From Picked to Pickled: Proctor Victory Garden turns hobby into thriving business
By Amy Rognlie | Photos courtesy of Proctor Victory Garden and Jade & Kyle Photography
You gotta love pickles (and pickling) to turn a hobby into a thriving home business, but Lauren and Paul Proctor of Proctor Victory Garden have done just that.
“I have loved pickles since I was a kid,” says Lauren, a native Texan. “My Great Aunt Rosebud made the best homemade pickles every summer. She would even make sure to get them from her house in Beaumont all the way to me while I attended UMHB. I’d return her jars and she’d be sure to get me a refill when it was cucumber season.”
Lauren estimates that she and Paul have pickled 10,000 jars of pickles — and counting — in the last two and a half years. “Paul has the green thumb around here, but we both love to garden and when we started producing enough cucumbers to pickle, there was no stopping me,” Lauren says. “For the last 10 years, I’d been trying to recreate Aunt Rosebud’s recipe, as she got Alzheimer’s before I was able to ask her for hers, but I think we’ve come pretty darn close!”
The Proctors shared their first batches of pickles with family and friends, but then the cucumbers really started producing. Next thing they knew, they were getting requests from family, friends and complete strangers.
“Nothing beats someone tasting our pickles and then getting excited that our pickles remind them of their grandma’s pickles! How many people can say that they sometimes get hugged when a new customer tries their product?” Lauren says. “We go from picked to pickled in one day to get that fresh snap when you bite into each of our pickles.”
Going “from picked to pickled in one day” is quite a commitment, so when cucumber season rolls around at the Proctor Victory Garden, all bets are off. The Proctors pick 200 pounds of cucumbers every two days, then can them in their home kitchen. They begin picking cucumbers at 7 a.m., then proceed to wash, hand-slice and hand-pack the vegetables into jars, which usually takes until 9 p.m. Paul stays up into the wee hours of the night to do the water-bath canning.
Though the couple grows much of their own produce in their victory garden in Belton, they sometimes need more, which the source from other local farmers in Bell County. “Supporting each other is at the core of what we do. We’re grateful for great relationships with hardworking people,” Lauren says. “Paul and I feel strongly that the more people eating local food, the healthier our community will be. We believe in giving back and linking arms with nonprofits already doing vital work in our community.”
While the Proctor’s have quite the following for their artisanal pickles, they offer plenty of choices for non-pickle people as well, including seasonal pepper jellies, and other charcuterie delights like pickled mushrooms, candied jalapenos, Slow Burn Salsa, chili mix, Really Big Dill Dip, Tuscan Bread Dipping Herbs and more.
You can find their products on the PVG Mobile Mercantile at their favorite local stockists:3 Texans Winery & Vineyard in Temple, The Water Shack in Belton, Gooch Family Farm in Troy, and the Troy Lumberyard, a new farm-to-table eatery in Troy.
They will also be at the Barrow Brewery’s Farmers market on the first Saturday of the month from April through September.
Proctor Victory Garden
Instagram: @proctorvictorygarden
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PVG Dilly Jalapeño Cornbread Muffins
1 box Jiffy Cornbread Mix
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
PVG Dilly Jalapeños
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Grease your muffin tin, I like to use Baker’s Joy.
In a medium bowl, stir together cornbread mix, egg and milk with a fork.
Fill muffin tins halfway with batter.
Bake for 15 minutes.
