Tag Archives: fresh produce

Mae’s on the Corner in Barnesville Is a Farm Stand Built on Sourdough, Hard Work, and Community

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Barnesville, GA |

Allie Andrews is someone who has a lot going on. She, her husband, and three kids run and operate a family farm in Lamar County that includes hay, poultry, and beef cattle. But as if that weren’t enough, Allie’s newest venture is Mae’s on the Corner — a small farm stand that has quickly become a community favorite.

“Mae’s on the Corner is about a two-acre vegetable garden where we grow all sorts of veggies — from tomatoes to black-colored sweet corn, squash, zucchini, green beans, butter beans,” said Andrews. “Along with Mae’s on the Corner, we have our shack, and in our shack, I love to personalize things for friends, family, and our community. We do sourdough bread, sourdough cookies, cinnamon rolls, an herb mix for the bread, and blueberry muffins.”

BORN FROM A PERSONAL JOURNEY

The baked goods didn’t start with a business plan — they came out of a personal health journey. But once friends and family got a taste, they encouraged Andrews to sell, and from there, things moved quickly.

“In February of last year, I had a little pop-up table in the front yard starting at six in the morning for teachers and people heading to school and work, and I sold out within about an hour,” Andrews said. “Every month after that — either the first or second Monday or Tuesday — I’d pop up my table, and it just grew from there.”

A TRUE TEAM EFFORT

What started as a table of baked goods has grown into a full farm stand experience, with fresh produce from their garden added thanks to the involvement of the whole family. For Andrews, that’s not just a convenience — it’s a conviction.

“We are raising the next generation to take over, and I can’t say that’s always the mindset on some farms. We want our kids to know we work for everything we get,” Andrews said. “If we’re not training up our kids — if we’re not allowing them to pick with us, plant with us, ride the tractor — who’s going to learn behind us? I think it’s just the coolest way to have them on the front lines, seeing it, putting in the hard work, understanding discipline. And in that discipline, you get to see the reward of the harvest.”

SERVING THE COMMUNITY AND BEYOND

For Andrews, Mae’s on the Corner has become more than a farm stand — it’s a way to serve the community she lives and works in. And now, as a member of the Georgia Farm Bureau Certified Farm Market program, that reach has grown considerably, drawing visitors from across the state.

“I hope that people gain the understanding that there’s a lot of work that goes into it, and they can appreciate shopping local because of that work,” Andrews said. “We have people with the passport that have come from Milledgeville, Athens, North Georgia, South Georgia, east, west — they’re all popping into these little shops and markets and shopping local. And to hear someone in the grocery store or at church say, ‘Hey, we stopped by your stand — you have the cutest setup,’ that means everything.”

For Allie Andrews, Mae’s on the Corner is proof that a pop-up table in the front yard, a loaf of sourdough, and a whole lot of heart can grow into something that feeds an entire community.

By: John Holcomb

Sweet Valley Farms Is Turning a Converted Shed Into a Lifeline for Fort Valley Families

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Fort Valley, GA |

Despite being located in a county famous for producing fresh fruits and vegetables, food insecurity is a major issue for many families in Fort Valley. That’s the idea behind Sweet Valley Farms — a small produce barn started by one university professor looking to provide a little relief to underserved families in the community.

“Sweet Valley Farms is a community-supported micro grocery. We realized that in our community there is a missing component of accessible, affordable, healthy food. So we decided to take a shed, convert it into a barn, and sell produce at a price that folks can afford,” said Hamidah Sharif-Amanyi, Assistant Professor at Fort Valley State University’s College of Agriculture.

ADDRESSING CHRONIC DISEASE THROUGH FRESH FOOD

The barn also helps tackle another major concern for the community — providing healthier food options in an area where diet-related illness is widespread.

“This community has one of the highest rates of chronic disease, including diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. It is also a high food insecurity area — there are lots of families, particularly during the summers when children are at home, where food is a lot more inaccessible,” Sharif-Amanyi said.

GROWN HERE, SOURCED LOCALLY

While much of the produce sold at Sweet Valley Farms is grown on site, a collaborative network of local farmers and growers ensures there’s always more to choose from.

“We partner with farmers and growers for the items we don’t grow ourselves. We have an orchard here where we grow lemons, figs, and peach trees, but we also partner with other growers throughout the region,” Sharif-Amanyi said. “We’ve become a staple in the community — many families depend on us. We’ve built partnerships with larger agribusinesses such as Lane to supply our peaches for the summer, and that allows them to provide their product to a community and to families who may not otherwise be able to afford locally grown food.”

FROM FORTY VISITORS TO FIVE HUNDRED

What started with just forty visitors a week has now grown to more than five hundred — and a big part of that growth comes down to how easy and welcoming the process is designed to be.

“If you’d like to purchase our ten-dollar harvest bag — a curated bag of ten different fruits and vegetables, about twenty-five pieces total, including bananas, potatoes, apples, and peaches — you can preorder that online and set an appointment to come to the barn,” Sharif-Amanyi said. “But if you just want to come in with one dollar, two dollars, or five dollars, you can just show up. You check in at the gate, and we text you when it’s time to shop the barn.”

MORE THAN JUST PRODUCE

With more than twenty different fruits and vegetables available, Sweet Valley Farms offers a remarkable variety for a small operation. But according to Sharif-Amanyi, the most important thing the farm is offering isn’t measured in pounds or varieties.

“We sell more than produce. We sell hope. We sell dignity. We sell the ability for people to freely purchase food and feel good about it,” she said. “We hope community members come in and say, ‘That’s a place where we can try new foods.'”

For Fort Valley, Sweet Valley Farms has become far more than a barn full of vegetables — it’s a reminder that access to fresh, healthy food is something every community deserves.

By: Damon Jones

Calhoun Produce in Ashburn Has Been Bringing Fresh Butter Beans and Peas to Georgia for Four Decades

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Ashburn, GA |

It’s a taste of summer for many around Georgia, with butter beans and field peas now flying off the shelf. And you won’t find them any fresher than at Calhoun Produce in Ashburn, where the journey from field to table can happen in the same day.

“All our peas are hand-picked. Butterbeans we machine pick — our pickers pick four rows at a time. We bring them here to the packing house, grade them, shell them straight off the grading line, and put them in the bag,” said Sheila Rice, owner of Calhoun Produce. “It was growing that morning, and you can be eating it that night. That’s fresh.”

FRESH MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE

With customers walking through the doors all day long, keeping shelves stocked is a constant job. But Rice says the effort is worth it — because when it comes to peas and butter beans, freshness isn’t just a talking point. It actually changes the taste.

“Oh, definitely. It is perishable — there’s a shelf life on our peas and butterbeans, so once you buy it, it needs to be put up within a few days because it is truly fresh. It was literally growing a few hours before you got it,” Rice said. “We stand behind our product. We offer a clean product, we clean it up, and we want it to be the best. Because it’s ours — it’s coming from our family — so we want it to be the right thing.”

FOUR DECADES OF FRESH

That commitment to quality has been the foundation of this family-run operation for more than forty years, building Calhoun Produce into the go-to source for beans and peas across the state.

“My daddy started growing butter beans back in ’82, and it has just grown through the years. Everybody loves their fresh butterbeans and peas when summertime comes — it’s time to put them up so you can eat them all year long,” Rice said. “We grow about a hundred and thirty acres of butterbeans ourselves, but we have a few more farmers that grow them as well. And we buy local peas from all local growers. There are probably three or four hundred acres of each that come through our packing house.”

MORE VARIETY THAN YOU MIGHT EXPECT

For first-time visitors, one of the biggest surprises at Calhoun Produce is just how many varieties are available — from light-broth peas to dark-broth varieties that make for a richer pot.

“You have cream peas, lady fingers, and zippers — they make the light broth. And then the pink eyes, black eyes, and crowders make the dark broth. There are just so many varieties of peas,” Rice said. “When you come in, you can get green butterbeans, pink eyes, lady fingers, creams, zippers. There’s just a big variety that we offer here.”

WORTH EVERY ROW

Despite all the hard work that goes into getting the product from the field to the consumer, Rice says there’s nothing quite like seeing loyal customers come back year after year — some driving from as far away as Atlanta and Florida.

“It makes me so happy. My daddy loves to see all these people come in, and seeing customers that have been coming for twenty and thirty years — it just means a lot,” Rice said. “It makes you feel good. It makes you want to keep doing it.”

For Calhoun Produce, summer isn’t just a season — it’s a tradition. And for thousands of Georgians, it wouldn’t feel complete without a bag of fresh peas and butterbeans from Ashburn.

By: Damon Jones

Atlanta Program Brings Farm Fresh Produce to Food Deserts

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Atlanta, GA |

Here in Atlanta, these boxes of fresh produce are being packed into bags, where they’ll be loaded onto a truck and taken to and handed out in neighborhoods classified as what’s called a “food desert” – an area with a population of people that are generally low income and have trouble finding or affording fresh, nutritious, and wholesome foods.

“When we think about food deserts, we always think about like rural places, right? You think metro Atlanta, this bustling city, how could anyone be in a food desert? Well, we have a different problem. We have food swamps where neighborhoods are inundated with high calorie, nutritionally low foods. Then their access to fresh fruits and vegetables isn’t that great. Like their grocery store might have some produce, but is it high quality? And then is it cheap or is it expensive? It normally is expensive and so people are going to spend their food dollars on stuff that is shelf stable that they know is actually going to be good,” says Cecilia Tran, Family & Consumer Sciences Agent for Fulton County Extension.

That’s where Fulton Fresh’s comes in, as it’s a program that’s designed to allow those in designated areas the opportunity to not only receive fresh produce, but get to learn how to store it, prepare it, and cook it into a nutritious and wholesome meal.

[Shirley Dodd/Coordinator, Fulton Fresh Mobile Market]

“What the program does, it’s a nutritional program, and we go in what’s designated as food deserts in Fulton County. We do a nutritional class where the ladies teach various health topics. They do a food demonstration. They let the participants sample the demonstration, and then we give them a bag of produce. What we try to do is, whatever the demonstration is, we try to put that in the bag so they could go home and make that particular dish,” says Shirley Dodd, Fulton Fresh Mobile Market Coordinator.

According to Dodd, they often have nearly one hundred people at each stop; proving just how beneficial and much needed the program is in the areas that they visit.

“They love it. Yesterday, we went out and in both sessions we had close to 100 people. We have people that follow the truck and come to location because we do it just the ten weeks in the summer; two five week sessions. If you come to the market, then you basically have your groceries because this bag of produce; you can eat out for a couple of days depending on how many is in the family,” says Dodd.

However, Tran says what’s most valuable isn’t just the free bag of produce, as she believes the skills and knowledge they’re gaining will set them up for future success.

“The skills that they learn here and a little bit of that education really helps them through out to the next year. When they come back, they’re like, ‘I did this and this and this, and I see my numbers come down.’ Like last year, I told somebody that if you don’t like eating breakfast foods for breakfast, don’t eat that. And she came back the next year and she was like, ‘you changed my life.’ And I was like, ‘what?’ Something so simple, but for things that are common sense for some, it’s not for everybody. And we kind of take for granted what we know, and so it’s really important that we get out here and do that education,” says Tran.

By: John Holcomb

Family Takes a Leap of Faith Following a Move South

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Ellenwood, GA |

What started out as just an idea and a leap of faith has now transformed into this flourishing garden and farmers market. However, just like starting up any other business, it didn’t come without its share of challenges.

“2010 we had moved down from up north, from New York, all the way down to Dublin, Georgia. We just felt that we had a calling to change our life and do something different. When we started farming, it was difficult for us. We didn’t really know what we we’re doing, but we had some great neighbors that taught us a couple of things to kind of get us started and after a couple of years, we started selling to farmers markets,” says Raphaela Polanco, Owner of Atlanta Harvest.

In 2018 they moved their operation to the bustling city of Atlanta, where they provide a community starved for fresh produce, with a one stop shop for all their needs.

“We’re about fifteen minutes from the Atlanta airport. Here, we have a market stand where we sell directly to our customers. We’re in a food desert area and so, we have a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. We got local dairy, meats, eggs, value added products, jams and jellies. Also, on our farm we have our summer crops growing. We have our squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Our customers, they can walk around the farm and see what we’re growing and see what’s in season,” says Polanco.

Providing that type of experience is one of the main goals for Atlanta Harvest, as giving the next generation some time on the farm will help them appreciate all the work that goes into growing their food.

“A lot of young children come to the farm. It’s their first time that they’re actually seeing a farm. A lot of times they see fruits and vegetables and they think they come from the grocery store. So, having them to be able to come to a farm, a farm near them where they can see that food comes from the dirt and here’s farmers, here’s agriculture leaders who are actually planting and growing the food that I can use for consumption and help to make me strong and healthy. It’s such a life changing experience for young children and those in the community that have difficulty getting fresh fruits and vegetables. It’s just so great that there’s somewhere that is close to them that they’re able to have this access,” says Polanco.

It’s access they are more than happy to provide to a grateful community.

“When I come out here and I get to interact with people and they let us know ‘hey, thank you so much for being here. I was looking for something like this in my area. I thought I had to go hours south or other areas in Georgia’, but knowing that there’s something like this available near them and they’re able to share that with their friends and family just makes such a big difference and means so much to us,” says Polanco.

By: Damon Jones