LUCEDALE, Miss. (WLOX) - If you’re looking for fresh fruits and vegetables including watermelons on a hot summer day, you can’t get any fresher than picking them right out of a garden. A Lucedale family gives you that chance with locally grown produce on their family-owned farm.
“We grow tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, beans, peas, okra, and a lot of different stuff,” Allen Eubanks said.
Eubanks oversees hundreds of acres of farmland outside Lucedale, and people come from all around to buy the fruits and vegetables right on the farm.
Visitors can buy the produce from under the pavilion or pick it themselves in the field, and it gives about 90 high school students a summer job.
“It wasn’t planned this way, it just kind of happened,” Eubanks said.
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Charlie’s U-Pik was started out of necessity more than two decades ago by Allen’s father Charlie Eubanks.
“He had a small tomato field, it was about five acres of tomatoes, the market went south and he couldn’t sell them,” Eubanks said. “So he put an ad in the paper to come out and pick tomatoes for five dollars a bucket. We started out with him, one of his friends and our kids helping him out in a small tent. He told everybody it’s a great job, I get to see all of my friends and get to take up money.”
The farm is a lot bigger now than when Charlie started offering the U-Pik, but the family involvement has stayed the same. Allen and his wife Janice are joined by their four children in working the farm.
“I think we all work really well together and it’s a privilege,” said Joshua Eubanks, Allen’s son.
Allen’s daughter Allison has three children of her own. They make the fifth generation of the Eubanks family on the farm. One of the kids is named after her great-grandfather Charlie.
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“She [my daughter] is up here all the time, you’ll find her talking with customers, stocking stuff, and eating watermelons,” said Allison Scott, Allen’s daughter.
The fruits and vegetables grown in the Eubanks fields, but not sold locally will be sent around the nation and on store shelves within a couple of days.
“We grow, ship, and pack about 2,000 acres of produce,” Eubanks said. “Watermelons is one of the bigger acreages and right now we’re in watermelon season.”
The watermelons and other produce are packaged and loaded on trucks in a warehouse just down the road from Charlie’s U-Pik.
“We pride ourselves in trying to pick and pack today, then ship tomorrow,” Eubanks said.
Eubanks Produce Farm keeps growing. In the last few years, the family added cattle farming, and they also have a second U-Pik location in Wiggins.
“Our Wiggins location brings a lot of people from Gulfport, Hattiesburg, and off the Coast,” Eubanks said. “A lot of kids there haven’t seen a field, and they can go out there and actually see how the squash grows. They can make the connection that it just doesn’t show up at the grocery store, it actually comes out of a field and then goes to the grocery store.”
The farm life is the only life for the Eubanks family, and they’ll keep farming as long as they can keep selling their produce.
“That’s our goal is to provide a safe, healthy, and economical product to as many consumers as we can,” Eubanks said.
The best time to visit Charlie’s U-Pik locations in Lucedale (257 Charlie’s Lane, Lucedale, MS 39542) and Wiggins (3787 Highway 26, Wiggins, MS 39577) is right now during the summer months.
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You can also find Eubanks brand produce in many grocery stores across South Mississippi.
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