BE AN INSPIRATION

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Bryan Hager is in his 10th year of full-time farming, although his love of growing food dates back to his childhood. “I’ve been growing things since I was 8 years old and had my first garden in Sandy Springs.”

Now he and his wife Wendy farm 5 acres in Carroll County where they grow a wide variety of vegetables and fruits with at least one fruit, such as strawberries, blueberries or muscadines, coming into season each month.

He started growing fresh soybeans, or edamame, five years ago. It’s a vegetable he decided to plant because his family enjoys it so much. “It’s also one of those crops that helps bring people to our booth. They might have walked on by, but when they see edamame, they stop,” said Hager.

Hager is talking about his Crager Hager Farm booth at two local farmers markets. He helped start the Cotton Mill Farmers Market in Carrollton in 2002, and continues to sell there as well as at the Saturday morning Peachtree City Farmers Market. The farm’s produce is also featured in several Carrollton-area restaurants.

He plants his edamame around the first of May and starts harvesting in July. The harvest window is only about two weeks.

“We plant a 150-foot bed that yields about 100 pounds of edamame. The yield is really dependent on the weather. Good rains mean a bigger crop. And the short harvest window is great on the backs of those who are doing the harvesting. It means less time spent bending over to harvest the pods.”

Those doing the harvesting include two apprentices hoping to have their own farms one day. They harvest the pods one week, then go back through the second week and cut the plants down. “Then we can sit in the shade and finish pulling the pods off the plants. It’s too hot in July to be stooping over picking beans. The only other beans we grow are pole beans. Those we can harvest standing up.”

Most of those who buy his edamame already know how to prepare it. For those new to cooking fresh edamame, Hager explains that they cook them just like boiled peanuts, in the shell, with lots of salt. “Then you just shell them and eat them.”

He’s also found that blanched edamame holds up great in the freezer. “You can freeze them in the pod or shelled. Then when you want a snack, you just pull a package out of the freezer and thaw it. Sometimes we drop them back into boiling water.