April 2017 I Today in Mississippi
Thames uses a bladder press to extract juice from the mayhaw berries. The green nylon bag allows the juice to pass through while trapping the pulp. Once strained, the juice will be frozen until it is processed into jelly.
own three children, have lived in this area of Covington County. Thames planted his first 15 mayhaw trees to enjoy as a retirement hobby. “I was thinking I needed something to do when I retired, so I just kept planting and planting. Actually, now it’s more than a hobby,” he said. His orchard peaked at some 600 trees before Hurricane Katrina destroyed about a quarter of the orchard in 2005. When he advertised his mayhaw products, people from across Mississippi and Louisiana responded. “I could not believe how many people were calling from everywhere, wanting juice or jelly or berries. The next
year, I didn’t advertise and I still got calls,” Thames said. The farm’s fiveacre orchard now consists of some 300 trees in 10 wild varieties. With the help of his wife Vivian, who passed away recently, Thames has produced as much as 9,000 pounds of berries. She enjoyed keeping the orchard and farm mowed, and growing vegetables. Thames hasn’t sold berries for the past two years, choosing instead to make jelly despite repeated requests for large orders of juice. Shoppers can find his Big Swamp Creek brand of mayhaw jelly, or a private-label version, at some 20 retailers across south Mississippi. “We probably sell 400 cases a year, something like that,” he said. The mayhaw berries start ripening in April and continue through May. Using a long pole, Thames knocks the ripened berries from the limbs onto a tarp stretched across a frame of PVC pipe. It’s not the best arrangement, he concedes; harvesting berries efficiently is a challenge for small family farms that can’t afford the costly equipment used by large tree-fruit producers.
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The harvested berries are sorted, washed and stored in a walk-in freezer. Freezing softens the berries, making them easier to squeeze, and boosts their juice production. In a kitchen devoted to jelly making, Thames loads the berries into a bladder press to extract the juice. After straining, the juice is frozen in gallon containers until needed for jelly. A jelly-making sessions begins with boiling the thawed juice with sugar and pectin in a large electric kettle. Once poured into hot, clean jars, the jelly is left to gel for two days before delivery to the farm’s wholesale customers. Thames plans to have grafted mayhaw trees ready for sale beginning in the late fall. He recently erected a 22-by-96-foot high-tunnel greenhouse to shelter some 2,000 seedling trees he bought for grafting. The seedlings grow in plastic pots for a year before Thames grafts them with help from his son Chris. Grafting a seedling takes the guesswork out of predicting its bloom time, berry color and other characteristics when mature. “I like to graft them so I know exactly what they will make,” he said. Thames is grafting some of the newer mayhaw varieties that bloom and produce berries later in the spring, making them suitable for areas prone to late spring frosts. What he’d like to do, he admits, is sell only grafted trees and juice. “But every time I mention this to our [jelly] customers, they just go berserk,” he said. For information on all aspects of commercial mayhaw production, visit the Louisiana Mayhaw Association on the web at mayhaw.org. LMA is hosting its 22nd annual Mayhaw Conference on April 8 in Alexandria, La. Willis Thames can be reached by email at BigSwampFarm@aol.com or by phone at 601-722-4612.
Thames looks over mayhaw trees fully loaded with berries, left, in his Covington County orchard. His mayhaw jelly carries the Big Swamp Creek Farm label, right, or may be sold under a private label. Photos: Dara Stockman