Pfleger Pfarms is a carpentry and construction, farm and garden, nursery, and landscape design and installation business based in Mars Hill, NC and operated by Cassie and Randal Pfleger. We also offer seasonal crafts, workshops, and events. While we often work by ourselves, we collaborate with other contractors, gardeners, landscapers, permaculture designers, and landscape architects on larger scale projects. We work with earth, water, wood, stone, and people to create beautiful, functional, and productive indoor and outdoor spaces.
Our Story
Cassie and Randal met in graduate school at Appalachian State University back in the early 2000s, and have been working together ever since. They both hold Master of Arts degrees in Appalachian Studies from Appalachian State University. Randal’s undergraduate degree is in Latin American Studies. Randal studied abroad at the Catholic University of Ecuador in 1996. His life trajectory was greatly influenced by time spent in Salasaca, an indigenous community, where he was inspired by the indigenous communities’ connection with the earth, land, and heritage amidst significant outside pressure to change and modernize.
After graduating from the University of Virginia, Randal spent eight months in Central America, from Costa Rica north to Cancun, Mexico. During this time, Randal worked on tropical conservation projects, taught English as a second language, and visited numerous Mayan cultural destinations. Upon return to the United States, he quickly interviewed for a position again in Ecuador as a station manager of a thousand acre cloudforest private protected forest. In 1998-2001, Randal worked closely with local families and hundreds of international travelers on: agricultural projects including cattle, horses, pigs, chickens, trout, fencing, irrigation, greenhouses; building projects using cob, bamboo, and thatch; reforestation, medicinal plants, and eco-tourism.
Randal moved to Boone, NC in 2001 and worked on custom log home and stick frame construction projects in Boone and in Mountain City, Tennessee. Randal attended Appalachian State University 2002-2003 and conducted comparative Andean and Appalachian research. He interned with Blue Ridge Conservation and Development Council and focused efforts on expanding the landfill gas recovery project at the Yancey/Mitchell County landfill. He also studied abroad and did accompaniment work in Chiapas, Mexico and committed to radical community organizing. Upon graduation, Randal visited Colombia as a part of a human rights delegation with Witness for Peace.
Randal moved to Mars Hill and soon thereafter to West Asheville in 2004. He did landscape maintenance and installations at Brooks Howell Home, a 12 acre retirement community just north of downtown Asheville. In addition to working on diverse ornamental and native plantings there, he worked in the greenhouse, woodshop, fish ponds, built dry stacked stone retaining walls, built raised beds with hypertufa, expanded annual garden areas, and planted and maintained serviceberries, cherries, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, and figs.
Randal and Cassie moved to Harlan County, Kentucky in late 2007 to work at Pine Mountain Settlement School. PMSS is listed on the National Historic Register and includes more than 800 acres and 34 buildings. In addition to energy audits, assessments, and conservation efforts, Randal worked on agricultural projects on campus, with staff and visitors, and in the local community. He initiated the community garden on campus and a school garden in the community. He collaborated with partners to conceptualize and develop Grow Appalachia. In 2009, Grow Appalachia with support from Berea College worked with four partner organizations and more than 100 local families to grow food and address food security. Grow Appalachia continues today and has collaborated with dozens of community organizations in Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia and worked directly with more than 100 families.
Randal returned to Asheville in late 2010. In early 2011, he became involved with Bountiful Cities, a community organization that works in community gardens, urban agriculture, and food justice. Randal volunteered and later co-managed the Pearson Community Garden, Bountiful Cities’ flagship garden. He directed Grass to Greens, an edible landscaping social enterprise, from 2011 through 2016. In that time, he grew the enterprise and worked with landowners, homeowners, and businesses to grow more food on their properties. He and his crew of up to 10 members worked throughout Asheville and Buncombe County and worked on up to 100 properties a year. In addition to Grass to Greens, Randal worked with the Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council, the Urban Agriculture Alliance, the Asheville Community Garden Network, and the Buncombe Fruit and Nut Club. He worked in more than a dozen school, church and community gardens including Pisgah View, HillCrest, and Burton Street Peace Gardens, Rhodes Garden at UNCA, Shiloh Community Garden, and the George Washington Carver Edible Park.
Randal earned his permaculture design certificate from We Are All Farmers Permaculture Institute in 2013. This training empowered Randal to synthesize many of his experiences and pursue larger-scale design install projects. Some of the most notable projects include a 4-acre polyculture orchard in the Marshall area, a tropical residential landscape in Saint Thomas, consulting on a Nicaraguan coffee estate, and numerous residential property design and installation projects.
Randal left Bountiful Cities at the end of 2016 to pursue Pfleger Pfarms. He managed an addition and remodeling project that added more than 1000 square feet of interior space and 900+ square feet of multi-level deck. The renovation project also included significant water management, storage, ponds, irrigation, and stormwater projects. Our nursery has greatly expanded and has grown onto additional properties.
This year, 2019, represents the first year that we are fully operating Pfleger Pfarms. Randal continues to collaborate with long-term clients in Marshall and Woodfin on 160-200 acre farms and homesteads, works with residential clients in north Asheville with mature and establishing edible landscapes. Randal is working with partners to develop the Smith Farm property as a public park on Bailey Mountain in Mars Hill and is interested to collaborate on projects in Madison and Yancey county in addition to north Asheville, Woodfin, Weaverville, and north Buncombe. Randal is also cultivating projects in Atlanta, Georgia and international projects in Nicaragua, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic.