- [David Zelski] A Fork in the Road is brought to you by: - [Narrator] 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.

- [David Zelski] Since 1917, the Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin has been Georgia's primary resource for all things agriculture.

From thousands of classifieds for livestock, farm supplies, equipment, and homegrown goods to the latest and most important farming news.

- 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 mud ♪ ♪ There's dirt on my hands ♪ ♪ Strong like a tree ♪ ♪ There's roots where I stand ♪ 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 endgame remains the same, result.

This episode may be stating the obvious.

Georgia is the Peach State.

A deserving title, and there's still hardworking Georgia peach farmers and packers out there keeping this legendary peach available at farmers' markets around the south and on grocery shelves all over America.

Let's begin this episode down in Fort Valley, right in the heart of peach country, where a farming family shares some rich history, and of course, sweet peaches.

This roadside store, once an old school, is also known for housing the world's largest peach on record.

They've still got the picture and a statue to-scale boasting its awesomeness.

However, there's also several other varieties and sizes of tasty peaches that grow well in this rich Georgia soil that you can find here.

The store, connected to the impressive packing house for all to see and enjoy while they shop, is worth a stop for sure.

But what I also discovered while visiting Pearson Farm was a sweet dose of Georgia-peach history.

Al and Lawton Pearson still head up the company and have teamed with their cousin, Will McGehee, another fifth generation peach farmer, to help grow this Georgia peach brand, combining many more peachy families.

A success story we'll touch on later, but first, Will takes us back in time.

- My mother was Anne Pearson McGehee.

She was a Pearson.

She's fourth generation.

I'm fifth generation.

This was her grandparents' house, the porch we're sitting on right now, and peach farming's in our blood.

Where we're talkin' today is kinda the epicenter of where our family started growin' peaches since 1885.

You see behind me, this was the old Lee Pope Hotel, and it's historical in the fact that peaches require so much hand labor in a very short amount of time.

We only need you for about 100 days during the summer, and then, what do you do the rest of the year?

And so, what had to happen is each farm had to build what we called that a hotel.

It's basically a boarding house where kids would come to Fort Valley each summer, and they would room together, and they would meet each other here.

And we would send someone to the railroad downtown.

We would have a sign.

You know, "Need 12 today."

And carloads of kids would come to Fort Valley because this is where the summer work was.

And you'd live in that place for six or seven weeks, meetin' folks you'd never seen before.

You'd work in peaches together, kinda like a summer camp, but you get paid.

The walls in there are actually signed in some of the rooms where kids would meet, and this is where they stayed.

There'd be 32 girls and 32 boys.

Girls on the bottom floor, boys on the top floor.

These are pickin' bags.

So you basically, it's like a book bag for the front of your body, open up top.

So as you're pickin' the tree, you're droppin' peaches in here.

Then you get over the crate that's goin' to the packin' house, and you pull the bottom out, and the peaches flow out the bottom into the crate.

So, it's just a peach picking bag.

- [David Zelski] These hotel walls have stood the test of time.

As will and any building preservation expert will tell you, you keep the roof up to date, the rest of the house will last a whole lot longer.

- We have these old ledger books of, of receipts of, of peaches picked and packed from years ago.

So these are some canceled checks from 1913 of who the Pearsons were writin' checks to.

And this was, the bank would give 'em back, I guess.

And they would go through.

And so, we've just got thousands of these checks throughout the years.

What do you do with 'em?

I don't know.

But we still got 'em, so.

We have 'em right here.

Moses, our, our founder, he died when he was 48 years old.

And he had eight children and his wife, Emma.

And she ran the farm with eight children by herself.

And her oldest was Papa John Pearson, who we come from.

And Papa John was well, they called him "The Hammer."

And before he took over, at some point, we don't know when it was, but she had, she had done an inventory of all the mules on the farm, and she was putting the farm up for auction.

This was right around The Great Depression.

And nobody bought the farm, obviously, because we're still here, but this was an interestin' piece of history that we found this piece of paper where she listed all of her mules.

The color, the age, and what they named 'em: Kay, Annie, Jim, Jack, Men, Ella, Mattie, Maude, Bell, Joe, Bess, Pearl, Dolly, Roddy, Ricky.

All those were the names of their mules back then.

It's kinda cool.

Clyde.

This is one of the spots where you can, you can kinda see on the wall, the girls that stayed in here signed the wall.

It says, I am, "I am leaving Lee Pope today for St. Louis, Missouri.

May God bless you all, for I cannot.

Yours truly, (indistinct), July 8th, 1912."

Some of these guys, we found out years later that, that this guy, Henry Bowden, was a very influential Atlanta attorney.

And this was, he signed this door in June, 1927 and went on to be attorney there.

Edward, Edwin Isom from 1919.

Pat Wilkes from 1919.

So, they would just kinda sign the door and say that they were here.

Just a neat little slice of Georgia history.

You know, this is kinda where it began for our family and are, are, are proud of our heritage.

We are.

Georgia peach is, like you said, it's iconic.

I mean, it is a, whether you go to Minnesota, California, Florida, Canada, wherever you go, and you say the word "peach," the next word out of everybody's mouth is, "Oh, you from Georgia?"

And it's kinda a neat thing.

It's kinda our signature fruit for the state.

And we're just honored to be a part of that, that legacy.

We have a special climate here in Georgia, where there's a lot of peaches grown in other places, but peaches from Georgia are special for several different reasons.

Our, we, we grow in this amazing red clay here in Middle Georgia where our orchards are.

And the clay gives the peaches so much goodness and nutrients.

And, and it's a great place to grow trees, first of all.

Our climate is amazing because we get enough cold in the winter, so they sleep, and they're dormant, but then we get a ton of heat in the summertime, and that's where our sugar comes from.

And so, that really gives us our advantage in the marketplace, and really why I think we're the Peach State.

So, at Pearson Farm, we grow many different varieties of peaches because a single variety will only ripen up over an eight to 10 day period.

So, you're gonna pick that tree every other day for about 10 to 12 days, you know.

You'll pick the same tree five or six times every other day, and then those peaches are gone for that variety.

So, if you want a nice, long summer of peaches, you've gotta find varieties to plant in sequential order so you have a nice supply of peaches.

So, we start with a variety called "Flavor Rich" in May, and we plant over 40 varieties throughout the summer, and we end in the middle of August with Flameprince.

That's our final variety.

These are a couple different varieties of peaches.

Like I said, we grow over 40 of 'em, and each one kinda brings its own personality to the table.

So, this particular one is a "Fire Prince."

I know that because it's kinda got kinda a raised suture here.

We're in freestone season now, and the freestone season is marked by, you know, when you cut into your fruit, and it just comes right off the seed.

This peach is...

It's phenomenal.

Fire Prince is kind of our first freestone peach, followed very closely by a Sierra Rich.

And a Sierra Rich is little more firm-flesh.

They can hang on the tree a couple days longer than a Fire Prince, but is a, is an absolute, delicious peach, as well.

We've got a lot of different outlets to sell our fruit.

Our main source of distribution is through the retail channel.

We sell to Whole Foods and Ingles and Kroger and Publix and Walmart.

And most anywhere you would buy fruit in Georgia would have Georgia peaches.

We love the farmers' markets in Atlanta.

A good friend of the family's that grew up right here, a guy named John Short, brings our peaches to market up there.

And he's in, I think, over 40 markets around Atlanta, bringin' Pearson peaches there.

And John does a great job for us.

We also have a mail-order department here where we actually pick the peaches, we pack 'em in these boxes with little foam inserts, UPS picks up every afternoon, and within 48 hours, that box will be on your front steps.

And so, we can get that box to anybody in the country in two days.

And so, you're able to kinda eat the peaches through the mail.

I don't think we, we treat peaches right when we bring 'em home... Like, typically people will put 'em in their fridge to make 'em last longer, and peaches really need to be left on the counter.

And, and you actually want to see the skin start to shrivel just a little bit.

And you know at that point, it's gonna be juicy all the way down to the core.

And, and you might want to eat it over a sink 'cause it's, it'll be a lot of juice comin' out.

- [David Zelski] So as Will McGehee and the Pearsons continue this longtime tradition promoting and selling the state of Georgia's namesake, these sweet Georgia peaches will keep growing on these beautiful trees, sprouting that legendary fruit for years to come.

Just a few miles north of Fort Valley, but remaining in peach country, is the town of Musella, home to Dickey Farms.

- We've been here a long time, right here in Middle Georgia, in Musella, little small community, but we've been growin' peaches for about 130 years here in Musella.

My great-grandfather planted the first ones in 1890.

And so, we've been doing it every year.

It's a great life, and we have a wonderful farm-family and just love it here.

This is a July Prince.

And so, it's not quite July, but, but they're starting to get ripe.

Our guys, you know, they pick in the rain, they pick early in the morning at, and late in the afternoon.

It's a hard job knowing which peaches to pick and which ones to leave for next time.

Well, our pickers are looking for a peach that's firm, that'll ship and get through our packin' process in a box.

But we want the optimum color and ripeness.

And so, it's a very fine line between being immature and so-called green and overripe.

And, and these guys are great in knowing which ones to leave and get a little bit bigger the next time.

But we go through every other day pickin' the ones we wanna pick in the orchard.

It'll take 'em probably two weeks to harvest.

So, I just got a great group of dedicated employees.

It's so hard being seasonal business to, to get enough help to pick 'em and pack 'em and get 'em to the packin' house on time.

And so, I'm glad we're out and havin' a great season this year.

- [David Zelski] You were savin' that one.

- Yeah.

(unidentified female laughing) I just caught that out, outta my eye.

- [David Zelski] Wow.

- Yeah.

And that's how we'll pick 'em.

- [Unidentified Female] Gorgeous.

- [David Zelski] It's huge.

- Yeah.

It's huge.

- [Unidentified Female] Look at the difference.

- Yeah.

- [Unidentified Female] Just a couple of days.

- Yeah.

Just, just probably three or four days.

- [Unidentified Female] Yeah.

- [David Zelski] So that one's still not ready.

- That one's still not ready.

You see the green shoulder, so we gonna wait and let it, let it get a little more on it.

- [David Zelski] All right.

Put it back on the tree.

(all three speakers laughing) Just when I thought these fields had a lot of action, I headed to the roadside market, which was selling peach bread and fresh Dickey Farms peaches in bunches.

- [Robert Dickey] Well, my great-grandfather built a, a new packing house in 1936 on the railroad to ship his peaches, and we're still usin' it.

The railroad's gone and we got new, modern equipment, an automated sizer and, and those type things in there, but we've turned the top part into a farm market.

And, and it's just great.

People from all over the state comin' back to the farm in little small Musella.

And just experience a little bit of agritourism and what's goin' on in rural Georgia.

- [David Zelski] Now, even though the term "Georgia peach" never fully lost its popularity, the Dickey's, along with the Pearsons, the Lanes, who we meet in our next story, and a few other regional peach growers, thought it best to join forces and create a Genuine Georgia brand, a program supported by Georgia Grown, that has successfully given a healthy boost to the brand as a whole and the reputation of the legendary Georgia peach.

- Four or five families, the Lanes, the, Pearsons, The Dickeys, and others that go together and, and market their fruit.

We are great friends and help each other out.

And the Georgia Grown program has just been so good at marketing our peaches throughout the country.

And it's known for that.

And new, innovative ways to get Georgia peaches to consumers.

We are in major chain stores.

We're on direct marketing through Peach Truck and other avenues that take peaches straight to the consumer mail order, or they can come right here to Musella and just get the sweetest, best peaches in the whole world, right here.

A lot of other states grow peaches, but I think the climate and the soil right here in Middle Georgia is the best of anywhere in the country.

And we still just doing a great job of marketing and sellin' sweet Georgia peaches.

- [David Zelski] From Musella, we journey back down south, to the exact same town we started, at Lane Southern Orchards in Fort Valley, Georgia.

It all started down here in 1908.

The growers knew these peaches were good, and the customers responded and have been ever since.

- Well, the Lane family started growing peaches here in this area in 1908.

They actually started out as company called Southern Orchard Supply Company.

And now, we are Southern Orchards Management, and we're growing 5,000 acres of peaches and 6,000 acres of pecans.

We'll start with peaches in January and February.

We'll, we'll have to go through every one of those peach orchards and prune the trees by hand.

They bloom in March, and we'll come back in with more workers and thin the fruit by hand.

Every flower on a peach tree will make a peach.

And we have to thin about 75% of those off the tree every year so we'll have enough peaches, but the right size as well.

And then, the harvest season starts in May, and we'll harvest from mid-May till the 1st of August.

A lot of tourists come through our, our retail store, and the peach season really coincides really well with vacation season.

You know, a lot of people are coming from Atlanta or points farther north, going to Florida to visit family.

They know it's peach season.

So they, they swing in and, and pick up some peaches to take with 'em on their trip.

- [David Zelski] This massive roadside market and packing house has been an agritourism hotspot since 1990, not just for the ice cream and peaches, but for all things Georgia grown.

And as big as peaches are in these parts, there's another crop that most of all the genuine Georgia peach farmers grow in the off season, and that's the Georgia pecan, so sweet in its own right.

- Well, over the years, yeah, we've discovered that peach trees only do well on a certain piece of land for so many years.

A peach tree lasts about 12 to 15 years, and then you can replant that, that same plot of land again with peach trees.

But the third time you have organisms that develop in the soil that make it very difficult to be successful for a third round of peach trees.

So, what we've started doing is, when we plant the second round, we'll also intercept pecan trees in the same row with the peaches.

So that in 12 years, when those peach trees have, have done all they can do and they're ready to be pushed up, we'll remove the peach trees, and you have a ready-made, producing pecan grove ready to go.

That eliminates the, the lag time between the time you would plant a new pecan tree and, and the years you have to wait for it to produce.

- [David Zelski] And that's how things grow around here.

Every season, there's something sweet, something fresh, and straight from the genuine heart of the Peach State.

From Fort Valley, we travel south to Morven, Georgia, to another peach farm that's getting creative with peachy products.

So after seeing all of those fresh peaches, the peach packing, and of course the famous peach trees, you think you've seen it all, but there's still one more thing.

Or two.

Or three.

This old sign tells a story.

And these trees hope to one day continue that story.

- Lawson Peach Shed actually started in 1968.

My father built this packin' shed and packed peaches here all during the 60's, 70's, 80's.

Well, this is the original sign that was up out by the highway.

This is my father, Howard Lawson.

This is where it all started, from this, this one sign right here.

It's over 50 years old.

In the last 20 years, we've struggled to make a crop of peaches, mostly from weather.

In 2013, we lost the entire crop.

2014, we had a few.

2015, we sorta got out of the packin' and shippin' peaches, and we brought it back kinda to a small scale, where, where at least we don't have several hundred acres.

If we have a freeze next year, it's not gonna be like losin' 200 acres at a time.

- [David Zelski] But regardless, Irvin and Barbara have kept the creative coming.

They reinvented their business.

And from the looks, and, more importantly, the taste of things, there's more to Morven, Georgia than I ever knew.

- When we sold some of this packing line, it just left a vacant spot here for somethin' to be here.

So, we moved the peach market up here where we sell peaches, Vidalia onions, Georgia melons, jams, jellies, tomatoes, mostly all Georgia-grown products.

It's worked out real great for us.

This is the Red Flash.

We have the Yellow Flash and the red.

Both of 'em are freestones, freestone peaches, which means the meat separates from the seed.

And that's what everybody wants this time of the year.

I've tasted peaches from West Coast, from South America, and you just can't compete with a Georgia-grown peach.

It's a lot of sugar in it.

It's just real sweet.

- [David Zelski] It's fun to just explore this store and soak in the history.

You can see how the old packing plant once worked, and you'll also find out how so many great things can come from peaches.

Friends of Barbara and Irvin found that out in the best way possible.

Once Barbara first made this ice cream for fun and just for friends, they told her she needed to make more.

- So we started with peach, of course, and now the flavors have increased, and we have blueberry, triple chocolate, cookies and cream, butter pecan, strawberry, and we do a vanilla.

We need a good, ripe peach.

We don't need any firmness in that peach.

We need it to be sun kissed, just right, with the right granules of sugar.

So, we depend on the sunshine and the good Lord to make that good, sweet Georgia peach.

- [David Zelski] Is peach the most popular here?

- Yes.

- [David Zelski] All right.

- Peach is the number one seller, and then blueberry, and then butter pecan.

The homemade has just more flavor and more peaches.

- [David Zelski] Do you like the peach ice cream?

- I do.

I like the peach ice cream and the blueberry ice cream, but she's got all kinda flavors, but I like all of it.

And it's all homemade.

It's all made right here.

It's got the natural ingredients in it, and it's, it's real good.

- And another specialty item here at Lawson Peach Shed is our frozen peach lemonade Popsicle.

This is called a Frozen Peach Pop.

Very popular with the kiddos.

The special on Sunday at Lawson Peach Shed is our deep-fried peach tarts.

The tradition is: go to church, go get you a good meal, and come to Lawson Peach Shed for a deep-fried peach tart with a big dollop of homemade peach ice cream.

And when we run out, we run out.

Usually 'bout three o'clock, we run out.

So, you better get here before three.

This is our homemade peach lemonade.

We make it right here with our peaches.

And this is the homemade peach tea.

And then we freeze it in this machine right here.

- [David Zelski] So you can get a peach slushy.

- Frozen peach slushy.

And we also make a frozen peach lemonade float, which has our homemade peach ice cream.

- [David Zelski] That's what the, the customer there was talkin' about.

- Yes.

This is a signature item at Lawson Peach Shed.

One scoop and some frozen Lawson's Peach Lemonade, and another big scoop Of ice cream.

More frozen lemonade.

A spoon, and a straw.

- [David Zelski] A work of art.

Look at that.

All right, that's a good lookin' float.

- Thank you.

- [Barbara Lawson] Our season begins May 1st, and it ends Labor Day.

We're very busy May, June, July.

People comin' off the interstate.

We have people from Wyoming, from Michigan.

People love to come here and just sit and eat their ice cream.

- Growin' the peaches has became more difficult.

The ice cream, they, the people come for that so that, that's worked out real good.

- [David Zelski] Strong family traditions and tasty additions keep these two going.

Great products and good service lead to loyal customers who just keep coming back for another dose of those legendary Georgia peaches, be it solid, liquid, or something creamy in between.

So, as the roadside markets continue to thrive and Georgia peach products keep flying off the shelves, these growers down here will do their best to keep these sweet blossoms blooming, making the Peach State proud.

I'm David Zelski.

See you at the next Fork in the Road.

- Forget the peaches, this hat.

- Right?

(laughing) - That's the story.

- Yeah, but they're expensive to bring 50, 60 dollars.

(unidentified female laughing) - [David Zelski] A Fork in the Road was brought to you by: - [Narrator] Georgia soil is rich.

It's climate-agreeable.

Its agricultural variety, exceptional.

That's why we're nature's favorite state.

Georgia Grown supports the farmers and producers who work the land and keep us fed.

Because we all grow better together.

Find out more about Georgia agriculture at www.georgiagrown.com.

- Georgia FSIS provides efficient and accurate third-party inspection services to members of the industry.

We inspect various fresh commodities, including peanuts, fruits, vegetables, and pecans.

The use of the inspection service ensures the shipment of high-quality products and enhances Georgia's reputation as a supplier of superior agricultural products.