UCSC Farm & Garden’s market cart produce stand opens June 3

market cart
The UCSC Farm & Garden’s market cart opens June 3 at the base of campus. (Photo by Abby Huetter)

The UCSC Farm & Garden’s market cart opens for the 2014 season on Tuesday, June 3.

 The market cart is located at the corner of Bay and High streets at the base of the UC Santa Cruz campus, with hours from noon to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Thanks to this year’s warm, dry spring weather shoppers will find a great selection of crops at the early weeks of market cart, including organically grown strawberries, blueberries, avocados, salad mix, rainbow chard, and red kale, along with cucumbers, scallions, arugula, Asian greens, Chinese sprouting broccoli, purple mustard, and Meyer lemons. Spring flower bouquets and lavender bunches will also be available.

For the first time the market cart will also carry several varieties of quinoa grown on the UCSC Farm. Red, black, and tan varieties of this popular grain will be available in half-pound bags.

As the growing season progresses, shoppers can look forward to sweet corn, tomatoes, broccoli, potatoes, sweet and hot peppers, apples, pears, basil, winter squash, and much more.

All the produce is organically grown at the UCSC Farm and Alan Chadwick Garden by staff and students in the Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture, an organic farmer and gardener training program of UCSC’s Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS). Proceeds from sales support the Apprenticeship program, now in its 47th year.

The Market Cart will be open through the end of October (weather permitting). Note that in a departure from its usual Tuesday and Friday schedule, the market cart will be open on Thursday, July 3 because of the July 4 holiday.

For more information, call (831) 459-3240 or email casfs@ucsc.edu. Read more about the Farm & Garden’s produce sales options at casfs.ucsc.edu/community/produce-sales/index.html