Perry’s Original Farmer’s Market– Doing the Lord’s work

Ray and Laverne Pate are in the business of growing food, and they want you to share in the bounty of their harvest.

The couple arrived here from Sylvester and have been living in Middle Georgia for 44 years, They have been members of The Original Farmers Market of Perry for 12 of its 14 years.

“I’ve been gardening all my life,” said Ray. “At least I got away from the main crop my daddy had – tobacco. I ain’t got no use for that.”

Laverne said they started when their children, now grown, were young.

“We’ve been into this for quite a while,” she said. “When our children were young we’d go to the Macon market and pick.”

She makes no bones about who does the growing.

“Ray has got the green thumb, not me,” she said with a laugh.

The pair has two tried-and-true methods for growing their crops, they said.

“We rotate our crops, and grow in stages,” said Laverne. “We’ll do two rows of corn and then the next week do two more and on and on until we have enough to last through the market. We’ll do the same for the tomatoes, same for the squash, always having something fresh for the market. When this runs out, go to the next stage.”

They plant corn every week, and also grow green beans, corn, squash, zucchini and okra.

“I pick every day except Sunday; I don’t pick on Sunday,” she said. “And for the market we pick Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays so that it’s always fresh.”

The Original Farmers Market is 14 years old and the Pates have been with it 12 years. With that time you build a customer base. But it’s much more than that.

“And with that 12 years you keep meeting people who come back to your stand. You grow and you become a family,” she said. “Our market is like a family. We’re farmer-owned, farmer-operated.”

The market used to be tied in with the city, but no longer.

“We own our market and we’re in partnership with Abba House. We donate everything we have left to Abba House or to The Lord’s Table,” Laverne said. “Our pastor comes by and makes sure nothing gets thrown away. It’s good food, but it will not last to sell it somewhere else. We make sure that Abba House is fed.”

The Pates say they’ll be doing this “until we can’t anymore.” It’s not just a business to them. It’s an enjoyment and a way of being neighborly.

“We are really, really a Houston County local farmer’s market,” Laverne said. “We only have two people that live out of county: Doug Justice from Crawford County and Marilyn Yoder, she’s a Mennonite baker from Macon County. And she donates to the Lord’s Table.”

Jack Ellis, in his 80s, lives in Grovania and raises potatoes and onions. W.T. Jones sells blueberries picked off Lake Joy Road.

Almost everything sold is grown in Houston County except Justice’s produce, but the actual plants were started here. There are limits, said Ray.

“We don’t grow sweet potatoes,” Ray said. “A couple of years ago we did grow sweet potatoes, but come October we were still digging them out of the ground. We got together and said, ‘No more. Anything that grows under the ground is out of the question.’ Now we’ve got to the point to where if it grows flat on the ground it’s pretty much out of the question. We grow cucumbers on a trellis.”

There’s entertainment of a sort, too.

“We also work with Roland Fall, he’s an associate pastor of the Perry United Methodist Church. And he writes and sings his own songs every Saturday morning,” Laverne said. “At 10 a.m. we’ll ring this big old bell that he has and one of the girls from Abba House will give her testimony.

Laverne said she works a lot with Abba House.

“One of our goals, after of course selling vegetables, is to bring awareness that the thrift store is down there on Main Street in Perry,” she said. “Some people come to buy vegetables, of course, and others come to hear Roland sing or listen to the testimony of the girls from Abba House. Their testimony is part of their recovery plan, part of what they have to give. We help them with that.”

The activity is part of a larger effort, she said.

“We wanted to do more religious-type things, like different churches handing out literature and stuff like that. We didn’t want to get involved with any preaching, and it’s been a wonderful thing for us.”

One of their activities is a way of giving back to Perry, Laverne said.

“The Lord’s Table is a ministry and we feed the hungry on Fridays,” she said. “It’s run through Christ Lutheran Church. And on some Thursdays we really don’t know what we’re going to feed the homeless. It’s through donations only. Red Lobster and Perdue Farms and a lot of people in the community have been just wonderful to us in this ministry.

“We have a church bus and we go out to the motels and pick up people who are homeless. You can drive a Cadillac up there and say you’re hungry and we don’t ask any questions. We feed; that’s what we’re there for. We feed at 12 o’clock every Friday at the Episcopal church in Perry because our church isn’t big enough. We’re just doing the Lord’s work. And that’s why we don’t work with the city on this because people get to acting kind of funny if you’re doing religious things on city property.”

Perry Volunteer Outreach also helps the market, Laverne said.

“There are a lot of people donating to The Lord’s Table, a lot,” said Ray. “It’s just like she said, one day ahead we don’t have an idea of what we’ll serve, but it comes through.”

“Somehow, some way you just keep on doing it and it will come to pass.” Laverne said. “With The Lord’s Table we have a very, very loyal contributor, and she owns the Whistle Stop Café in Juliette. She’s nowhere near Perry, but she heard of The Lord’s Table through her mother Agnes Farr, who writes a recipe column for the Houston Home Journal. Jerie Lynn Williams is just so faithful to us.”

People in this area are so giving, she said. Fall, through his actions and through his songs, reaches people who normally would not be reachable, she continued.

“What we have is a unique market, a mixed market,” Laverne said. “We’re all country, we’re Christians – we’re just country folks. And there’s room enough for everybody in the parking lot of the Abba House Thrift Store on Main Street in Perry.”

The Original Farmer’s Market of Perry

Farmer owned, farmer operated. We are a food and plant market, no crafts.

Each vendor has a vote with regard to market operations.

• Laverne and Ray Pate. Produce; been with market 12 years
• Doug Justice. Produce, Crawford County. Plants started by Tim Lewis, one of original farmers when market started 14 years ago.
• Marilyn Yoder. Bakery products, Macon County. Been with market 13 years.
• W.T. Jones. Blueberries picked on Lake Joy Road. Lives in Macon County.
• Tim Lewis. Plants, lives in Elko. Been with market 11 years.
• Linda and Cliff Royal. Plants, live in Elko. Been with market two years.
• Linda Hall. Eggs, lives in Clinchfield. First year with the market.
• Jack Ellis. Onions, potatoes grown on his Grovania farm. With the market a long time.

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