A Fork in the Road Podcast: Calhoun Produce

Caption

Sheila Rice from Calhoun Produce

Credit: GPB

 

Sheila Rice: So, this bean has been picked today, it was growing this morning. So in 24 hours, this morning to tonight, you could be eating this butter bean or this pea. 

David Zelski: At Fork in the Road, agri-tourism is our bread and butter. Sometimes literally. We’re always on the lookout for spots that showcase the great food grown by Georgia farmers, and also provide an interactive experience. And at Calhoun Produce in Ashburn, we found just what we were looking for.

Theme Song: I came from the mud, there's dirt on my hands. Strong like a tree, there's roots where I stand.

David Zelski: I'm David Zelski, and this is the Fork in the Road podcast presented by Georgia Grown and the fine folks at Georgia Public Broadcasting. Each episode, we feature stories from Georgia's farmers, fishermen, merchants, artisans, chefs and others who help provide Georgia-grown products to folks in the Peach State and beyond. Today we’re headed south visit Calhoun Produce. It started in 1982 as a predominately row crop farm and has evolved over the years to be a seasonal hotspot destination for argi-tourists across the state. Families can pick strawberries in the spring, walk through the corn maze in the fall, take a wagon ride tour, and visit farm animals and honeybees. There’s even a pig race!

It says pig sounds....do I need to make pig sounds?

There’s always something happening at Calhoun Produce, with fresh fruits and vegetables growing every season. And yes, they are easy to find. When you’re driving I-75, get off at Exit 92, go six miles east and — here’s the key — look for the giant strawberry. And speaking of strawberries, they were in peak season when I visited. On a beautiful spring day, I spoke with Sheila Rice, a second-generation owner. Her parents Gerald and Joyce founded Calhoun Produce Inc. over 40 years ago.

Sheila Rice: And this is our 25th year growing strawberries so we are proud of that. We're a family farm here. And we grow two and a half acres of strawberries. And this is April. And we are — we've got a field full. We had some rain last week. And so we have a special going on strawberries right now because we need some people out here picking them. So we've got a lot of strawberries and a lot of red strawberries and we're in peak season. We've just got a really good, sweet strawberry. We grow camarosas, that's the variety we grow here. And they've always done really good for us. 

David Zelski: Calhoun Farms also offers a variety of activities that are fun for the whole family.

Sheila Rice: We call it fun on the farm. So every Saturday we bring families out. We have wagon rides to see the animals. We have buffalo, horses, sheep, goats, pig races. We want families to come out to the farm, visit our honeybee house that we think is a great educational experience. We have a combine playground. It's really fun.

David Zelski: A combine playground? I gotta see this. 

Sheila Moore: So this is our combine playground. This is an additional playground we have here. And we took an old combine. And my brother Brad, my husband, Mike, they kind of made it a playground, you know, they added a swing and a slide and the kids can get inside and act like they’re driving. And just added some sand and made it fun.

David Zelski: Sounds like the best time a kid can have with a piece of farm equipment. So what else is there for families at Calhoun Produce?

Sheila Rice: A little red barn full of animals, a duck race, slides, swings. We just want the families to come out. But while you're here get an educational experience, too. We do field trips during the week, so we hope you'll pick strawberries while you're here and enjoy some homemade strawberry ice cream also. 

David Zelski: Don’t worry, y’all, I’m way ahead of you. Let’s hear more about that ice cream.

Sheila Rice: Well, it is made with our strawberries, of course, and it's really good. You have to taste it before you leave. 

David Zelski: Believe me. I did. And it's unreal.

Sheila may be the owner of Calhoun Produce, but the queen lives in the honey bee house. As Sheila tells me, the bees there don’t just make honey, they provide an educational experience.  

Sheila Rice: The bees! On our field trips, of course, we take the kids in there. They get to see the bees. We have a live bee exhibit there and they see the bees. And in the case, they'll find the queen bee, of course, in there.

Sheila Rice (in honey house): There’s the queen. A little dot on her back. We mark her so we can find her easy.

Sheila Rice: There's a tube going to the outside, so the bees are on their own. They're coming and going. And we teach them about the bees, so when they get out here to the strawberry field, they won't be scared of the bees. Because we can't have any crops, and our food and flowers — we have to have bees to survive. So that's what we're trying to teach the kids, not to be scared of the bees. We need bees.

David Zelski: The bees are definitely what the buzz is about at Calhoun Produce. They’re crucial to the whole process of growing these delicious red strawberries. When I visited the farm I got to see different stages of that process firsthand.

Sheila Rice: It starts out like this. There's your bloom. That's what them bees are out here pollinating. So are we on the field trips we tell the kids, don't pick the little flowers. So that's your bloom. That's starting out to be a strawberry, you see, And you see how it's changing? Growing.

To go from flower to berries, is about 30 days, full-grown red berry. And then it just go through stages, you know, like it just keeps ripening up. Now strawberries, once you pull it off that vine, it's not going to ripen it up. So, when you pull it off, make sure it's red all the way at the top because they do not ripen up like like the tomato does after it's picked. So get it red.

David Zelski: A strawberry-picking tip to live by. When I talked to Sheila in the springtime, strawberries were the jam at Calhoun Produce. But it isn’t their main crop. June through October, it’s a different story. You butter bean-lieve it.  

Crowd: *groan*

Sheila Moore: June through 1st of October, mid-October is our main crop here at county produce. We grow butter beans and peas and we shell them fresh daily. And so you can come here and get you some fresh-shelled butter beans, butter peas, pink eye peas, cranes, zippers, black eyes — you name it, we've got the peas here. We shell it daily. You can get it 8-pound bags, 4-pound bags. Or if you just want a mess, come here to our farm. We also have a second location at the Cordele State Farmers Market, and we're open up there June and July. But we would love for you to come down and get some fresh butter beans and peas and, you know, just give us a call because we have a different variety every day. But that is our main thing we do here at Calhoun Produce: butter beans and peas.

David Zelski: How these butter beans and peas get ready for market is a unique and fascinating process.

Sheila Moore: All the peas are handpicked. Our butter beans are machine-picked. We have big harvesters that we pick those with. They go in the hopper, and then they come here to the packing house.

Sheila Rice (in packing house): These are the butter beans have just been picked, come straight  out of the field. They've been graded on a grading line. There's 30 pounds in a bushel, so now it's going to be shelled through our continuous sheller.

Sheila Moore: We shell them and pack them. They're really clean when we get through with them; we try to have it as clean as possible so you don't have much work to do at all except wash them when you get them home and blanch them.

David Zelski: The butter beans and peas get sealed up in a nice package for you to bring home.

Sheila Rice: This is the end product. This is what it looks like after we have shelled it. And so we have our, you know, our label on, our Georgia Grown, of course. This is the traceability, it tells you everything about the product. So we do food safety here at the farm. So this is just — this is our cooler where it comes in to get it really cold before it gets shipped out to local grocery stores, to your home. So, this bean has been picked today, it was growing this morning. So that is fresh and it could be on your table tonight. So you could be eating it. So, you know, in 24 hours — this morning to tonight — you could be eating this butter bean or this pea. 

David Zelski: Butter beans are a staple of the Southern kitchen. They’re high in protein, fiber and carbohydrates. If you’re not from the South, you might know them as lima beans.

Sheila Rice: It’s the same as the lima bean. But, you know, in South Georgia, we call it a butter bean. A small little baby green butter bean. My daddy's been growing it since 1980 and we do a lot of them here on the farm. And if you haven't ever had one, you need to try butter beans. Cooked with corn and some fried chicken. You know, they're just great on a good Southern plate with butter beans. But I mean, there are other recipes I'm sure you can do with them. But me personally, I just like a plate of butter beans with your good southern vegetables. 

David Zelski: By now I’m sure we’ve sold you on the butter beans. But at Calhoun Produce, that’s far from the only thing they grow. If you’re a fan of peas, even the more obscure varieties, this place is a wonderland. Mmm. Peas.

Sheila Rice: We have pink-eye peas back here. We do cream 40s, white acres, zipper peas, black eyes, lady fingers. So we do have a variety of peas also. Yeah, we do 6 or 7 varieties every day. We have four shellers, so some days we are shelling four or five varieties during the day. So you can come here and get I mean, a freezer — you know, you can stock your freezer full. You can bring coolers, we have ice and you can get pinkeyes, zippers, creams, butter beans. You know, more than probably you want to process at home in a day. 

David Zelski: Butter bean and pea season is six months long and it is split into two different phases.

Sheila Rice: We start the first week of June, go through mid-October on butter beans and peas. So we have a summer crop and we have a fall crop. So it's a long season, longer than most people think because we just keep planting. It's 70 days on butter beans, about 60 days on peas once you put it in the ground.

David Zelski: Sheila tells me the butter beans and peas are actually grown at the same time as the strawberries. Since both crops need different amounts of rain, this sometimes has its drawbacks. Luckily though Sheila has a system to keep her crops perfectly hydrated year-round.

Sheila Rice: Strawberries don't like rain. But my problem is I'm growing butter beans and peas at the same time I'm growing strawberries. So I'm praying for rain in one field and I'm praying for no rain — well, not really no rain because it does need rain. But I can give it all the water I need because I have drip irrigation down each row so I can water what I need to. I can control it here where I can irrigate there. But some days it's going to rain a lot. We'll get out here and we'll try to pick really hard to get all we can get picked out of the field because this is fruit out that needs picking. If it's ripe, if it's really red ripe, it needs picking off the vine.

I mean, you can't — you can’t help but want to pick those. See this look? See how they just hanging? They need picking.

David Zelski: Now that we’ve picked our strawberries, visited the queen bee, watched some peas get packed, and played on the combine playground, there’s one thing more to do. Time to visit the retail store.

Sheila Rice:  In our store, we carry lots of Georgia Grown products. So while you're here, we try to support all our Georgia Grown friends and vendors and carry their products in our store. So we have jams, jellies, syrups, barbecue sauces, cheese straws, chocolates, pecans. And so while you're visiting us, I hope you'll stop by our store and enjoy some of that also. 

David Zelski: They even offer the perfect drink to top off a hot day on the farm.

Sheila Rice: So my momma, Joyce Calhoun, came up with this recipe back 25 years ago when we started growing strawberries. So it's our homemade strawberry lemonade. We sell it by the cup, by the gallon, by the half gallon. But this we put it in a slush machine, make it strawberry lemonade slushie. Or you can get it with ice. So this is a specialty of ours here, and it's really good. We are known for our strawberry lemonade, so you got to have one of these, too. We serve it in two sizes. A regular or large.

David Zelski: You’re gonna want the large.

We’ve had quite a day at Calhoun Produce, and we've only gotten to a fraction of the activities they have to offer.

So next time you’ve got a free Saturday, gather the family and head to Ashburn for a relaxing day of fun on the farm. Your heart and your stomach will thank you.

Sheila Rice: You don’t just pick strawberries, you get a farm experience.

David Zelski: For more stories like this one, you can watch A Fork in the Road on GPB-TV or any time on the GPB.org website. GPB.org/Podcasts is where you can listen to and subscribe to this podcast or download it on your favorite podcast platform.

I'm David Zelski. Thanks for listening to A Fork in the Road.

 

The A Fork in the Road TV show airs Saturdays at noon and Sundays at 6:30 a.m. on GPB-TV. Check your local listings for other replays throughout the week and watch all episodes anytime at GPB.org/ForkintheRoad.  Please download and subscribe to the Fork in the Road podcast at GPB.org/ForkintheRoadpodcast or on your favorite podcast platform as well.