THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 26, 1995 TAG: 9507250116
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 196 lines
EACH MORNING they head south on Princess Anne Road carrying the tools of their trade: pails, coolers, Tupperware, water bottles, straw hats and Avon's body-lotion-turned-insect-repellent, Skin So Soft.
Some know exactly where they're going. Some pause to study maps. Some watch for the signs, then cut without warning into the side roads leading to the freshest produce that the thin strip of land between Back Bay and the Intracoastal Waterway has to offer - the ``pick your own'' fields of Pungo, Blackwater and Knotts Island.
Later in the day they return to the ``burbs,'' sunburned where the hats didn't shade, bug bitten where the Skin So Soft didn't penetrate, parched because the water bottle ran dry. None of that matters, however.
What does matter is that the Tupperware and coolers are full and soon the home freezers will be as well.
Who are these people so drawn by the lure of fresh fruits and vegetables that they'll leave their air conditioned homes in Middle Plantation, brave 95 degree temperatures and 99 percent humidity just to make sure that their corn is sweetest and freshest, their cobblers beautiful and their muffins full of hand-picked fruit?
``They come from all over,'' Mary Martin, the up-front person at the family peach orchard on Knotts Island, said.
``It used to be that they mostly came from Virginia Beach, but now we get them from everywhere.''
As if to prove her point, three generations of a Chesapeake family arrived in their pickup truck.
Rick Proffitt was at the wheel, his mother, Crathie, beside him. The third generation of Proffitts, 7-year-old Jessica and 5-year-old Jonathon, shared the space under the camper shell with a variety of baskets, buckets, coolers and the ever-present Tupperware.
Sprung from the truck, Jessica wasted no time pulling a peach off a low-hanging branch and and biting into it. ``When I first tried 'em when I was little, I didn't think I'd like 'em,'' Jennifer said, peach juice dribbling from her chin. ``But then I just kept on eatin' and eatin' 'em.''
Crathie Proffitt, a peach lover and picker since her childhood in Tennessee more than 80 years ago, smiled approvingly as her granddaughter spoke.
``Mama makes the best peach cobbler you ever tasted,'' Rick Proffitt boasted.
Less than 20 minutes later the family had filled two coolers and were still picking. Crathie sat in the shade of the camper shell, emptying the children's buckets into larger containers and smiling happily.
``We'll have some good cobbler tonight,'' she assured the youngsters, ``and plenty for the freezer.''
For Joe Harnadek, picking peaches at Martin's is an annual rite of summer. ``It's my birthday,'' he said. ``I have the day off and this is what I wanted to do. I do it every year.''
Like a lot of pickers, the Virginia Beach builder harvests more than he can consume and gives a lot away. ``I have one friend who makes peach pies. For the few that I give her, I get a peach pie back,'' he said with a grin.
Like Harnadek, Faye and Chet Dorchester are Virginia Beach residents and repeat customers.
``We can pick closer to home, but these are just the best peaches ever,'' Faye Dorchester commented.
Asked how she could tell a good peach, her answer was straight-forward but not especially helpful to a novice picker.
``They just look right,'' she explained.
Her husband, on the other hand, was quick to offer some very specific advice on the subject of insect repellents.
``This really works,'' he said as he reached over his shoulder and pointed to a sheet of fabric softener pinned to the back of his shirt. ``We read about it in the paper the other day and I decided to try it. It's the best thing I've found yet.''
While peaches are plentiful and good right now - which is as it should be with the Knotts Island Ruritan Peach Festival scheduled for this Saturday and Sunday - another favorite pick-your-own crop is just about a thing of the past for this year.
``We opened our last field of silver queen yesterday,'' said Wink Henley, whose farm is on Charity Neck Road. ``It'll be gone by the middle of the week.
``The time to pick corn is at the beginning of the season, back around the 4th of July,'' Henley explained. ``The later it gets, the more problems you have with it.''
Even so, there was a slow but steady stream of pickers driving into his corn field on an airless morning when the atmosphere itself had the feeling of a hot, musky towel pressing down on the body.
Few had complaints about either the quality or the quantity of Henley's corn even though some, like Bob and Myrle Greissinger of Royal Grant, were ready to call it quits after a fairly short session of picking.
As Bob Greissinger and Henley settled up on the cost of the corn, Myrle Greissinger sat in the car with all available air conditioning vents aimed in her direction.
``We picked blueberries (at nearby Pungo blueberries) first,'' she said. ``so we only picked 38 ears and we're ready to go home.''
Like most pickers, the Greissingers will share their harvest. ``We promised some to the kids,'' Myrle Greissinger said, ``and we've got plenty for that.''
For Noton and Doris Smithson of Acredale, picking anything at the Henleys' place is one of the pleasures of summer.
``I'm a Carolinian,'' Doris Smithson, the retired financial secretary at Kempsville Baptist Church, said. ``I grew up on the farm and I guess that's why I come out here. We come out for the strawberries and anything else (Henley) has.''
Best known for their strawberries, the Henley family also has pick-your-own crops ranging from peas and beans to pumpkins, gourds and Christmas trees.
With the cornfield closing this week and the pumpkin patch and hay rides not due to open until mid-September, Henley admits that he may take his own kind of vacation.
``I'm going to sleep until 8 o'clock for a couple of weeks,'' he said.
On that same hot, humid morning all of the pickers moved as if in slow motion through the rows at Back Bay Blueberry Farm on Gum Bridge Road.
All, that is, except for Albert Magnone.
``Hey, I'm from a long line of Italians who picked fruit in the heat all the time,'' the retired government computer specialist said with a laugh. ``I love this.''
And he loves the blueberries, which he and his daughter-in-law, Marlene, were skillfully removing from the picker-friendly shoulder high bushes.
A Wisconsin native, Marlene Magnone likes the convenience of high-bush picking as opposed to the low-bush variety she was used to when she was growing up.
She and her family also like blueberries. A lot. ``We freeze them, then the kids eat them still frozen for after-school snacks,'' she said. ``We have blueberries over ice cream, over cereal, with milk on them, in cobblers - any way we can eat them.''
One row over from the Magnones, Rea Maurice was picking solo and for the first time.
``I've been waiting all week to do this,'' she said. ``I've never picked blueberries before. I had no idea it was so easy,'' she added as she ran her fingers over a convenient branch and watched plump berries drop into her bucket.
Karen Schell, a Longwood College student, and her mother Peggy, a preschool teacher, also were defying the muggy weather and keeping a close eye on approaching storms as they filled their blueberry buckets at Back Bay.
``I'm going to give some to people who've been giving us things out of their gardens all summer,'' Peggy Schell said. ``But I'm going to save some until Easter so my preschoolers can use them to dye Easter eggs.''
If her idea was somewhat novel, her daughter had an even more novel one. Or at least she did until her mother pretty much vetoed it.
``I wanted to make blueberry daiquiris with them, but she said no,'' Karen Schell said, rolling her eyes ever so slightly.
The good-humored bantering in the fields is something that Back Bay Blueberries' owner Crystal Powers misses.
``This is the second year we've had the fields,'' Powers said, ``but I have a brand new baby so I don't get to work down there this summer. I miss that. It was my opportunity to mix and mingle.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
PICKY EATERS
[Color Photo]
Peaches like these at Martin's Farm are ripe for the picking for
this weekend's Knotts Island Ruritan Peach Festival.
Staff photos by MORT FRYMAN
``I'm from a long line of Italians who picked fruit in the heat all
the time,'' Albert Magnone says of his blueberry outing at Back Bay
Blueberry Farm.
Bob Greissinger of Royal Grant shows off a few dozen ears of silver
queen corn after a short picking session at Wink Henley's farm on
Charity Neck Road. The area's fresh corn crop is just about gone.
Karen Schell, a Longwood College student, and her mother Peggy kept
a close eye on approaching storms as they filled their blueberry
buckets at Back Bay.
Staff photos
by MORT FRYMAN
ON THE COVER: Kevin LaBelle prepares to eat the profits with a peach
picked right off the tree at Martin Farm on Knotts Island.
RIGHT: Tammy LaBelle of the Pine Ridge section of Virginia Beach
keeps one eye on her peach-picking children while plucking one of
her own.
Staff photos, including color cover, by
MORT FRYMAN
PEACH FESTIVAL
For peach lovers everywhere, the place to be this weekend is
Knotts Island, the tiny area tied to Virginia Beach by rural route
615 through Pungo, Back Bay and Creeds.
The fair runs Saturday from 9 until 6, Sunday from 9 until 5.
The opening-day parade starts at 10. Weekend features include
peach treats, an auction, live entertainment, arts and crafts and
all of the usual etcs.
Don't worry about getting lost. As long as your vehicle is
pointed south, you'll get to the fair sooner or later. Call
429-3058 for information.
A GUIDE TO FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLES IN VIRGINIA BEACH
Text by J. CLEGG, graphic by R.D. VOROS/Staff
[For a copy of the guide from the Virginia Beach Cooperative
Extension, see microfilm for this date.]
by CNB