We know you all have read or seen the news about the weather swings we are having in North Carolina right now. They are really worrying our farmers (and us!) especially when it comes to those delicious NC field berries.
Mother Nature can really take a toll on our farmers’ livelihood and what you will see in our Boxes throughout the seasons. Irrigation levels, crop density and of course just overall harvests are all subject to the levels of rain, heat, cold, wind and other weather extremes in the area.
The North Carolina strawberries this year have gone through an early maturity due to the warm weather snaps we got in February (and even January!) throughout the state. But now is the time when the farmers are especially vigilant of these crops as they get ready to harvest a great majority of them in the next 6-8 weeks.
You can see from James in the video above, frost protection is going to be a necessity this weekend and possibly later in March as well. This includes using row protection (literally laying plastic or blankets over the plants, row by row) or overhead irrigation (which protects the berry blossoms by coating them with water before a freeze).
As our own Kevin O’Connell says: “It’s definitely not just put it in, watch it grow and harvest” for our farmers. James laid the plastic and foundations for these berries back in September, planted them in October and just NOW is going to be getting the “fruits” (couldn’t resist!) of his labor from his harvest… as long as Mother Nature cooperates.