Hi gardening friends. Happy Friday! I don’t know about you, but I surely was glad to see the rain overnight to clear the pollen out of the air. I know it’s a brief reprieve but I enjoyed the fresh air without the throat-clogging yellow gunk this morning.

Tomorrow’s workday will start at 8am with Fred as your fearless leader; we’ll finish up around 11. Since we should be past the last frost and the soil temperatures are warming up so nicely, the main focus tomorrow is on getting beds ready for the spring/summer crops like tomatoes, squash, beans, cucumbers, etc. Makes my mouth water; how about you?

On Tuesday’s workday, it was a pleasure to welcome a new garden member, Sabrina. She and I were talking about how expensive organic foods are in the store. As you know, we grow everything organically in our garden, so you can be confident you’re feeding your family foods with no pesticide residue or synthetic fertilizers absorbed into the plants. But of course, we don’t have the volume or variety to meet your entire family’s needs, so we do depend on buying food at the grocery store, too. You might find this list of the “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean Fifteen” (http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/) useful. For example, sweet potatoes (one of my favorites) is on the “clean fifteen” list, so I feel safe buying the non-organic version of those. And this past weekend I bought some locally grown sweet potatoes at Harris Teeter for just 89 cents/pound—what a value! It’s a good list to keep with your shopping list (or link to on your smartphone) so you have it handy when you go to the store to help inform your purchasing decisions.

In addition to tomorrow’s workday, remember that we have workdays every Tuesday from 5-7, and you are welcome to come and weed anytime you want!

Hope to see many of you at the garden tomorrow. If your plans take you elsewhere, enjoy the gorgeous weather!

Sandra