<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=34ipZg_1FRywj5100" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=34ipZg_1FRywj5100" width="1200" height="600" ><p>FOLEY, Ala. (WALA) - Krupinski Farm on Foley’s west side is in its one hundredth year of operation, according to the farm.</p><p>Spring harvest is underway, drawing longtime customers who say they return for the quality of the produce.</p><p>“Their vegetables are wonderful. Always tasty. It’s just the only place I’ll buy vegetables,” said Kim Gomenis, a first-in-line customer.</p><p>“Well, it’s just because the stuff is so good. It’s just really, really fresh,” said George “Jerry” Lipscomb, a years-long customer.</p><h2>Four generations on the same ground</h2><p>Four generations of the Krupinski family have worked the land. Mark Krupinski, his sister Tammy Krupinski-Mason and older brother Joe are the third generation to farm the property.</p><p>“It’s fun because it’s just neat to see all this come to be. You see people enjoying it and they come back and they say, ‘Yeah, we really love this corn. We really love this or that,’ and that makes you feel good because you know you’re doing something good out here and people are getting to enjoy it,” Mark Krupinski said.</p><p>“It really makes you feel good. It makes you humble to know all of these people really appreciate and they wait for us to open every year, so we take that as a blessing,” Krupinski-Mason said.</p><h2>Farm’s origins trace to 1926</h2><p>The farm’s founder, Polish immigrant Rudolph Krupinski, came to south Alabama in 1926 after the L and M Railroad offered Midwest farmers cheaper farmland in the area, according to the family. He intended to grow potatoes as a cash crop.</p><p>The first year’s crop was poor, and Rudolph Krupinski considered leaving, according to Mark Krupinski.</p><p>“And he was ready to pack up his daughters. At the time, I believe he had four daughters he came down with and he was ready to head back to Nebraska. Well, the banks…the bank he was dealing with at the time gave him, pretty much begged him to please stay one more year, give it another shot and they helped him out and the next year, made a good crop and it’s been history since then, so we’ve been here ever since,” Mark Krupinski said.</p><p>Rudolph Krupinski’s son, John, continued farming the land. The operation later shifted from row cropping to a farm-to-table model.</p><p>Krupinski-Mason said the farm-to-table business began with her mother selling tomatoes from a table and grew into her selling watermelons along the road as a child.</p><p>“I could tell you the story about how it all started, under that big oak tree over there. I remember as a little girl, Mama started with a table of tomatoes and people would come up and purchase a tomato straight out of the field and then gradually, as the season went on and we had watermelons, Daddy would set me up, which this road at that time was an old dirt road and he would set me up a double height row of watermelons and I would sit out there all day and sell watermelons at like seven, eight years old so you know, it started. It started with me,” Krupinski-Mason said.</p><h2>Workdays start early</h2><p>The family begins work at 6 a.m. picking vegetables for the stand. Mark Krupinski, Tammy Krupinski-Mason, older brother Joe, Mark’s wife Diane and their youngest son Nicholas work together picking squash, melons and peppers. Sweet corn sales are expected to continue over the next several weeks.</p><p>Customers shared ways they prepare the corn.</p><p>“Buy at least two ears and cut it. Put a little butter. Put it in a skillet. You can add a little water but just butter and salt and pepper and just cook it for about ten minutes. You’ll never go back to a can,” one customer said.</p><p>“Take the corn that you put up, the fresh, frozen corn and you add heavy cream and butter and salt and pepper. That’s it and you bake it for about forty minutes,” said Julie McKenzie-Morgan.</p><p>“I just grill it. I like to pull the silks out, put it back in the leaves and just stick it on the grill,” said Greg Lipscomb. “I just eat whatever he fixes,” said Jerry Lipscomb.</p><h2>Fourth generation harvests the corn</h2><p>Alexander Krupinski, the eldest son and a fourth-generation farmer, is responsible for picking the corn and getting it to the store each morning. He harvests about 130 bushels a day over several weeks.</p><p>“Luckily, we’ve still been able to get the corn puller through the field and not have to do it by hand, but it has happened, you know. We get too much rain and we have to go out there and pull it by hand,” Alexander Krupinski said.</p><p>“I love waking up every morning and coming out here. Now that I have my friends out here, I love working with them. It’s fun all the time. It’s always different. Something different every day,” he said.</p><h2>Family reflects on farm’s legacy</h2><p>Diane Krupinski, Mark’s wife and the farm’s accountant, said Mark’s mother, Margaret, has played a central role in the farm’s operations.</p><p>“Well, my mother-in-law Margaret…she was always the backbone of this farm. I mean, she just was and in the last few years, she’s still here, but when my father-in-law passed away and we were all here, everybody’s like, hey. It seems like it does all fall on me. But even before that, because the boys may not listen to her, but Pop would come to me and say, ‘Hey, you need to let the boys know. Tell the boys they need to do this,’” Diane Krupinski said.</p><p>Nicholas Krupinski, the youngest son, said he views his work on the farm as a continuation of his great-grandfather’s legacy.</p><p>“I mean I think it just holds a lot of meaning to me at least, that I’m carrying on something my great grandfather started and because of that, that’s a good reason for me to keep going and doing it and no matter how much I sweat or how much the gnats bother me, hey, I’m carrying on a legacy,” Nicholas Krupinski said.</p><p>Mark Krupinski said he believes the next generation will continue the farm.</p><p>“It’s just a beautiful location. It’s great that we’re still able to do what my grandfather came here in ’26 and continued it on and hopefully it will go on. I know that once we’re gone, we don’t know what’s going on but I’m pretty sure my boys have it instilled in their hearts too that this is what belongs here is the crops and stuff,” Mark Krupinski said. “I know my dad, the latter part of the years he was here, he kept saying that this is the way the farm is going to exist one day is this business right up here, what we do.”</p></div></body>

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FOLEY, Ala. (WALA) - Krupinski Farm on Foley’s west side is in its one hundredth year of operation, according to the farm. Spring harvest is underway, drawing longtime customers who say they return for the quality of the produce. “Their vegetables are wonderful. Always tasty. It’s just the only...

Krupinski Farm marks 100 years in Foley

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FOLEY, Ala. (WALA) - Krupinski Farm on Foley’s west side is in its one hundredth year of operation, according to the farm. Spring harvest is underway, draw

Krupinski Farm marks 100 years in Foley

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