Henley family earns Agricultural Excellence award

The strawberries in Bruce Henley's Pungo field were ripening faster than he and his family could pick them last week.

"You might have to open for pick-your-own," said his mother, Barbara Henley, only half joking.

To pick and sell ripe strawberries in the first days of April is unusual in Virginia Beach and to open a field for pick-your-own strawberries this early would be almost unheard of.

Yet, if any farmers could produce a first-rate harvest of strawberries ahead of their time, it would the Henley family. They know a thing or two about Virginia Beach's favorite crop.

Patriarch G. Winston "Winky" Henley and his wife, Barbara, a six-term City Council member from the Pungo area, have been growing strawberries at their Charity Neck Road farm for 45 years.

Recently as if the ripe berries were exhibit A, the farming community awarded the 2007 Excellence in Agriculture award in Virginia Beach to the Henley family.

Barbara and Winky Henley's son, Bruce, and his wife, Kellie, a special education teacher, are following in the family footsteps. Their son, Jeff, a firefighter, and his wife, Stormie, also farm on the side with the family. Four little sprouts are in the mix, too.

The Henleys' exceptional strawberries are the berry on top of the whipped cream on strawberry shortcake, capping almost half-century of strawberry growing and pleasing strawberry lovers in the area.

Fans of the sweet juicy berries have always known the Henleys would be among the first (though never this early) with strawberries, because the family grows an early variety called Sweet Charlie.

This year the Henleys have been selling Sweet Charlies at their Pungo farm market since mid-March. Bruce Henley planted the berries in a field on Indian River Road that was protected by trees from cold northeast winds. He used row covers made of thin white cloth that allows sun and rain in, but helps to hold back the cold. He put row covers more on some rows and less on others to stagger the season.

"Row covers are the latest thing as far as frost protection goes," said farmer John Cromwell, a former recipient of the award. "They put their thinking caps and on got those early strawberries going."

Last week in Bruce Henley's field, Sweet Charlies were bright with red berries and spring green berries and sparkled with the white flowers of strawberries to come.

"It's getting to where now we can't pick enough," Bruce Henley said.

His father was an early aficionado of Sweet Charlies and continues to raise them despite a low yield, because they extend the strawberry season. Not only do Sweet Charlies bloom early, but they also re-bloom late.

"They put out a second crop toward the end of the season," Winky Henley said. "They will be the ones we'll have in June."

The Henleys take this year's success in stride, because Winky Henley has always been one to try new things. He was one of the first in the area to grow cut-your-own Christmas trees. He even alters his equipment to make the machinery suit his purposes. "He's very innovative," Cromwell said.

In addition to strawberries, Winky Henley also began to raise a variety of pick-your-own crops from blackberries to corn, from green beans to butter beans, as well as other produce on about 150 acres in Pungo.

"I want to grow everything new in the catalogs," he said.

Over the years, he has opened the farm for educational tours and charity events. The Virginia Beach Strawberry School always tours the Henley Farm, Cromwell noted.

"It's the best example of strawberry culture," Cromwell said, "because of his large acreage and the way he staggers his plants."

In addition to pick-your-own crops, the family sells produce at their son Bruce's Flip Flop farm market at the Indian River and New Bridge roads and at the Henley Farm Market at Indian River and Princess Anne roads.

There, a big signboard announces, "Local Strawberries Today," in a nutshell, a symbol of the Henley family's excellence in agriculture.

Mary Reid Barrow, barrow1@cox.net