On the Farm

Picking Peanuts in Eastern North Carolina

Chloe Tuttle — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 18:00:28 +0000

Picking peanuts always takes me back to my childhood in eastern North Carolina. My nephew Barney and I spent countless afternoons playing hide-and-seek among the peanut fields. Back then, farmers dug the peanuts and stacked them on poles to dry before harvesting. The fields carried a rich, earthy scent that seemed to linger everywhere, a smell I still associate with those carefree days on the farm.

Harry Roberson leaning on his Peanut Stacks in Gold Point, NC, circa 1940 (Thanks to Hank Roberson for the use of his grandfather’s photo)

We loved to hide behind these stacks and to climb them, much to the dismay of my parents. All the children in the neighborhood joined us and we stayed out until way after dark. Sadly, the peanut stacks are gone.

Today, farmers harvest “pick” peanuts a little differently. After the peanuts are dug, they are left in the fields to dry naturally in the sun. Once they have dried, a peanut picker moves through the rows, lifting the plants and separating the peanuts from the vines. As the machine works, the harvested peanuts are collected while the dried vines are discharged out the back. Later, another piece of equipment comes through to gather and bale the leftover vines into peanut hay, creating a valuable source of livestock feed.

Peanuts Drying in the Fields in eastern North Carolina out the Kitchen Window at Big Mill B&B circa 1959

Folks often ask me what is upstairs in the Pack House loft. Well, it used to be full of peanut hay that was used all year to feed the mules. I remember the sight and smell of it as if it were yesterday. And, truthfully, sometimes you can still smell the peanut hay; just like you can still smell curing tobacco on hot August nights.

There are newer, fancier machines than this one, but these older versions are my favorites. These peanuts belong to Bill Griffin, my next door neighbor. This was taken in 2015.

If you know a peanut farmer, or if you live in the South, you probably know all about Boiled Peanuts. These are the young, not quite mature peanuts that we call Green Peanuts. Be sure to try my Boiled Peanuts Recipe for these salty treats that can be found at roadside stands all over the Southern USA.

Big Mill Bed & Breakfast Extended Stay

Quiet rentals for traveling nurses & professionals in eastern North Carolina 252-792-8787

Looking for extended stay lodging in Eastern North Carolina? Big Mill Extended Stay offers quiet, fully furnished rentals ideal for traveling nurses, medical professionals, contractors, and guests relocating to the area. Our accommodations provide comfort, privacy, and Southern hospitality – perfect for short-term or long-term stays. We also have three RV rental spaces.

Sweet Pickle Relish – Southern Cooks Can’t Cook Without It

Chloe Tuttle — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 13:00:57 +0000

All Good Southern Cooks Have a Sweet Pickle Relish Recipe

Southerners Love Our Sweet Pickle Relish

We don’t buy the relish, we make it ourselves from old family recipes. Each family has its own recipe; some add peppers and onions. I like the simple one. Often we just chop up last year’s sweet cucumber pickles.

Southern Deviled Eggs with Sweet Pickle Relish

Sweet Pickle Relish is a main ingredient in southern chicken salad, potato salad, ham salad, and deviled eggs. One of our chefs here in this small eastern North Carolina town makes his own sweet pickles to use in recipes – it is a main ingredient in his famous chicken salad.

A Southern Sweet Pickle Relish Recipe: Easy Homemade Canning Favorite

Course Appetizer, Condiments

Cuisine southern

Keyword relish, sweet cucumber pickles, Sweet pickles

Servings servings

Calories 769kcal

Author Chloe Tuttle

Cost $30.00

Equipment

1 Hot water-bath canning pot
1 jar tongs
1 wide mouth funnel
1 chopper
9 half-pint canning jars
9 jar lids and rings

Ingredients

7 lbs cucumbers
2 cups pickling lime
1/2 gallon distilled white vinegar 5% acidity strength
5 pounds sugar
3 Tablespoons pickling spice
double piece cheesecloth
1 piece cotton string

Instructions

Wash the whole cucumbers and remove any dirt. Cut off and discard the ends. Then slice the cukes into rounds 1/2" thick.
Mix the lime and several cups of water in a large ceramic, stainless steel, or enamel container. Stir until well-blended. I wear a mask - the lime has a way of getting in the air.
Add more water to the lime mixture and stir. Add the cut cucumbers. Add enough water to cover the cucumbers. Using a wooden, plastic, or stainless steel spoon, stir to mix the lime into the water and cover the cucumbers. I wear gloves, you really don't want the lime on your hands. Be careful -- the cucumbers will break easily. Soak 24 hours or overnight. Stir several times to blend the lime. Use your hands or the spoons to stir the lime mixture. You can also soak for 2 days if something comes up.
After soaking overnight, drain cucumbers and rinse in clear water. Let sit in the clear water and rinse every hour on the hour for a total of 4 times. In other words, you will drain and put fresh water in the bowl 4 times. Do a final drain.
Pour 1/2 gallon of the 5% white distilled vinegar into a large stainless steel or enamel cooking pot (I use a big soup pot).
Start heating the vinegar and stir in 5 pounds of sugar. Using a piece of double cheesecloth about 6" square, tie up 3 Tablespoons of pickling spice and put that in the sugar-vinegar mixture. Cook and stir until the sugar is melted.
Add the drained cucumbers and bring to a boil and then turn burner off. Let stand overnight.
The next day bring the pickles to a boil and boil for 1 hour.
Take the sliced cucumber pickles out of the pot and drain in a colander, reserving the pickle juice. Remove and discard the spice bag. Move the pickles to a large plastic bowl. Working in batches, chop pickle slices into relish-sized pieces. Return the relish to the pot with the hot vinegar mixture, keeping the mixture warm.
Put relish in the jars and fill with the pickle juice, filling jar to 1/2" from the top. See below for instructions.
To process in hot water bath, see below.

To Process and Can the Relish

You will need a canning pot, large stainless steel or enamel cooking pot, wide mouth funnel, canning tongs, chopper, a big stainless spoon and several large colanders. You will also need 8 or 9 half-pint jars and canning jar lids and rings.
While pickles are cooking, fill the canning pot at least half full of water. Turn stove on high to bring to a boil.
Sterilize at least 8 half-pint jars.
Place the new lids in a metal bowl. Pour boiling water into the bowl to sterilize the lids.
Using the wide-mouth funnel, ladle the relish into the sterilized jars. Add the pickle juice to each jar, filling to 1/2" of top of jar. I use a wooden spoon handle to pack better
Wipe top of jar and place sterilized lid on jar. Add jar ring and tighten. Place seven filled jars in canning pot.
Process in boiling water bath for five minutes.
After five minutes, remove jars from the canning pot using the tongs. Place the jars on a heat proof surface and allow to cool. Do not move the jars until they are cool. People seem to want to pick them up.....just say NO.
Repeat for remaining jars of relish.

Nutrition

Big Mill Bed & Breakfast Extended Stay

Quiet rentals for traveling nurses & professionals in eastern North Carolina 252-792-8787

Boiled Green Peanuts – Southern Style

Chloe Tuttle — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 13:30:39 +0000

As that famous Georgia bumper sticker says, “It is time to Brake for Boiled Peanuts.”

Just-dug peanuts – green peanuts – are one of the first signs that summer is quietly giving way to fall on the farm. And every year in early fall, we boil these green peanuts in the shell with lots of salt. They soak overnight, and the salt seeps through the shells to the peanuts. You crack the shell with your teeth and the peanuts are soft inside. They are a treat, but not for the timid. Boiled peanuts have a very unique taste.

Boiled Peanuts – a Southern Delight

In late August or September, you can find these green peanuts at farm stands and in some grocery stores like Piggly Wiggly.

Boiled Green Peanut Recipe – Southern Style

Course Snack

Cuisine American

Keyword boiled green peanut recipe, boiled peanut recipe, boiled peanuts

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 1

Total Time 1 10

Servings servings

Calories 431kcal

Author Chloe Tuttle

Ingredients

2-3 pounds raw green peanuts in the shell (this is about 12 cups peanuts with shells) The peanuts are not green, just raw
1/2-1 cup salt
3-4 quarts water or enough to cover the peanuts - add more water as they cook

Instructions

"Green" peanuts are not green; they are just young, raw peanuts. These peanuts are usually dug by hand several weeks before the farmer moves through the field with the machines that dig the peanuts. Here in eastern North Carolina, these green peanuts are ready late August or early September.
Wash the peanuts, still in the shells, several times until the water has no grit in it. Pick over and remove any bad peanuts and discard.
Put the peanuts still in shells into a large cooking pot. Cover with water at least 2 inches above the peanuts. Add the salt and stir.
Bring to a boil. Lower heat and boil slowly for 1-3 hours, depending on how mature or old the peanuts are. If the nuts are really young and pink, it will only take about 1 hour of cooking. If they are older, it can take up to 3 hours. You might also have to add water to keep the water level above the peanuts. Keep cooking until the peanuts are soft inside. Cooking time varies according to how old the peanuts are.
After they are done, they will continue absorbing the salt. If the salt taste is like you want it, then remove the peanuts from the salty water. They will keep in the refrigerator for several days.
Refrigerate or freeze after cooking.
It is much easier if you eat the peanuts outside. You can just spit out the shells.

Nutrition

Raw, Uncooked “Green” Peanuts at Piggly Wiggly in Williamston, NC

I grew up eating boiled peanuts, especially at the Tobacco Market auctions where everybody had a bag in hand. It was just what you did. That’s why I was so surprised, later on, to learn that friends who didn’t grow up in the South had never even heard of boiled peanuts – and couldn’t bear to eat them once they did.

These same folks usually had no idea that peanuts grow in the ground, not on some imaginary peanut tree. We all have plenty to learn, but down here, boiled peanuts have been teaching us for generations.

Peanuts Drying in the Fields in eastern North Carolina

After they were dug these peanuts were stacked to dry. When they were dry the Peanut Picking machine came through the field and picked the peanuts, leaving the hay behind. Later another machine would come and bale the hay that we fed to our animals.

Quiet rentals for traveling nurses & professionals in eastern North Carolina 252-792-8787 or 252-799-8787

Sweet Cucumber Pickle Recipe – a Southern Tradition

Chloe Tuttle — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:31:21 +0000

Sweet cucumber pickles are as southern as iced tea.

Chloe’s Sweet Cucumber Pickles are worth the trouble.

Not just any pickles either – they must be homemade and preferably homegrown. It is alright if someone gives you the cucumbers, or you pick them up fresh from your local Farmers Market.

We all have a sweet pickle family recipe that has been passed down and it usually involves days of work for our pickles to have just the right crunch. This recipe involved three days. Some of the older recipes take an entire week. It involves soaking in lime and rinsing and soaking and rinsing again.

This year I had to add some extra help so I coerced Cynthia, a B&B guest to help with the washing and slicing. She is a natural.

Southerners work pickles into all kinds of dishes – pickle relish, pickle juice, and chopped pickles show up in everything from chicken salad to potato salad to deviled eggs. And of course, I’ve got a homemade pickle relish recipe too.

My mother, Chloe, had several pickle recipes, but this one is my favorite.

FYI – I also have a pickle fork in several different sterling patterns. It’s a southern thing. And we all have to have a deviled egg plate, that too is a Southern thing.

Sweet Cucumber Pickles

Course Condiments

Cuisine American

Keyword sweet cucumber pickle recipe, sweet cucumber pickles

Prep Time 1 4 15

Cook Time 1 10

Resting 12

Total Time 1 17 25

Servings servings

Calories 237kcal

Author Chloe Tuttle

Ingredients

7 lbs cucumbers
2 cups pickling lime
Numerous buckets of water
1/2 gallon 5% white distilled vinegar most vinegar is 5%
5 pounds sugar - see note
3 Tablespoons pickling spice

Instructions

Use small or long pickling cucumbers. Burpless work too. Just don't use large cucumbers with many seeds. Wash the cucumbers. Slice crosswise into 1/8"-1/4" slices.
Mix 2 cups of lime with several cups of water in a large ceramic, enamel or stainless steel vessel. Stir to blend.
Add the cut cucumbers and enough water to cover them. Gently stir the mixture. Be very careful -- they will break so easily.
Soak for 24 hours.
I remember my mother making these pickles. Sometimes she had a plate on top to hold down the cucumbers. As you pass by, gently stir under the cukes, just to loosen the settled lime. Note: you can soak them for 48 hours and they are still wonderful.
After soaking for 24 hours, rinse the cucumbers in clear water. Then change the water every hour on the hour, 4 times.
Tie pickling spices in a double thickness of cheesecloth. Put 1/2 gallon distilled vinegar, 5 pounds sugar and the pickling spices into a large stainless steel or enamel cooking pot. Stir to melt the sugar. Add the cucumbers and bring to a boil. Let stand overnight.
Next day bring the cucumbers and vinegar to a boil and simmer for 1 hour. Pack pickles and vinegar mixture into sterilized jars according to canning instructions.

Notes

Yield 9-10 pints

These days sugar often comes in a bag that is 4 pounds instead of 5. If you are measuring, 5 pounds is about 11 1/4 cups of sugar.

Nutrition

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Big Mill Bed & Breakfast 252-799-8787

Berry Pickin’ Time – You Pick

Chloe Tuttle — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 19:30:28 +0000

Strawberry Picking Time

Strawberry picking is a spring tradition in eastern North Carolina. Guests at Big Mill B&B Extended Stay have several great options nearby. For pick-your-own strawberries, visit Griffin’s Farm Market on US 17 in Washington, NC – about 15 miles south of Big Mill – or SouthSide Farms in Chocowinity, roughly 25 miles away.

If you prefer fresh, already picked berries, Ross Farms, 1536 Garrett Road , Williamston, NC, is just 3 miles from Big Mill and offers beautiful, ready to enjoy strawberries.

Discover the best strawberry You-Pick experience while you are here. Pick, weigh, and take home gallons of ripe berries. Then the fun begins? Will it be Strawberry Jam or Strawberry Bread or maybe a great smoothie?

Every year, I try to make sure each of my guests gets a taste of fresh North Carolina strawberries – they’re one of the sweetest parts of spring here on the farm. Strawberry picking is a beloved spring tradition and I, as innkeeper, feel obliged to make sure everyone tastes fresh NC Strawberries.

Folks say berries from different fields have different flavors, and I believe them.

I love making strawberry jam for our Big Mill B&B guests. Don’t think I’m bragging, but my jam is an award-winning Strawberry Jam! It won best-of-show at our Farm Heritage Fair. And it surely does taste good.

When I was growing up, we would pick the berries, make jam and, on the very same night we ate homemade biscuits with jam and homemade butter. My biscuits aren’t nearly as good as my mother’s were, so I have to buy the frozen ones, but they’re still good.

Growing your own food and buying local is more than a trend in eastern North Carolina – it’s a way of life, and a good one. All around us you’ll find farmer’s markets, roadside vegetable stands, and local folks selling fresh produce straight from their fields. We even have vendors who sell collards right out of the back of a pickup truck. Supporting them keeps our community strong.

Plan to Visit:

Griffin Farms in Washington, NC 252-721-8277
Southside Farms in Chocowinity, NC 252-946-2487
or if you want the berries picked for you, then try Ross Farms in Williamston, NC 252-792-8829 or J&J Farms in Jamesville, NC 252-799-8110

Big Mill Bed & Breakfast Extended Stay – Peaceful Lodging for Traveling Nurses & Professionals 252-799-8787

Settle into a quiet, fully furnished space at Big Mill Extended Stay in Eastern North Carolina. Our rentals are perfect for traveling nurses, medical professionals, contractors, and guests who need a comfortable home base during long assignments. Enjoy privacy, farm views, and the welcoming charm Big Mill is known for. Three RV rental spaces are also available for extended stays.

Snow Cream Recipe – Making Snow Ice Cream

Chloe Tuttle — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 16:00:24 +0000

Back in December 2012, Scott Simon from NPR’s Weekend Edition called to interview me about my snow cream – and just like that, it became famous.

When it snows in eastern North Carolina, we absolutely fall to pieces. The moment the weather man whispers the word “snow,” folks rush out and clear every shelf of the grocery stores of milk and white bread. Me? I stock up on heavy cream, popcorn, and artichoke hearts. Then we settle in, cozy up, and wait for that rare, beautiful snowfall. Schools close, cameras come out, and suddenly everything looks worthy of a photo. And of course, we do the one thing that’s uniquely ours: we make snow cream.

I’m not sure how far north snow cream is made, but I do know you won’t find it anywhere past Virginia. Maybe it really is a true North Carolina treat. When I was growing up, we could hardly wait for snow; and most years we had to wait, because those rare winter storms didn’t come often.

Snow Cream

The kids will love making snow cream from new fallen snow.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword almond biscotti, snow cream, snow cream ice cream

Prep Time 10

Total Time 10

Servings servings

Calories 429kcal

Author Chloe Tuttle

Ingredients

1/2 to 3/4 cup cream
4 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg optional
1 bowl of light clean snow (6-8 cups)

Instructions

Cream together the cream, sugar and vanilla. Some folks add the egg, but I don't. Using a flexible utensil like a spatula, add the snow a little at a time to the cream mixture until it is the consistency of creamy ice cream.
You will have about 3 servings and you must eat it immediately because it melts fast! Oh, what a treat. (In a pinch you can use sweetened condensed milk in place of the cream and sugar. We always kept a can around just in case it snowed).
If you are caught unprepared, you can use tinned Eagle Brand Sweetened Milk. it is quite tasty.

Nutrition

At Big Mill Bed and Breakfast when it snows, we feed the birds, make snow cream, take photos of everything and play in the snow.

Sledding at Big Mill in the fifties

Above: a photo at Big Mill from years ago of Chloe Ann (left), that’s me and Chloe, Sr. on the right – my mother. Same yard, same outbuildings. We thought this was a big hill. Santa brought Nephew Barney and me these strange things called snowflakes. They were round, fast and steering them was impossible. But they were fun.

Be sure to check the December 2012 story by Scott Simon of Weekend Edition from NPR about my snow cream. Now it is famous!

Big Mill Bed & Breakfast, Williamston, NC 252-792-8787