Welcome to Cooper Farms

Cooper Farms is located in Fairfield, Texas. Our main crop is peaches. We also grow greenhouse tomatoes, greenhouse cucumbers, blackberries, figs, and plums.

The Cooper Family

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Fourth of July is such a great time of the year with fireworks, homemade ice-cream, watermelons, and of course, peaches.

I took a step back in time today and found some pictures of us in our younger days when Cooper Farms was still "growing," pun intended. For Tim and I this is the 32nd year we have been growing peaches together. We both worked for Fairfield Farms during our college years and then later planted our own orchards. I made a comment to my daughter, Elizabeth, the other day; "I have been doing this since I was seventeen!," to which she replied, "That's nothing, I have been doing this since I was three!" She got me there.

The final farmers market day at H-E-B in Beaumont will be this coming Wednesday, July 1. We were honored to be invited to participate and want to thank H-E-B for hosting the local farmers and allowing them to bring their fresh locally grown fruits and vegetables right up to their front door. Beaumont customers, if you know you want to get a box or more this coming Wednesday afternoon, send me an email and I will reserve the box in your name. The more sales we know about ahead of time, the more likely we will have enough for everyone who wishes to take advantage of this market this one last time.

We now have purple hull peas and hope to get some fresh shelled pintos soon. A local grower told us yesterday they are almost ready to pick and shell.

We wish everyone a safe summer and hope you stay cool in this heat.

God is good all the time.

Kathy Cooper

Just a quick note to everyone letting you know the Freestone peaches are here. Right now we are picking Harvesters and Carimacs. Red Globes are just around the corner.

After delivering a pallet of peaches to Hewitt H-E-B in Waco, I found Mariana Apene and Kim Mooneyham this morning at our truck at Sanger/Lake Air. They were very happy to see that Ben had loaded some shelled purple hull peas on their truck for their customers. Don't drag your feet on buying your peas. They are only around for a few weeks and then they are no longer. All of the stands will have peas this weekend. The peas are shelled and in a nice quart size bag that is sealed. This is much bigger and better than the Ziplocs we sold them in last year.

We were blessed with rain!

Our blackberry patch looks happy again and now maybe we can see more harvest from our blackberry plants. This week we have been picking Cornett peaches. Cornetts are very dark red with a distinctive pointed tip. They are also semi-freestones which means we are fast approaching the desired freestones. Semi-freestones will come away from the seed if you are cutting them away or just eating them away. The freestones will probably be ready to pick in one more week.

I have spent a lot of time actually out in the orchards this week. It seems the office is usually where I am relegated, but this week I was able to get out and actually do some field work. Something I had forgotten how much I enjoyed! We have one row of white flat "Donut" peaches that were ready to pick. So Ben and I did get most of the "donuts" picked. These peaches went to Whole Foods and they should have them in the stores this weekend. We have one more picking of those on Monday for Whole Foods. Get them while you can. Because we only have one row of them, they are not with us for very long!

While Ben and I were in pursuit of "donuts", we found Dr. Byrne from Texas A&M, working with his trees. He commented on how there seemed to be more and more trees to look at each year. I don't know how he keeps up with all the different varieties he has growing here. But it is fun to walk through the rows and see how peaches can be all kinds of shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors. The peach is truly an awesome fruit.

I have to tell y'all that Tim is a "behind-the-scenes" kind of guy. He prefers to stay in the background farming and have myself or Ben write these emails, or talk to you on the phone. So when Patrick with H-E-B Plus in Waco, Texas asked to film an interview with Tim for Patrick's store, Tim was not so keen on the idea. We did finally convince him to be in front of the cameral and microphone. I think he actually had a good time talking about his peaches, though he would never admit it to the rest of us! Patrick plans on producing a video featuring his local Texas growers. He can then take it back to his store to share with his customers in the produce department as they shop.

Elizabeth is now 16 years old. Wow. Aunt Joan baked her a beautiful cake. We all had to eat a piece in shifts since this is the busy season and we rarely sit down for supper together this time of year. For her birthday she received the privilege of driving (driver's license approved) along with a new pair of cowboy boots to wear in the goat show at the Freestone County Fair next week.

Elizabeth and I spent Mother's Day weekend together at the main stand in Fairfield. It was nice to be outdoors meeting everyone and seeing familiar faces from past seasons.

Dr. David Byrne, from Texas A&M specializes in peach breeding. I have mentioned before how he has planted trees for trials in our orchards in Fairfield. From those trials only a few peach varieties make the final cut and are selected for commercial production. It takes many years of evaluation before a peach variety is decided on. In the attached picture Dr. Byrne is showing us a peach and a nectarine he has developed. The peach and nectarine varieties seen here have made the selection and will soon be available for growers to incorporate into their orchards. We are excited to have another variety to choose from. We appreciate all the hard work and passion Dr. Byrne has put into his peach breeding program.