My grandfather, Lloyd Brown, was the first successful peach farmer in Ben Hill County, and to our family’s knowledge, the only such farmer to take up this challenging crop. The weather in South Georgia is even less predictable than it is in Central Georgia’s Peach Belt. The whole operation only lasted about 15 years, finished circa 1970 by disease, but it remains a beloved memory to the family and to the many people in Ben Hill and Irwin Counties who bought peaches from Brown’s Peach Farm.

The peach farm was finished around the time I was born, but memories of the operation were very important to my family.

This is my grandfather at the farm in 1958, with some of his prized peaches, and plenty of Coca-Cola to go around.

I still have a few of those peach baskets.