HOBOKEN — Anyone driving down High Bluff Road in Hoboken has probably caught a whiff of Joey Shuman’s delicious watermelons and peaches for sale, or has seen the tin stand filled with produce at the end of the driveway.
This is Griffin-Schuman Family Farm Stand, where folks travel far and wide to get locally-grown, pesticide- free fruits and vegetables at a fair price.
Shuman and his wife, Sheila, have owned the Griffin-Shuman Family Farm for 38 years. This will be the couple’s fourth year running their fresh produce honor stand.
“We thought, you know, we’ve got all this property” said Shuman. “So, we just took a chance. We said, ‘Let’s try and see how it does.’” In addition to watermelons and peaches, the Shumans sell their own honey, muscadine grapes, squash and other seasonal fruits/vegetables, as well as locally-sewn crafts and goat’s milk soap.
The couple enjoys partnering with local people and farms to supply the stand with fresh produce each week. A few regular suppliers include Gary and Rhonda Sellers (cane syrup), Tim Farmer (satsuma oranges), Southern Grace Farms (strawberries) and Ammons Sausage (sausage), among other friends and neighbors.
The Shumans have a lot of history with farming on this land, since Sheila’s father, Owen Griffin, lived and worked on the property long before they inherited it.
“It’s only right to put his name first, because he originally owned all of this,” said Shuman.
The Griffin-Shuman Family Farm Stand has been able to outperform itself each year, according to Shuman. When asked why he thinks that may be, Shuman gave credit to word of mouth and his products’ authenticity.
“You go to some of the tourist areas like Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge or Helen,” said Shuman. “And when you go in, they got all kind of products in there: jellies and jams and all that stuff. But the thing about those (products) are, they don’t make them themselves. They buy them from a company.”
Shuman shook his head.
“I don’t want to buy a product from some company that makes it for my store,” he said. “I don’t want that. I want regular, homemade jelly. I’d rather give my money to somebody local to make it and put it in our store. This allows us to have something we can say, ‘This was made right here in Brantley County, or Ware County or Pierce County.’” To accommodate wide interest in the Griffin-Shuman Family Farm Stand — from both customers and suppliers — Shuman is planning to open a storefront inside his father-in-law’s old tobacco shed.
“We want our neighbors and friends to just come out here and sit down,” he said. “We’re gonna have some benches and chairs out here … have some stuff out here on the porch for sale, some stuff (for sale) inside and just have a community center where people can come by, and even if they don’t buy nothing, just where they can talk a little bit.”
The couple is delighted with how well the Griffin-Shuman Family Farm Stand has been received by Hoboken and its surrounding communities in the last four years, and they are excited for this next step.
“There’s a lot of fun (in running the stand)” Shuman said, “because we get to meet a lot of people. We hope that when we get this store going … that we can have more activities like egg hunts at Easter and a fall festival pumpkin patch. We’re not trying to grow to be a big company. We just want to have fun.”
