Out of the Garden opens

HILAND PARK - It was a spur-of-the-moment decision that led Tabitha Williams and her husband, Ryan, to open Out of the Garden Produce. Sitting inside the U.S. 231 produce store Wednesday, Tabitha said she asked her husband why he wanted to open it now, given the state of the economy. 

“People have to eat,” was his response, Williams said. Out of the Garden opened in May and features locally grown fruits and vegetables from the Williams’ 100-acre Chipley family farm, as well as produce from Bonifay’s Davidson Farms.
   
Of the store’s produce, 70 percent is grown at the Chipley farm, Williams said, with the other 30 percent coming from area farms, South Florida and Georgia.
  
As she walked past the store’s rows of tomatoes, cherries, zucchini and apples, Williams said neither she nor her husband grew up on a farm. Williams, a Rutherford High School graduate, worked at a Panama City doctor’s office for 11 years, while her husband owns Coastal Plumbing.
   
She said her father, who she described as “country,” instilled in her a live-off-the-land attitude.
   
“I love freshness,” Williams said, referring to the store’s produce. “I know where it’s coming from. I know what’s on it.”
   
A sign on Out of the Garden’s front counter Wednesday advertised fresh local squash, just picked, for $1.19 a pound.
   
Williams said the store’s cantaloupes, grown at the Chipley farm, and tomatoes have been Out of the Garden’s biggest sellers in the first month.
   
The store is located next to Hiland Square on U.S. 231 and is operating at the former Lewis & Willis Saw and Equipment Service location.
   
Karen Williams, Tabitha’s mother-in-law, and sister-in-law Lindsay Haid also were at the store Wednesday.
   
To emphasize the family nature of the business, Haid said she designed the store’s logo, a sunrise surrounded by an assortment of fruits and vegetables, and gave Out of the Garden its slogan. “If it’s not quality produce, it’s not out of the garden,” Haid said.
   
To drum up interest in the store, family members have taken to dressing up in fruit and vegetable costumes and waving to motorists on U.S. 231, Karen Williams said.
   
Karen said she puts on a carrot costume about once or twice a week, usually on weekends.
   
“I’m the only vegetable,” she said, adding that she likes the responses generated by the costumes.
   
Out of the Garden has watermelons for sale under a tent outside the store, and Williams said she and her husband had rented an adjacent building.
   
The couple hopes to open that building before the end of the year, Williams said, and would like to add products such as Amish butter and locally made honey.