STEINBACH, MAN. THE CARILLON n C3
www.thecarillon.com n
THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2024
Bumper crop in 2023 gave farmers hope Continued from page 2C
His family were hog farming and had beef cattle on 320 acres until 2004, when they sold half the land and the barns. Harvey continued to raise beef cattle, buying animals in spring, pasturing them all summer and selling them in fall. Now he grows hay as a cash crop and a neighbor rents the pasture for cattle. Harvey says it’s kind of nice having the cattle around just to see them, without having to do any work. When the couple started the berry patch they decided to go with a size that could be handled by two people, and that is still their plan. There are, of course, the U-pick customers who do a lot of the pick- ing for them (except for this year) but Harvey is still out there every day picking for the pre-picked supply so many customers ask for. Last year’s bumper crop encour- aged Rock Creek Saskatoons to try a hand at marketing their berries with off-farm sales. In spite of a disas- trous trip to the Steinbach Farmers Market, Karen was looking forward to a return there this year. This year’s crop just wasn’t big enough. They thought they would try the farmers’ market for the first time last year and Karen set out for Steinbach with a dozen baskets of saskatoons in the trunk of their car. They had just set up a table and canopy because of a threat of rain, when a torrential downpour washed out their plans, and ruined the day for the rest of the farmers’ market crowd as well. Karen couldn’t get the berries back into the trunk fast enough and soon she was as soaked as her saskatoons. To make things more difficult, the trunk didn’t close properly and Kar- en had to get out of the car to attend to that. By the time the storm passed, there were canopies blown down all over the place and the farmers’ mar- ket was cancelled. But the day was not a total loss, as Karen met Eva, a regular at the Stein- bach market who bought 10 baskets of saskatoons and ordered another 10 baskets to be delivered later. Karen expected Eva was going to be a good customer again this year, but along with the host of regular pickers, she was to be disappointed this year. And if misery loves company, there was plenty of that to go around for Manitoba Saskatoon growers this year. Just one example is the July 20th media update from a major grower who headed the bad news “Defeated, depressed, stressed and sad.” “We gave it our all, but Mother Nature defeated us. We ran our har- vester Thursday, July 18 and Friday, July 19 and were getting very few saskatoons and low quality. To put it into perspective, the (Manitoba Sas- katoons) orchard typically produces an average of 15,000 pounds. This year we took off 3,400 pounds and approximately 1,500 pounds were low quality. It was just a poor, poor season.”
WES KEATING THE CARILLON
The 2024 saskatoon crop was disappointing, but the sour cherries were plentiful at Rock Creek Saskatoons this year.
ry patch, when the birds are singing and the baskets are being filled with really nice berries. A lot of saskatoon pickers, who spend their time collecting wild ber- ries every summer would agree. The Rock Creek Saskatoons field is indeed a pleasant place to be and has become a popular alternative for many who like to pick wild sas- katoons on road allowances in the Southeast. Rock Creek Saskatoons is just a half mile off a paved road, four miles south of Grunthal, and is very acces- sible for pickers from Winnipeg to St Malo. And it’s certainly more fun than going out in the bush to pick wild berries, Harvey adds. The Ennses are most thankful for all the help they have been getting from the Prairie Fruit Growers Asso- ciation over the years. Their website is invaluable in providing informa- tion to growers, as well as promot- ing their products, and perhaps the PFGA will be able to shed some light as to what happened to this year’s crop of saskatoons, Harvey says.
While the quantity of saskatoons may also have been a disappoint- ment for the Grunthal fruit growers, at Rock Creek Saskatoons, the cher- ry trees on their yard flourished and produced a bumper crop. Until this year, the Ennses were themselves able to use all the cherries the trees produced, but this year the abun- dant crop allowed them to put sour cherries on the market along with saskatoons for the first time. There are four sour cherry trees on the Enns farmyard and the fruit is great for making jams, pies or platz, which is his favorite. A couple from Iran, who visited the farm and bought a basket, told Harvey they liked to eat sour cherries with salt. The cherries need to be pitted, though, and that is another task add- ed to the picking, but even with that, it is worth the effort, Harvey says. “Put on some good music, grab a pail of cherries and away you go. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon.” Harvey says he also doesn’t mind picking saskatoons. He actually finds it therapeutic to be in the ber-
ROCK CREEK PHOTO In his final year as a friendly greeter at Rock Creek Saskatoons, Darby relaxes in the shade of a saskatoon bush. After 15 years, the friendly beagle, who loved eating the saskatoons he would strip off the lower branches, died this summer.
August 6, 1965
Co-op hits jackpot after five-year wait
showed up. Plans to sell to wholesalers and to set up roadside stands never got started. Pickers cleaned up the crop as fast as it rip- ened. During the biggest single day, pickers har- vested 2,900 pounds of strawberries. Man- ager Bill Wowk pointed out that even at 25 cents a pound, pickers got a bargain, since most city stores sold their strawberries in the neighborhood of 50 cents a pint, and each pint contained only three-quarters of a pound. Members of the Co-op credit the success of their berry plantation to representatives of the Department of Agriculture, who have guided the experiment from the start. Peter J. Peters, fruit specialist with the Soils and Crop Branch, was particularly helpful, spending a lot of time on the project. In extensive experiments on its small test- plot, the Co-op has proven that Sparkle, Red- coat and Dunlop strawberries are most suit- able for the soil and climate at Hadashville, and most of this year’s crop came from these three varieties. The largest of the berries measured up to 2½ inches in diameter. During the past week, dozens of cars of would-be pickers have been told they came too late, and to try again next year. Most of the shares in the Reynolds Fruit Growers Co- op are owned by local people. All are hopeful that their enterprise will be able to elude this winter’s hazards and that they’ll be able to harvest another bumper crop next year.
by WES KEATING T he first experiment in co-operative strawberry growing ever tried in Man- itoba has finally paid off, after a five- year wait. With the close of the strawberry season last week, the Reynolds Fruit Growers Co-op at Hadashville announced to its elat- ed members that for the one-month-long picking season, it had produced 22½ tons of berries. For a solid month, thousands of house- holders from Winnipeg and other towns and districts have been swamping to the 16-acre plot to harvest the 45,000 lb. crop of berries. For the privilege of picking their own ber- ries, they paid 25 cents per pound and poured a total of over $11,000 into the treasury of the 74-member Reynolds Fruit Growers Co-op. The Co-op’s resounding success this year only came after a series of failures as hail, too much rain and spring frost destroyed three crops in a row. This year’s crop was the first one actually harvested. In spite of the long wait for a crop, this sea- son’s success surpassed all expectations for the Co-op management, and berry-picking customers literally swamped the Hadashville location day and night, during the month of July. Promotion the Co-op received on city tele- vision stations proved positively embarrass- ing, as time after time, there weren’t enough berries to go around, when hordes of pickers
CARILLON ARCHIVES Co-op Manager Bill Wowk with a basket of top-grade strawberries, part of a bumper crop the Reynolds Fruit Growers Co-op grew at Hadashville this year.
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