California Strawberries

Interested in the strawberries that are for sale at your grocery store? Check out this article: A Strawberry's Journey (Toronto Star, June 21, 2009) It's a fascinating read (there's a video too) about California strawberry farming, and how they get from the field to your plate.

Wendy's parents grew up in California, and over the years we've been out many many times visiting her relatives in the Sierra Nevadas and the Monterey Bay area. Ahhhh....the ocean, the surfer dudes in Santa Cruz, fisherman's wharf, Big Sur, deep fried artichokes, authentic burritos....and of course Watsonville, the strawberry capital of the world. Needless to say we are very interested in California strawberries.

The photo is from our vacation in 1994, taken near Watsonville, just off Highway 1

Watsonville is a great place to grow strawberries -great soil, excellent supply of water, and a great climate -I remember Wendy's grandfather saying it was the perfect place to live: It never got cold in winter, so you didn't need a furnace, and it never got too hot in summer, so you didn't need air conditioning!

It's tough being an Ontario berry grower competing with California. California berries are big, look fantastic, and I know we like to complain about their flavour, but a California berry picked in June tastes pretty good. It's those berries picked in March, and the winter Florida berries which have a flavour and texture problem.

Strawberries are way cheaper to grow in California -their season is longer, yield is more than 10 times ours, and they have cheaper labour costs. We also have huge costs protecting our berries from the extreme cold of our winters. You might think that transporting strawberries all the way from California would cost a lot. The environmental cost of all those trucks carrying berries to market is certainly high, but the cost where it counts -the price you pay at the store, is only a few pennies per box.

Methyl Bromide is great at clearing soil of all pathogens such as nematodes, bacteria, fungi, weeds, etc. Believe me, if we had used Methyl Bromide on our field last year, our berries would have been so much better this year. Banned globally because it destroys the ozone layer, we can't use it; however, California is exempt from the ban, so once again advantage California, disadvantage Ontario berry grower, disadvantage planet Earth.

If the truth is to be known, I'd love to go and pick my own strawberries in Watsonville....ahhhh....wake up to the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean at the Monterey Beach Resort, drive 45 mins up the coast to Santa Cruz where the kids (of all ages) can ride the carousel (Alexander and Rebecca are fifth generation riders of that merry-go-round in our family), a 15 minute drive to the berry fields, not enough time to pick, so we'll just buy (we always spend too much time playing in the ocean), Cioppino for dinner at Phil's in Moss Landing....okay I'm leaving tomorrow!

A tale of three quarts

Strawberries are sold in all sorts of different containers. For years the quart has been the standard size, and we've been picking into white cardboard quarts for decades. We decided to investigate what other quart boxes are available.

The photo shows three popular quarts: green plastic, white cardboard, and green fibre.
White Cardboard: It's sturdy, looks good, 100% recyclable, made in Ontario from Ontario trees. The major drawback: PRICE! At 19¢ each they are the most expensive.
Green Fibre: Not as strong, as the cardboard, but also recyclable and locally sourced. Less expensive too, 14¢ each.
Green Plastic: Strong, water proof, and cheap at 15¢ each. The type 5 plastic is non-recyclable in Halton. The thin bars also dig into the soft berry flesh. Some are made locally, but they also come from, you guessed it, China.


Size Matters
A quart is a quart right? In the photo the green plastic quart easily slips into the white cardboard quart. Surely this is impossible if they are both quarts! When filled level to the top, this is what they hold:
Green Plastic: 850 mls
White Cardboard: 1000 mls
That's a 150 ml difference! How come the plastic "quart" is 15% smaller? Turns out, the plastic quart has an optional raised lid, and the volume under the lid is the missing 15%. Yikes!
From a grower's point of view that's great, your profit has jumped 15%. From the informed consumer's point of view, "Hey, that's a rip off!"

What do you think? Vote on our poll!

First Pick!

Strawberries are here at last! They have arrived a week to 10 days late than usual, but that's what happens when you have a cool spring. It is slim picking right now, taking about an hour to pick a tray of berries, so we won't have enough berries for the pick-your-own until later next week.

A late season is never a great season, and is often a short season, but fresh berries are always a treat, and there's no arguing with Mother Nature.

Just look at the shine on those berries, you only see that on berries that are just hours old.

They're growing bigger

With a few more days like today (sunny and warm), we might have some ripe strawberries. Most of the berries are now small and green, but there are a few at what I call the "teasing stage" They look ripe, but when you turn them over, they are still white on the other side. We will probably be able to pick a few next Friday (June 19). Stay tuned.

A Monarch feeding on Lantana

Lantana is one of the new flowers we are growing this year (see earlier post on timing). It is described as a flower you can plant to attract butterflies. Imagine my surprise this morning, as I was making my "what needs to be watered" rounds, I saw, on Bandana Orange Sunrise Lantana a monarch butterfly happily feeding! Wow! I rushed back to the house to grab my camera. This one is a male (you can tell from the distinct dot)

First berry of the season

We grow strawberry plants in our greenhouse as part of our selection of annuals. We have them in hanging baskets as well as individually -they're an interesting filler or trailer for mixed flower containers. Not only do they look good, they produce a delicious treat as well! Pikan is especially nice as it has a pretty pink flower. So, the very first berry of the season comes from one of our hanging baskets, and I ate it, seconds after taking this picture.

The trouble with white geraniums

White is very popular in the garden this year. It goes with everything, is great as a contrasting colour, "pops" out in shady areas, and is stunning when the entire garden is white. We sell lots of white geraniums, but we think they are a bad idea. Here's why: geranium blossoms open slowly, first at the top, then gradually the florets open, moving down the blossom, and the last ones to open are at the very bottom. That's just the way geraniums work. The trouble is, there is at least a 10 day difference in floret opening times on a geranium bloom. The first ones will be "past their prime" by the time the last ones open, and on a white geranium, this shows up as icky brown!

What's big and round and orange all over?

These small plants are started in our greenhouse and are soon to be planted in the field. Right now, they look just like zucchini, or melons, or cucumbers, or squash, or gourds, but they are in fact pumpkins. If you look carefully, you'll see that the plants on the right side look a bit different from the ones on the left -that's because they are different varieties of pumpkins. Imagine: your Halloween pumpkin may be starting right here!

It's all in the timing

I try to grow our flowers so that each plant has one fully open bloom by the second week of May. If it blooms later than that, customers won't see the colour, so it won't sell very well. An earlier bloom will be past it's prime for peak May sales. Timing is easy when you've grown a particular plant before, it's the new stuff that is a problem! It's always a guess the first time you grow something, and boy did I get the Lantana wrong this year. The buds are just about to open up today -that's nearly a month late! Better luck next year.
(btw, Diamond Frost was new this year, and timing was perfect for it)