This is the building that served as the long-time farm market for AJ Family Farm, located on Garland Highway. The marked closed its doors at the start of 2025.
                                 Michael B. Hardison | Sampson Independent

This is the building that served as the long-time farm market for AJ Family Farm, located on Garland Highway. The marked closed its doors at the start of 2025.

Michael B. Hardison | Sampson Independent

Sitting along the side of a quaint and quiet road in Garland for years has been a little building which AJ Family Farm used as its farmers market. While it’s served as a home base to purchase many of their naturally grown products, it recently closed up shop.

“Happy New Year!! After much thought we have decided to close our farm market,” said a post from the farm’s social media page. “Saturday will be our last day. We will still have BBQ hogs, whole hogs or whole cows available for order. We want to thank each of you for your support over the years and wish you a safe and prosperous 2025!”

That message was posted the first week of January, and the farm market, located at 15736 Garland Hwy., has since closed. Prior to, visitors could find everything from eggs, chicken, pork chops, burgers, fresh made sourdough bread, milk, butter, homemade pound cakes and much more in the little building, all of which were and/are fresh, local and naturally pastured-raised. That same level of natural growth practices also applied to their fruits and vegetables.

AJ Family Farms earliest posts for the farm market dates back to 2014 but it has served the community much longer than a decade. After being in operation for so long, life’s obligations forced them to to call it quits, said Mary Anne Johnson, of AJ Family Farm. It was just time, she said, saying those obligations had just taken precedence.

“It’s just simply because there’s some other stuff we need to do right now,” she said. “My husband (Anthony), he works at the farm and then, also, Monday through Friday, he helps Terry Long with electrical stuff. He’s always had a love for electrical stuff, and since we’ve been married he’s always been my electrical person if I needed something done.”

Johnson also has dual duties working the farm and serving in nursing. The pair have hopes to get out and do things they haven’t had time to with their hectic work schedules.

”Adding to that, we’ve just never had time to go travel or go anywhere,” she said. “Even when I was at the hospital and at the health department, I didn’t have time like others did on the weekend to go and do things.

For any of their former patrons, Johnson noted that even though the farm market has closed operations, AJ Family Farm will continue as normal just without the market. As for the location, Johnson said they’ll be passing it over to their children.

“Even when we close here, I’ll still have some things to do, but I’ll have a little bit more time at home,” she said. “I’ll be able to do something that if you want to do the last four years, when I left the health department, that I hadn’t had time to do either.

“With the building, well, we have supplied it to our son and daughter,”she said. “What they’ll do with it now I’m not sure, they may eventually sell it but that’ll be up to them to decide.”

Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.