'To grow it here in your own town is really amazing': Strawberry season arrives in southwestern Ontario
Strawberry season in southwestern Ontario is here, but at Parks Blueberries near Bothwell, Ont. things are winding down before they pick up.
The long standing blueberry farm recently began growing organic greenhouse strawberries to counter the off-season of local field strawberries.
“We usually see our strawberries coming from different countries, but to grow it locally, I think it’s amazing,” says co-owner Hope Parks.
Parks says she and her husband Bruce began building a one-acre strawberry greenhouse next to their 45-acre blueberry field in 2019, with production beginning last September.
“There is a lot of science to it. There’s a lot of love and passion that these people have put into it,” Parks says.
Parks Country store at 14815 Longwoods Road, Bothwell, Chatham-Kent, Ont. (Chris Campbell/CTV Windsor)
She expects the inaugural season of greenhouse berries to come to a close before the end of the month because it will be too hot for the plants to survive inside.
“They’re only good for one season,” Parks explains. “It will be so hot in the greenhouse that they will not flower anymore.”
Parks says it was a challenging year on top of COVID-19, but it allowed the family owned farm to experiment and learn the new venture of roughly 45,000 strawberry plants.
“To grow it here in your own town is really amazing. You know where it’s coming from. You know it’s clean. You can take pride in it,” Parks tells CTV News, “Sometimes when we go to the grocery store in the winter months and you buy a strawberry that’s $9 a pound, you think to yourself why?”
Meantime, field strawberry season typically lasts through Canada Day weekend according to Sarah Graham at Sarah’s Farm Market who grows their own and sells Parks’ strawberries throughout the rest of the year.
“We almost can carry them around year-round now,” Graham says.
She says the demand for local produce has increased since the pandemic onset.
“People are really realizing how much fresher, how much nicer better product, better pricing you can get with the buy local.” Graham adds, “We’re seeing a trend in the positive direction in that way and we’re hoping it’ll continue after COVID-19 issues are all over and done with.”
The next growing season of Parks Blueberries strawberries will begin in August 2021.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Several flight attendants from Pakistan have gone missing after landing in Canada
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
Doctors visiting a Gaza hospital are stunned by the war's toll on Palestinian children
An international team of doctors visiting a hospital in central Gaza was prepared for the worst. But the gruesome impact Israel’s war against Hamas is having on Palestinian children still left them stunned.
Premiers not being truthful about carbon tax, Trudeau says while sparks fly in Ottawa
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Conservative premiers across the country are 'not telling the truth' when it comes to the carbon tax. Trudeau's comments came as fresh sparks were flying in Ottawa at a recalled House of Commons committee.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
'Ninja,' Twitch's biggest streamer, is diagnosed with skin cancer
American gamer and Twitch superstar, Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins, revealed he was diagnosed with melanoma, a form of skin cancer.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Here's what Trudeau says the upcoming federal budget will offer renters
The federal government will create a new 'Canadian Renters' Bill of Rights,' which would require landlords to disclose their properties' rental price history to prospective tenants.