dentists, farmers and students. In addition, North Carolina

has the largest beekeeping as-sociation in the country, with more than 1,900 members. The association sponsors beekeep-ing education classes around the state. New beekeepers can get started with the help of the association and commercial beekeepers, like Tapp’s Busy Bee Apiaries.

Tapp started Busy Bee Api-aries in 1998. He now has 3,300 hives, including 1,000 dedicat-ed to pollination and 2,300 to raise queens. In addition, Busy Bee Apiaries sells beekeeping supplies and honey.

According to Tapp, most beekeepers around here are hobbyists – meaning they keep ten or fewer hives for pollinat-ing gardens or producing small amounts of honey. Tapp said he himself started beekeeping as a hobby.

“I grew up on a farm, and it’s hard to get that out of your blood,” he said. “We have a lot of fun with [beekeeping].”

Now Tapp takes his bees to pollinate farms across the state. Many of those farms, he said, are quite dependent on his bees and their pollination.

“A major part of our busi-ness is pollination,” he said. “We take bees to the fields, and they do their job.

“Once they’ve pollinated that crop, we take them to an-other crop.”

Tapp said the biggest part of their business, however, is raising queen bees, which they ship all over the country. Tapp breeds Minnesota hygienic queens, which tend to keep the hives clean and are more resistant to mites.

Even if a queen is resistant to mites, Sevin Dust – a pes-ticide that resembles pollen – can destroy the entire hive.

“It’s really detrimental to the beekeeping industry,” Tapp said. Because the dust looks like pollen, the bees pick it up and bring it back to their hives.

Tapp said he hasn’t seen any evidence of colony collapse disorder in his hives. He spec-ulated that the disorder was caused by beekeepers feeding the bees too much cornstarch when the bees are unable to get protein through pollen due to drought. The imbalance in diet could have caused the dis-order, Tapp said.

However, he added, “ As long as it’s working the way it is for us, we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.”

Potluck in ChathamThe third “Potluck in a Pasture”

summer supper will be held Sunday, July 15 from 6-8 p.m. at Pugh’s Cedar-brake Sheep Farm near Silk Hope.

ChathamArts sponsors the series of suppers, which take place every third Sunday of each month this summer. Participants can tour the hosting farm and meet local artists.

Featured artists include Lisa and Karl Janson, creators or handmade birch knitting needles, crochet hooks and tools; Suzy Szary, a spinner who

owns cashmere goats and Icelandic sheep; weaver Pat Randorf; Celtic harpist Dora Owens; and metal artist Roger Lamana.

Visitors are asked to bring a pot-luck dish for eight that includes at least one locally grown ingredient as well as a copy of the recipe, a bever-age, lawn chair or blanket and $10 for adults ($8 for members) and $5 for children ages 6-12.

Proceeds benefit ChathamArts, a nonprofit county arts council that supports diverse arts and cultural programs in the schools and the community.

For more information or direc-

tions to the supper, visit www.cha-thamarts.org or call 219-9840.

Sherbert churningSheri Castle will host a buttermilk-

blackberry sherbet-churning event at Southern Village on July 12.

Using blackberries produced in the blackberry winter caused by this year’s Easter freeze, Castle will churn sherbet with children and provide in-formation and recipes.

Castle’s original recipes are na-tionally recognized and have been featured in Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens, Fine Cooking

and the nationally syndicated Desper-ation Dinners column. She is a mem-ber of Slow Food USA, the Southern Foodways Alliance, the International Association of Culinary Profession-als, the Chefs Collaborative and the Carolina Farm Stewardship Associa-tion.

The event will begin at 4:30 p.m. at the Southern Village Farmers’ Mar-ket across from the Lumina Theatre.

Workshop offeredThe Center for Environmental

Farming Systems will host a work-shop about energy use and alterna-

tive energy production on farms on July 12 at the center in Goldsboro.

The workshop is part of the Sea-sons of Sustainable Agriculture se-ries and will be led by Steve Moore, a research associate in natural re-sources and environmental design at N.C. A&T University. The all-day workshop will provide farmers with an overview of current and future energy use as well as information re-garding alternative energy production and reducing on-farm energy use.

For more information, visit www.cefs.ncsu.edu or contact the center at 513-0954 or cefs_info@ncsu.edu.

The Fourth of July is here, traditional blackberry-picking time. I enjoyed seeing a Dad and two youngsters out on bikes picking berries along one of Carrboro’s inner-city coun-try lanes during the past week-end. The huge briery berry patch in my wild yard is heavy with fruit, though sadly not as large as hoped for. Our little climatic dry spot on the west-ern edge of Carrboro simply has not been blessed with the recent rains falling all around us. However, I am thankful to have a couple of colanders full of juicy “little” berries, which I enjoy on cereals, and hope-fully will gather enough more to freeze for later. I have more than a couple of scratches on arms and legs because our deer have selectively harvested from the outer edge of the patch. Cutting one’s way into the center is a sticky, though rewarding, effort. I’m hoping that some of these afternoon showers will cross over our patch because there are still lots of red berries with poten-tial.

Every year I am stopped in my tracks to take in the visual of the unripened red berries contrasting with the jet-black ripened ones, as beautiful as any arrangement of flowers. So take time to admire the beauty while picking the an-ticipated savory treat.

Now here’s a challenge for you. There are other wild blackberries among us. There is one running loose in and around Carrboro. It’s called an “alien blackberry” because it was introduced from Europe, who knows how long ago. It’s uncommon and worth a search in your wild garden and along roadsides and woods and field edges in your neighborhood. I’ve successfully transplanted some from the edge of the driveway to my little house within Carrboro to the edge of the driveway to my house here on the western edge of Carrboro. It has just finished flowering, two months behind the common Southern Black-berry (Rubus argutus).

I’m looking forward to this Himalaya-berry (Rubus discolor) bearing delicious fruit in another couple of weeks. I have just a few of them, so I will consider watering them if there is no rain on my hori-

zon. The flowers are a beauti-ful pale pink and the backs of the leaves are a distinctive vel-vety white. I remember tasting the sweetness of this foreign berry some years ago. It is well worth cultivating in a garden bed where it can be well tend-

ed and trained along a trellis or wire frame for easy viewing and picking. Good luck with your search. And along the way, your keen eyes will dis-cover lots of other wonderful plants.

July 3, 5 and 7Arugula, beets, blackberries, blueberries (small quantities,) bush beans - green and yellow wax, green and yellow broad, and haricot vert; cab-bage: green and red; carrots, chard, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, fennel, greenhouse produced items - basil, cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes; garlic, herb bunches: basil, cilantro, dill, and parsley; kale: green, lacinato, and red feather; leeks, melons: cantaloupe, honeydew, and watermelon; mushrooms: oyster and shiitake; okra, onions: yellow, green, and red; peppers - anaheim, banana, bell, cayenne, and hungarian; potatoes, purslane, radicchio, squash and zucchini, tomatoes: Big Beef, Early Picks,

Italian Oxhearts, Mexico, Red sun, and Sungolds are just a few varieties available; vegetable and herb seedlings, bedding and landscape plants, cut flowers, succulent houseplants; pastured-based meats: beef, buffalo, chicken (limited quantities,) goat, lamb, pork; charcuterie: bacon, brat-wurst, breakfast sausage, chorizo, country ham, hot and sweet italian sausage; eggs, fresh and aged cow’s milk and goat’s milk cheeses, honey, pecans, jams, jellies, wine (Wed. & Thur. only,) prepared foods, and crafts.

*Produce availability dependent on weather conditions

Thursday, July 5, 2007 The Carrboro Citizen Page 5

PHOTO BY KEN MOORE

Distinctive white leaf underside of pink-flowered Himalaya-berry

In Brief

301 W. Main St., Carrboro, NC

Saturday MarketMarch 24 - Dec. 22, 2007

7 a.m. - Noon

Southern Village MarketMay 3 - Aug. 30, 2007

4 - 7 p.m.

Wednesday MarketApril 11 - Oct. 17, 2007

3:30 - 6:30 p.m.

floraBy Ken Moore

AND & TABLELThere’s more than one kind of blackberry

BEESfROM PAgE 1

Ingredients1 1/2 pounds green beans*, cut in 1/2 inch lengths1/2 pound very small new potatoes*, peeled1 small bunch scallions or 2 shallots, chopped2 cloves garlic*, minced4 tablespoons butter1/4 cup chopped parsley*Salt and freshly ground pepper

ProcedureBlanch the vegetables in boiling salted water, first the green beans until tender, 4 to 6 minutes, then the potatoes until they can be pierced easily with a skewer. Drain the vegetables when they are cooked and reserve.

•••••••

While the vegetables blanch, sauté the scallions and garlic in the butter until limp. Add the blanched vegetables to the scallion/garlic mixture. Stir to coat with butter, adding to taste. Toss in the parsley and season with salt and pepper. Serve very hot. Serves 6. Recipe from “From a Breton Garden” published in 1990 by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., ISBN # 0-201-51759-0.

VariationsUse all different kinds and colors of potatoes; there are so many won-derful varieties available in the Market. Use yellow snap beans* instead of green, or a mixture of both. Substitute the parsley for one of these herbs; basil*, chives, dill*, lemon thyme or mint*. Add crumbled bacon* or chopped anchovies as a garnish.

*available at the Market

what’s at the market

recipe of the weekGreen Beans from the Brittany Coast, from Kelly Clark, Market Staff and Volunteer

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in The Carrboro CitizenSend us your:

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Send your announcement with photo to:Carrboro Citizen • P.O. Box 248 • Carrboro NC 27510

or email: meghan@carrborocitizen.com

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