WEST COLUMBIA, SC — Greens tell the story of the Clayton Rawl Farms. The Rawl family began growing leafy greens and green onions on Calks Ferry Road in Lexington County, SC, in 1948. They sold almost all of their produce at the nearby South Carolina Farmers Market here. Clayton Rawl grew up working with his family on the farm. His sons, Spanky and Chris, did the same. In 1982, the trio formed Clayton Rawl Farms, today one of the larger leafy green growers in the Southeast.

Spanky Rawl is owner, chief executive officer and sales manager; Chris Rawl is the farm manager. Other family members include Spanky Rawl’s father, Clayton Rawl, who heads maintenance and security, and his mother, Brenda Rawl, who handles accounting.

As the Rawl family farm grew over the next 33 years — became Clayton Rawl Farms in 1982 — it acquired more land, expanded its product line and added grocery chains and other distributors along the East Coast as customers, while continuing a strong presence at the state farmers market. Today, the firm employs 175, farms 32 types of produce year-round from beans to zucchini on 2,200 acres and operates its own trucking line. Its most popular product is greens, Rawl said. Greens, kale, turnip and mushrooms make up half of sales, he added. From June 15 to Oct. 15, sweet corn is popular, he noted.

Crops coming in season in late May and June, Rawl noted, will be greens, beans, cilantro, sweet and green onions, squash, cabbage, eggplant, leeks, parsley and, while they last, strawberries. Clayton Rawl Farms also grows 11 kinds of organic vegetables, ranging from the so-called superfood kale to beets, mustard, spinach and cilantro. The farms’ produce is sold at a roadside stand near the farm at the corner of Calks Ferry Road and Highway 1 in Lexington County as well as at its retail sales center in the South Carolina Farmers Market in nearby West Columbia.

Today, one of its key crops is collard greens, which grow year-round on 450 acres, about 20 percent of the total land farmed. The collard greens are a good example of how Rawl works to ensure quality. Collards are the state vegetable of South Carolina, which ranks second for production in the nation, growing 21 percent of the U.S. crop. At New Year’s, when collards are a mealtime Southern tradition, the Rawl team swings into overdrive.

It harvests collards by hand six days a week, 24 hours a day, using stadium lights with generators to light the fields at night. After harvesting, the collards are given a cold-water bath, then packed in expensive wax-lined cardboard boxes with layers of crushed ice and stored in a cooler awaiting transport.

The Rawl fleet of 10 trucks and refrigerated trailers, next step on the journey to features satellite tracking and cellphone communication to provide efficient delivery throughout the Southeast each day. Within 24 hours of the time the collards are harvested in the field, Rawl trucks deliver them to supermarket chain distribution centers, according to Spanky Rawl.