New this week, Robbie and Janie Cox are rolling out their Cayenne Short, greenhouse-grown cucumbers.  Robbie and Janie have been operating a greenhouse for a few years now, but previously tried to focus exclusively on tomatoes.  Unfortunately, they always seemed to have trouble with pollination.  Greenhouse tomato growers generally use bees to assist in pollination of the plants.  It's possible to pollinate by hand, but the bees are much more efficient, and work every day without vacation!  However, Robbie and Janie found that their greenhouse wasn't quite large enough to support the bees.  There simply wasn't enough space to support the hive, so the bees focused their attention elsewhere.  This meant they had to switch over to manual pollination, which seemed to be more trouble than it was worth, and not nearly as effective.  Rather than complain, Robbie decided switch things up, and give cucumbers a shot in his greenhouse.  

The cucumbers he chose to grow are called Cayenne Short Cucumbers.  They grow under very similar conditions to the tomatoes, and are known for their great flavor and limited seeds.  However, unlike the tomatoes, cucumbers are self-pollinating, so the switch meant that they no longer had to rely on the work of the bees.  After making the switch, Robbie has been very happy with his cucumbers, and says they have already developed quite a following.  In addition to solving his pollination problem, the cucumbers have also allowed him to offer something new that few others are offering in early Spring.  Robbie is not the first person to grow greenhouse cucumbers, but has found that it is a much less competitive space than greenhouse tomatoes.  As a result, he's having a much easier time selling his cucumbers than he ever did the tomatoes, and he's able to offer the community something new that isn't necessarily available elsewhere.  In farming, growers are constantly adapting to conditions on every plot of land.  In this case, it was just a matter of finding the right crop for the space, and filling another niche in the local food market.

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