MONTEZUMA — Perhaps these unsatisfied cravings are what make visits to a farmer’s market so gratifying. “All kinds of people come here,” said Debra Brown of Brown’s Farm Market on Ga. Highway 49 in Montezuma. They come from as far away as New Zealand, Minnesota, Arkansas, Mississippi and Virginia. They come in hordes within a 150 mile radius and they stay, sometimes for hours.

 “We started 30 years ago selling peaches in paper sacks from the farm wagon under the shade of the pecan tree. People would come with their folding chairs and sit and shell peas and help us grade peaches,” she remembers with a laugh. “Even so, when we built the farm market, we never expected it to become a hang out.”

 But that is what it is from the middle of June until the season winds down in the later weeks of August. Families, senior groups, church groups, cycle clubs and passers-by stop for the fresh vegetables and ice cream but stay for the atmosphere. “People who haven’t seen each other in a long time run into each other and catch up on the church pews. It has become a gathering place,” said Brown. “See them talking?”

 First time visitor Margaret Riggins gathered baskets of fresh vegetables and said, “I saw it advertised on Channel 13 in Macon last night.” Lanier Pearson and her two-year-old son Cort were returning from the flower patch with a bouquet of zinnias and a small collection of rocks. “This is our first time here.” She had been to a friend’s party and liked the flowers they had picked for decorations. “Cort likes to watch the tractors.  We decided to check out the competition.” Pearson’s husband grows peaches north of Roberta.

 Linda Yoder selects a couple of boxes of slicing tomatoes for Yoder’s Sandwich Shop in Perry. “We love to have these really good tomatoes for our sandwiches. They are big and cover the bread really well.” She also purchased peaches for cobbler.

  reporter from Fox News Atlanta dropped in late one afternoon on her return trip from a widely televised trial in Orlando. She told Debra Brown that she asked about a farm stand at a welcome center and went off route to find Brown’s Farm Market. “William took her out in the peach orchard and let her film the harvest, while we scurried around restocking and freshening up the flowers in our displays.”

 Flo Undercofler and her daughter Dale are regular visitors. “I eat the peach ice cream every day,” Undercofler exclaimed while selecting colorful flowers from a display in the open air market. “We come from Americus to get peaches and we buy 10 quarts every trip,” Dale explained with several freezer bags draped from both shoulders. “She goes through it in just a few weeks and we have to come back.”

 John Walker was visiting the market with a friend from Macon, Beth Robinson. “His family has a farm on the other side of Marshallville,” Robinson said. Walker’s family has operated the Massee Place farm since 1821. He explained they “used to do peaches, but now just pecans.” He likes to come to Brown’s because the peaches have not been processed. “Tree ripened fruit is a little sweeter. We will be back for the Elbertas.”

 ebra works alongside the market’s 25 employees. She rings up purchases, greets customers and shares tips for cooking up flavorful meals with fresh squash, okra, peas, beans, cucumbers, peppers and eggplant. “Everything is right off the farm, picked this morning or yesterday afternoon. We stand behind everything we sell 100 percent. I won’t sell anything in this market that I wouldn’t have in my home.”

 The Browns built the open air market because they saw a need. “We had not tapped our full potential until we built the market to reach out to more customers.” They built a commercial kitchen and added ice cream, cookies, lemonade and peach blossoms to the menu. Peach blossoms are puff pastry wrapped peaches baked on site and served with an optional scoop of ice cream. Every bite of the churned hand-dipped ice cream is filled with fresh cream and chunks of peaches. This year they have added gelato, a low fat Italian ice cream made with a lighter process.

 Daughter Kim Brown came up with the idea for the flower patch. “A lady came last week and picked a thousand zinnias for her daughter’s wedding in Atlanta. Our sunflowers are cut flower varieties of all colors. These aren’t the sunflowers grown for their seeds, so they don’t get pollen all over your clothes,” she explains ruffling the petals of a deep red bloom that is nearly black. “The flowers are easy to grow, the customers love them and it just goes with the concept of a farm market.”

 Debra says, “I want my customers to have a new experience every time they come.” The market offers new and different items each season. In addition to the hand crafted wreaths, the market stocks a gourmet line of jellies and southern condiments like pickles, relishes and chow chow. There is a display of one-of-a-kind gourd houses painted with custom designs and a new collection of colorful oilcloth aprons. “I like to keep it interesting and am always looking for new ideas,” she says as she takes a basket of heirloom tomatoes William Brown has just brought in from the field.

 “We decided to try the heirlooms because of their flavor. Experienced growers told me that we would never pick a single tomato because they aren’t disease resistant. But they have done very well,” she tells a family from Virginia. Heirlooms are non-hybrid varieties which are open-pollinated, with seeds that grow true to type. Meaning that seeds from the Browns’ Brandywines will reproduce the same delicious tomatoes as the parent fruit.  Hybrid tomatoes are bred to withstand dry conditions, poor soil, and diseases to help get the harvest from the field to the grocer’s shelf looking picture perfect. Heirlooms survive because generations of families planted them because of their flavor.

 Elsie Davis loads a sack of the heirlooms to take to her daughter in Louisiana. Davis and her husband Cassel were visiting Montezuma for a family reunion with daughter Amelia Davis and granddaughter Antigone Cox. Elsie grew up in Montezuma and this was her first time back since moving away when she was 10 years old. “We have a garden at home in Nassawadox on the Eastern shore of Virginia. We grow Brandywines,” explained Mrs. Davis.  “At least I hope it will still be there when we get back.”

 Another new item at the farm market is cage free brown eggs. In a few weeks a new variety of eggplant will be ready for harvest. The Ichiban eggplants are a Japanese variety that is “sweet and good for stir frying.”

 Debra Brown says the secret to the market is not their designation as a certified farm market, but the atmosphere and friendliness of her staff.  “People come for the peas and butterbeans, but they stay for the company and the ice cream.”

Learn more about the market at www.williamlbrownfarms.com/market.html.  Visit the market Monday through Saturday from 8:30 to 6:00 and after church on Sundays from 1:00 to 6:00.  Bring a freezer bag to take ice cream home to treat your family and friends.