YOU GOTTA FARM ‘WHEN FARMING’S IN YOUR BLOOD…’

Family-Run Roadside Market Completes Its 65th Summer

Under the green tin awning and bright-red sign at Cook’s Roadside Market near Trenton, brown and brittle corn stalks lean against the wooden posts around suppertime on the last Saturday of August.

The shelves under the front edge of the awning are almost empty except for a few small baskets of muscadines and scuppernongs. Only a handful of people are moseying around under the shed, examining a few sweet potatoes and ripe red tomatoes.

The last basket of peaches has been claimed, and Pam Cook and her crew are preparing to draw the curtain for the rest of the Labor Day weekend. This 65th summer of Cook’s Roadside Market is about to surrender its spirit to the promise of cooler days and autumn in the South.

“When farming’s in your blood, it’s just in your blood,” Pam said, sitting at the kitchen table tucked back where very few of the thousands who visit here every summer are privileged to sit and chat. “We are carrying on the tradition.”

From Under The Oak Tree To The World

Way back in 1957, Claude Cook ran a small country store in a cement-block building alongside this lonely stretch of two-lane road between Trenton and Edgefield. As the 1950s began to sunset and the promise of a new decade appeared on the horizon, Mr. Claude made the fateful decision to plant some peach trees on his land.

“They would have picked their first peaches in the summer of 1960. He passed away in early May,” Pam recalled. “He didn’t get to pick any of his first peaches.”

So, Claude Cook’s boys Larry and Raymond stepped into his shoes and walked his rows of peach trees, plucking the ripened fruit from the branches. A summertime tradition in Edgefield County had taken root.

Mr. Claude’s oldest son Raymond continued to work his full-time job while tending to his Daddy’s trees. Larry was just 11 years old when he and Raymond’s wife Barbara began selling the family’s freshly harvested peaches underneath an oak tree that still stands just a few yards from the current roadside stand.

“What they picked every summer they sold, and the business just grew and grew and grew,” Pam said. In time, the venture became so prosperous the boys would move the roadside stand into Mr. Claude’s old store building – and here Cook’s Farm and Roadside Market has remained for 65 summers after the first Cook family peaches were shared with the world.

“There used to be gas pumps out front. It was just a little country store where folks could stop in and pick up bread, milk, a drink, a cola or whatever,” Pam said.

In 1995, the front of the original building was torn away to offer a little more space between the market and the highway that had become far busier than it was in the late ’50s. More shed space was added to expand the selection of fresh produce offered to regular customers and curious passersby who would stop and take the taste of summertime in Edgefield County with them to wherever they call home.

‘The Juice Just Runs Down Your Arm’

It is impossible to estimate how many folks have paused at Cook’s Roadside Market over the past six and a half decades. On a typical midsummer day, the number of cars that pull into the market easily fills the space between the road and the shed and on both sides.

“In July, the height of our season – when the really good freestone peaches are in and people are wanting to buy larger quantities, and they’re traveling to the beach…or placing orders to come pick up a lot of peaches – it’s hundreds” every day, she said.

Some have visited for little more than the few minutes it takes to select a basket of peaches and pay. Others have become almost an extension of the Cook family.

“We’ve watched children grow up, and now those children are coming, and now those children’s children are coming,” Pam said. “We’ve got grandchildren that talk about coming with their grandparents here to buy.”

Peach-lovers from all across the South somehow find their way to Trenton during the summer season. Regulars come from Aiken, Augusta, McCormick, Greenwood and around the Upstate to snag the freshest fruit for their cobblers, jellies and jam. Others from the Columbia area cruise past peach stands much closer to the capital city to take home some of the Cook family’s luscious harvest.

The peaches handpicked for Cook’s Roadside Market during the bustling summer season “stay on the tree ’til they’re ripe, and the juice just runs down your arm” as you’re eating them, Pam said.

Unlike many other peach stands across the region, Cook’s Roadside Market keeps its shed open to visitors throughout the fall months, though pruning back its operating hours to Thursday through Saturday. Over the years, the market’s fare has expanded to a full line of branded preserves and sauces, dill pickles in Mason jars and other fresh fruit varieties carefully curated from the State Farmers Market and other growers and brought home to Trenton.

Of course, it is a savvy business move to keep the market open as long as the Southern climate will allow, but “we see it as a service to the community,” Pam said. “We enjoy growing as much of our produce as we can, but we can’t grow it all.”

A Tradition Of Feeding The People

Last fall, the Cook family’s network of fellow produce suppliers and their commitment to community positioned them to meet the moment when Hurricane Helene raked viciously across the area on Friday, September 27. Edgefield County and the surrounding region was plunged into darkness for days, but the location of Cook’s Roadside Market presented a blessed opportunity to let the Cooks feed friends and neighbors crippled by the storm’s fury.

“We were very fortunate; we’re close to this substation down here,” Pam recalled. “Our power came back on the same day. Larry said, ‘I’m going to the market if I can get there.’”

Cook’s Roadside Market opened its curtains the Monday after Hurricane Helene’s onslaught, even as area supermarkets were shuttered without electricity. “We don’t typically carry eggs, but (Larry) brought back things like eggs and butter,” Pam said. “He bought a lot of sweet potatoes…and we baked sweet potatoes and passed them out to people who stopped.”

A few years back, the open-air design of the roadside market also gave locals a safe place to shop during the COVID-19 pandemic, even as many folks were fearful of shopping for their Christmas gifts in less-ventilated stores. “That was the first year of our December Shopping Market,” Pam said – and that venture now has quickly become something of a holiday tradition in Edgefield County.

Four generations of the Cook family have faithfully tended to the peach fields left by Claude Cook in 1960 and manned the roadside market that bears their name. Larry and Pam’s son recently moved home from Atlanta to help carry on the family tradition, and his children and his brother’s children have worked at the market during the busy summer seasons.

Just before supper on the last summertime Saturday before Labor Day, Larry Cook strolls in from the fields and meanders through the roadside stand. The last of the afternoon’s patrons explore the remnants under a handpainted wooden sign with the words “Eat Fresh. Buy Local.” Larry settles in on the edge of an empty shelf, encircled by his kin, and softly echoes Pam’s words about peach trees, family and tradition.

“You’ve got to feed the people,” he said. “You’ve got to have food, and fresh food is better for you. Everything fresh is better, locally grown. It’s hard to make living in it, but it’s something that gets in your blood. You want to make it do good.”

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Tony Baughman

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