The fork in the road was brought to you by.

From produce to people.

The best things are grown and raised in Georgia.

Even in tough times, we come together, work hard and grow strong.

When you purchase Georgia grown products, you support farmers, families and this proud state we call home.

Together, we will keep Georgia growing.

Picture perfect.

Hang the picture on the wall.

A sign from afar.

You get to meet.

Oh, it feels good.

This has been.

The fascinating and ever changing world of agriculture.

Let's hit the road here in Georgia and meet the farmers, producers, makers and bakers who keep us all fed and keep us coming back for more.

Straight ahead, at the fork in the road.

I came from the desert on my hands, strong like a tree.

Then grew trusting Georgia farmers, artisans, merchants and producers.

We depend on these men and women every day of our lives through the choices we make and the food we consume.

Their strategy and approach is always shifting, but the end game remains the same.

Results and Georgia is universally known for its peaches because, after all, it's the Peach State.

But a fun little trivia tidbit is that another Sweet Fruit takes the title as the most produced fruit in Georgia.

Over 20,000 acres of blueberry bushes draped across the Peach State.

And believe it or not, another larger variety of fruit spreads its roots in this southern soil.

To claim another lofty title.

Let's journey down to Cordell, the seat of Kris County, Georgia, where the tasty watermelon reigns supreme.

Okay, it's the fruit that launches a thousand ships, or in this case, balloons.

And though it may not be quite a thousand hot air vessels taking flight in honor of these tasty watermelons, there's a lot of hype about the growing season getting underway.

The fruit has a queen and the proud City of Cordial has a title, The Watermelon Capital of the World.

Crisp County, Georgia, is the number one watermelon producing county in the United States.

And the folks around here embrace this title.

We sell 125 million watermelons to retailers and to farmers markets throughout the United States and to Canada.

Come June, the cordial farmers market makes way for truckload after busload of fresh, green striped melons to sell to locals and travelers alike, looking for a refreshing, hydrating and sweet summer snack.

And located right across the street from the market lies the headquarters of a family business who's been growing these tasty Georgia melons for three generations.

This company was started in 1965 by Buddy Ligier.

He started shipping watermelons throughout Georgia, Florida, Indiana.

Then in 2001, his son took over the company.

Greg lives here and now Greg.

Son Cole is a part of the company and he's just started with us this year.

Watermelon is so important in our community, but it plays a major role in the economy as well.

Chris County is the number one watermelon producing county in the nation, and Georgia is the number two watermelon producing state nationwide.

Cook County itself is so rich in agriculture and watermelon just happens to be in star.

Out in these lush green fields.

I was joined by both the queen herself and third generation watermelon farmer Cole this year, who both educated me about the melons and how this operation down here all works.

Well, we just try to keep a good quality and keep good fruit on the shelves.

A lot of people say the Georgia watermelons are a lot sweeter than some of the other states.

I don't know if that's true or not, but that's just what people say.

So out here, we have some seedless.

These are the ones that we take, pick and take and share.

And these pollinators right here, they're playing at every fifth melon in the row.

And what happens is these babies have to go and get the pollen from the seeded and then go visit the flower of the seedless and pollinate it in order to fertilize that plant and grow seedless watermelon.

You just pick them both up.

Yeah.

I can't tell the difference.

What are you looking for?

How could you tell?

One was a pollinator and one was not.

So this one's a lot longer and darker, more of a oblong shape.

And these are a little bit shorter, more around the stripe patterns, a little bit different.

And people don't like to spit out seeds, and they're a lot easier to ship as well.

The seeded ones don't hold up as well in bands and they've got to get put on a semi-truck and travel for a couple of days.

And with heat like this, they don't last very long.

They get softer.

The seedless ones are a little bit farmer and have a better shelf life as well.

When I was young, my aunt said that divide the seeds and grow watermelon in my belly.

That's not quite true.

I don't think.

As the watermelon queen of 2020 to the Georgia Watermelon Queen, I am an ambassador for watermelon.

I go around and help promote the Georgia watermelon, not only in the state of Georgia, but in other states as well.

I also educate the community and the public about the healthy benefits behind watermelon.

And there's over 300 varieties of watermelon, such as are seeded and seedless watermelons, yellow, muted and red muted as well.

There's vitamins A, B, C, C, you can get potassium and magnesium from watermelon.

Everything about watermelon is 100% edible.

So you can eat it, grilled, you can eat it fresh.

The watermelon meat and you can even pickled around.

The seeds can be eaten.

Just like how you can eat a pumpkin seed.

You can put it in the oven and make it nice and crisp and eat just one ounce of the dry shelled watermelon seeds and you're eating ten grams of protein.

Watermelon is especially good to, of course, to stay hydrated.

It is made up of 92% water.

And we also do have to have, of course, our lovely bees to help pollinate.

They're really good at getting our pollination from our seeded watermelons to our seedless, especially in those little flowers, to make sure that they stay nice and pollinated on the vine.

They'll be every five.

So like there's one, two, three, four, and then this is the fifth.

So this is where the watermelon is starting to grow right there.

That's a little itty bitty pod.

And it still has time to grow.

And the flower right there is coming and.

You've got to look for the belly and the fine stripes to tell the watermelon is ripe and the stem as well.

That So then you know that it's cut off its nutrients and is ripe and ready to pick.

Cutters come in and cut the fruit from the vine and then turn it belly side up so that that nice, creamy, buttery spot pickers come through, load the fruit onto the bus.

That famous scene that you think about in the field where the workers and harvesters and the school bus and the fruit is brought to the packing facility and loaded onto a conveyor belt.

The fruit makes its way down.

It goes for a washer which removes any dirt that we have greater standing on both sides of the packing line.

And they're looking for any dents or scratches, bruising, sunburn, hollow heart, anything quality issue that we see.

They're picking that back out when it ticks back out.

Either goes into a dump truck to go the laptop or we may repack that and send that out to a food bank.

And the US number one watermelons continue to make their way down the line and then they're graded and sorted, massage packed into a bin and then they go to your local grocery store.

As a consumer, just trust that growers, shippers, farmers are delivering to you the best quality fruit you can possibly get.

It's a proud family tradition embraced by this community and grown for the fans by generations past and many more to come.

Let's now journey a few more miles south to the edges of the legendary Okefenokee Swamp and Waycross, Georgia, home to Mixon Farms and row after row of sweet Georgia blueberries.

We're in Red County, Georgia.

Little community outside of Waycross called Wonderful.

And we're growing blueberry.

Tell me about the Georgia blueberry, why it's so special.

Well, mom and I have nothing to compare to it.

I know I'm probably partial because I'm standing in my blueberry field, but, you know.

That's good.

Over 100 years in the making and growing stronger than ever.

The tasty blueberries watched over by Donald Mixon and his hardworking team go the distance for these tasty blue morsels of goodness.

Not just a couple.

Not just couple.

Tell me about this place.

Actually, we have about 900 acres in the ground.

About 750 acres are producing.

They're all contiguous except for 35 across about four miles from here.

The rest of them are right here on the fourth.

You've got high bush and you've got the rabbit eye, just a couple of varieties of blueberries you'll find in these parts.

Southern bush is the area of varieties, typically your hand-picked varieties, rather than an older variety.

They're more native to this area.

Hi.

Bush, I guess, to live up to his name because I see a lot of blueberry bushes there at my waist.

These are hitting the top of your cap almost.

Right after harvest.

We'll come in and we'll actually prove them and we'll bring them back down to somewhere along in this area.

Then we fertilize them and water them and they grow back.

Typically, ha bush.

We start picking around the middle of April this year, we started the 1st of April.

We'll run through the middle of July with our eye to extend our packing season.

That's why we have about spacing.

Typically, people don't like Ramadan because they're a little bit seedy, but our higher in antioxidants there are and break which is sugar.

But ha bush is the preferred species.

I see kind of a white film on some of these.

Tell me what that is and why it's important.

That's called the Bloom.

It protects the berry, protect it from sunlight.

And that's a natural and natural thing.

And some of these blueberries aren't small.

I wish I would go about some quarter, but they don't.

Unfortunately, this would actually go as a jumbo jumbos.

Have to be 18 millimeters in size.

And there's actually a premium for jumbos.

And it's Georgia's number one fruit.

Right, right, right, right.

Thank you.

No more doesn't get a picture.

I love peaches, too, but I'm partial blueberry.

Well, let's now get into the packing process.

I typically use I shoot a program.

I use a lot of hand pickers.

They come out here and they handpick the fruit.

I put it in loads, put it in a refrigerated trailer.

We bring it to the packing shed, unload it.

Typically, it stays in my holding area for 24 hours to cool down my holding area at 60 degrees.

Typically we bring it in today, cool it tonight, take it tomorrow.

Tell me about what they're looking for.

It gets going through these machines now.

The machines are the first line of defense.

We first dump it into a conveyor.

It goes up into a boiler.

The blower blows or leaves and twigs, whatever quantity of little stuff that it can blow out, it blows it out.

Then it goes through a cooler shoulder, which kicks out Grange kicks out the Reds.

Then it goes through a South Fork.

Now, a lot of people run across waters offshore on their farm.

We run our colors, water, saltwater, south shore.

We run through saltwater.

As you saw in the shed, I had a pan inspectors on the line.

If a grain gets by, they can see the grain and pick it out.

But if a south get my they can't see salt.

So we like to spend extra money and put in door salt sodas to try to eliminate sulfur going into the plant.

So once it gets to the folks, what are they looking for?

Tell me how important their job is.

America could be split.

It could get by the shoulders.

Their job is to look for a split berry American made grain on the back end and the cameras could have shortened the blue part of the river so I could have a beer come through on the line.

That is half rain and half.

So my hand is bigger.

Pull those out of the.

I saw a couple of labels that were printing.

Tell me about where people can find your blueberries, where they go.

I go all over the United States.

We shipped to Canada, we sell to Costco, we sell to South, we sell to Harris Teeter, Kroger, Trader Joe's, we sell to everybody.

And the label won't always say mix and farm.

That does not know.

No, we're reformed major markers and they are very fresh.

Always fresh, Gourmet and summer for you.

You're mainly looking for that grown in Georgia symbol.

That's right.

It kind of looks like a graveyard, but it's quite the opposite.

That's exactly right.

This is a new plant.

And this one winter, we planted 150 acres of expansion.

Plus, the fact that Southern Harbor's longevity is probably 10 to 12 years.

And to keep our production up, we planned this hundred and 50 acres.

When I do a new planning, I plant Rudy cuttings, I come back down and I put these milk cartons on top of the plant to cover the plant.

I do that for two reasons.

Number one, I come here for my herbicide without damaging plant number to help trying to plant to grow up.

Right, so I can machine harvest it.

How long until these are bearing fruit?

Two years on the farm.

We do it all.

We don't.

We don't contract anything out clearing land.

We put in the irrigation, we make up the roads.

We do everything except grow the plants.

So Donald will keep growing and packing while at the same time keeping the colors in order and the firmness intact.

A tasty and supremely healthy final product delivered all around the country for all to enjoy.

We now venture from Waycross to the town of Alma, where blueberries reign supreme and one little shop or Barn proudly represents the blueberry capital of Georgia.

The town's water tower proudly displays armor Georgia's title as the state's blueberry capital.

But until a few years ago, painted blueberries on murals were all you could find around here.

On the local and wilds knew something had to happen to change that.

In fact, she says, it was a calling.

I am the owner, founder, operator, maid, cook everything.

You left one out.

The Queen.

That was great.

Yes.

I'm the blueberry queen.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate your high school business for 17 years.

And I got burned out.

And then the war provided the forge position.

So that's when I really got involved in the blueberry industry because my husband grows blueberries.

So when I retired, it just seemed like a logical step to open a blue very store in the blueberry capital because there wasn't anything here.

It's hard to imagine, but the way the blueberry industry is, they pick them, pack them and ship them out.

They're gone.

And people would come to the blueberry capital of Georgia expecting to find a little tents on the side of the road and people selling blueberries.

Well, it's not that way at all.

People wanted fresh.

Georgia, Alma, Georgia, blueberries.

And so it just seemed a logical shift for me to come over here and open the blueberry farm.

I just started selling nothing but blueberries, and I would sell blueberries from our farm.

And I just began to enlarge my product list by carrying Georgia grown product.

And then I even expanded more not only carrying food products, but carrying some blueberry jewelry, some blueberry books, things like that.

Just just to promote what we grow here.

And I can carry that.

I'm pretty sure that no human on earth could convince more people that blueberries are the greatest fruit in the universe.

There's a knowledge drive and a passion for what this fruit represents to this town, this state, and our personal wellness.

Blueberries bring in a tremendous amount of income for this day, and it just impacts the economics of Georgia tremendously, not only the farm or growing it, but then when you think about the people who pick it with people who track it, the truckers who carry it all over.

Blueberries are so good for you.

They are one of the best health secrets there is.

Blueberries are so good for you.

They help your eyes, they help your heart, they help your urinary tract.

They lower cholesterol.

They do so many amazing things.

We know how important blueberries are for you.

And it's got to do with that blue color.

That lovely blue color has something called anthocyanins in it.

And that's where all of the health benefits come from.

You know, any other blue fruit, everybody should eat at least a cup a day.

And that's so easy to get.

But you ought to eat them fresh.

So whenever you can get them in your area, Florida, Georgia, wherever you are, if you can get fresh blueberries, they are absolutely the best right off the bush is the best way to eat them.

The store is just fantastic.

Spend a few minutes inside and you'll get compliments from friends about how you smell like a freshly baked blueberry pie.

I mean, it has absolutely everything you could ever dream of when it comes to blueberries, lotions, sprays, breads, drinks, artwork, books, children's books and stuffed animals about a character in those blueberry themed children's books.

Just talk about the aroma when you walk in this place.

When you walk in, I call it blueberry heaven.

When people walk in and they go, Oh, I smell so good.

I'm like, Yes, I still got it.

So there it's the smell that catches them.

And you can have that smell at your house.

All you have to do is buy a candle.

I'm sure people like being around you at parties.

They're like, Oh, she smells fantastic.

Smells like I'm flavor.

And I normally dress like a blueberry every day hours.

I've been blue every day.

So this is Billie Blueberry.

We actually have a storybook written about daily blueberry, one of the local blueberry farmers, Brandon White, wrote a little story about how Billy gets from the farm to the table.

And we even had a local artist to draw the pictures.

And it looks just like a kid's coloring book.

Nine years ago, when I started looking for a place to react, I walked into this little place and it's all wood.

It has a tree stump up here for the lights.

But the thing that caught my attention was this door.

Soon as I walked in and I saw this barn door, I said, okay, this is where I'm supposed to be.

These are the candles that smells so good.

And I wish your viewers could actually smell that.

Those are not real blueberries.

So don't eat.

I want to eat that.

I know it smells good enough to eat.

I have blueberry coffee, I blueberry tea and, of course, one of my best selling products is the blueberry barbecue sauce.

I have two different types.

I have the mustard base and the vinegar base, and people love these.

And then, of course, I've got blueberry juice, blueberry juice, blueberry pomegranate juice.

This is made right here in Alma, Georgia.

Alma also grows pomegranates.

I have blueberry salad dressing.

I have blueberry pepper jelly.

One of my favorites is this one called The Butterfly.

It's got pineapple, pecans and cinnamon.

And I tell people it's like eating a blueberry pie out of a jar.

There is a really interesting gem.

It's blueberry elderberry, apple and raspberries.

And another one of my top selling is the aroma traffic jam.

What a joke.

Because we have no traffic in there.

But it's a play on words and it's the reason it's called traffic Jam is it's blueberry, blackberry and strawberry.

So three jams come together to form a traffic jam.

This is a fun thing, but it's also extremely delicious.

Did you see the flow of one zero?

This for the day?

They even though and seems like she has the energy and passion to run four stores at the same time, she's not on her own.

Her husband, Albert, runs the Blueberry growing side of the business here at the farm a few miles up the road.

And this gorgeous renovated farmhouse is the centerpiece.

Where my grandparents moved here in 1936 and started farming.

And so it's been in the family since that time.

The house itself was built somewhere in the late 1800s, 1880s, 1890.

So we've kind of put it back kind of like it used to be.

What does it take to be a blueberry farmer in these parts?

You just really have to love it in order to do it, because there's a lot of nights you have to stay up to check the irrigation and check overhead protection.

If you're if you're trying to protect the fridge, protect, you know.

Someone rather close to you is doing quite a good job promoting blueberries in Georgia.

My wife got this.

The Lord gave her this notion, she says, in 2013 to open a blueberry bar.

It had to be frustrating for you.

All people pass through.

It's the blueberry capitol, but there's no blueberries and all have this beautiful farm and farmhouse ten miles away.

Yeah.

Why does all our blueberries have to be shipped away?

You know, why couldn't we do something locally?

And that's.

That's what we're trying to do.

Just make people more aware of products that can be made with blueberries.

Georgia Blueberries.

Our berries are better, better quality.

And the food safety standards that we go through are second to none.

So the consumer can be assured they're buying a safe quality product when they buy Georgia blueberries.

Oh, the advantage of fresh is absolutely the taste.

I can't tell you how many people have come in this store and said, Oh, I don't even like blueberries.

And I will say, Well, you try some of mine.

And when they do, their eyes light up and they go, Oh, these are good height.

Yes, because they are fresh because we just take them yesterday, pack them last night.

They're in the store today.

You can't get any fresher than that.

And that is number one.

You got when your hand has a day.

No, it's good.

It's good.

Yeah.

So swing by Alma Peruse the barn lid and share tales about this storied crop and the wonders it provides and hit the road with a smile, feeling good about life.

And, of course, smelling like a freshly baked blueberry pie.

So from the melons of cordial to the blueberries of Alma, Georgia proves once again that there's more to this state than their precious peaches.

A variety of sweet Southern goodness grown by farmers and cherished by royalty.

I'm David Zaleski.

See you at the next fork in the road.

The fork in the road was brought to you by.

From produce to people.

The best things are grown and raised in Georgia.

Even in tough times.

We come together, work hard and grow strong.

When you purchase Georgia grown products, you support farmers, families, and this proud state we call home.

Together, we will keep Georgia growing to perfection.

And the picture on the wall.

As sign from afar.

Get to meet.

Oh, it feels good.

This has been just the best.