Blue Skies

Spring is surely here and ol' man winter has gone away! Sure, we may get a few more frosty nights but spring is here. Daffodils and flowering trees are blooming, the cover crops are shooting up and the earth is coming to life! Spiders and bees are out too...as are the weeds.Our first crops in the greenhouse are ready to harvest. We have new arugula, tatsoi, mizuna, lettuce and radishes. Look for them on our store. Coming soon are broccoli rabe and turnips.

Sign up for our CSA if you haven't yet...thank you if you have! See our CSA through our links on the right and down some.

Patricia and I spent the afternoon working. We went to the greenhouse to check on our plants and bring seedlings to the farm. Here's some of our afternoon...

Us...

me and our first spring radish...

chard, lettuce and broccoli seedlings in soil blocks...

the house...

Patricia peeking through rosemary...

strawberry flowers growing into strawberries...

Seen here, common vetch (the plant) and mycorrhiza (white nodes on the tiny roots), symbiotically related. Vetch supplies nutrients to the mycorrhizae which fixes nitrogen from atmospheric nitrogen which in turn is released into the soil when the plant dies and decomposes. A positive feedback cycle...

Lettuce mesclun growing in the greenhouse...

Scallion seedlings crowned with their dyed seed hulls...

preparing a bed for radishes, turnips and flowers...

Blue skies...

Winter harvest is nearly done and the spring harvest is starting to roll in...We'll have carrots for another week or two and that will be it until May. No more Chinese cabbage, vitamin green, collards and brussels sprouts. See our store for availability.

This coming Tuesday, March 16th, we plan to have produce pickup at our house, 604 Sasser St., between 4:00 to 7:30 pm. No NCSU delivery this week, spring break. Remember to have your orders placed by Monday evening.

A few of you occasionally may have trouble placing orders. Please make sure you receive an automated confirmation email a few minutes after you place your order. If you do not receive this email your order was not placed and we will not receive it. Please try again or email us your order to shields.ben@gmail.com or call Ben @ 919-800-8898. Also, we do not accept online payments, e.g. PayPal. We only accept payment of cash or checks at pickup.

Purchase of vegetables is made through our online store-
www.vendio.com/stores/bensproduce.


Newly available vegetables:
Easter Egg Radish
Tatsoi
Arugula
Mizuna
Lettuce Mesclun
Mixed Mesclun (all the above except radish)

Current vegetable availability includes:
baby beets
brussels sprouts
carrots
collards
scallions
lettuce
spinach
sweet potatoes


Late winter /early spring vegetables will include:
broccoli raab
lettuce
swiss chard
turnips

Be good and eat well,
Ben & Patricia