Rob Galey was in his strawberry fields with 20 workers at 6 a.m. Thursday to pick the first berries of the season to sell at the farm’s market on Blenkinsop Road.
They collected 500 pounds in the morning and started selling when the market opened at 9 a.m. It might sound like a lot of berries, but Galey said when the season is in full swing, thousands of pounds of berries are picked daily.
Spring weather has been good for strawberries, he said.
“The quality is exceptional. The sugar levels are very, very high.”
Warm weather early in the season allowed the plants to get well established a little earlier than usual, he said.
The farm’s half a million strawberry plants started blooming with large blossoms, indicating that large berries were on the way.
Berry-ripening slowed down last week due to cooler weather. The best temperatures for strawberries are between 18 C and 22 C, Galey said.
Many of the farm’s 20 workers arrived in April from Mexico and have come up in past years to stay in housing on the farm until the end of October.
The work is labour-intensive. “We do a lot of plant care by hand,” Galey said.
Second-year and then first-year June-bearing strawberries are ripening first, followed by everlasting berries in mid-July, he said.
Next up will be harvesting of carrots, beets and nugget potatoes, with heat-loving corn hopefully ready toward the end of June.
Gobind Farms at Veyaness Road has also started picking strawberries, said Satnam Dheensaw. Along with farm sales, the berries go to local grocery stores.
He, too, pointed to wet weather delaying ripening last week, saying the strawberries need hot temperatures.
When other produce starts coming along, he predicts it will ripen at once rather than in the more usual staged way.
The annual Strawberry Festival is set for July 7 at Beaver Lake from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. with live music, children’s activities and a farm market. Strawberries and ice cream will be sold for $2 per serving between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.
To find out what produce is ripening when and where to find locally grown food go to .
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
