join in for onion season, greeting customers and helping with sales. One of the benefits of the COVIDrelated school closures was the opportunity for Pugh’s oldest son, seventeen-year-old Steven, to have an opportunity to see firsthand what happens at the farm during the spring season. “He said ‘I thought I wanted to farm to farm, but now I know it,’” Pugh said. There’s no pressure for their children to become fifth generation farmers, and both Dawson and Bethany Pugh agree that in this industry, “You’ve gotta love it!”

And Pugh comes from many generations of people loving this land. “This is some of the oldest farmland in the country,” he said. Neighboring farms might find wood stumps or other debris in their fields, but not at Middle Creek Farms. “It’s been cleared so long ago,” Pugh said.

Middle Creek Farms is going to keep the legacy going, doing what they love, and pursuing excellence. “If we’re going to do it,” Pugh said, “we’re going to do it right.” 

Summer Stevens photo Dawson, Bethany and Preston Pugh