Today was the Strawberry Festival at the Jungle Farm just north of Innisfail. Since that’s right in my neck of the woods, I decided to that the family out and enjoy a few strawberries. The Jungle Farm is the biggest strawberry farm I’ve visited - with about 12 acres of strawberries. However, strawberries aren’t the only thing you’ll find there. They also grow raspberries and a variety of flowers. In their little store you’ll find fresh vegetables, BC fruit and preserves. Their fields are full of all varieties of produce such as lettuce, cucumbers, pumpkins, and even artichokes. They even have a couple of greenhouses in which they they grow bedding plants and such. They are also a part of the Innisfail Growers - a group of five central Alberta farm families who cooperatively market their produce in local farmer’s markets.

My Experience

I’m not sure how busy they are on a regular summer’s day, but today, with the Strawberry Festival going on, there was a quite a number of people there. I counted 28 cars in the parking lot. One of the fellows I talked to brought his family up from Calgary to have the experience of picking berries with his daughters. Now I personally would prefer to pick berries all my myself, but my wife would much rather have the anonymity of being in a large crows, so she was glad we came on this day.

The strawberries themselves weren’t too bad. Quite a few berries had hail damage from a few weeks ago, so many of them didn’t LOOK their best, but the taste was still just fine. It was easy picking, with several large berries filling our basket in a matter of mere minutes. With 12 acres to choose from, it was easy to find a place that hadn’t yet been picked over.

For the Kids

The real story at the Jungle Farm is the attractions for the kids. My son took immediately to the big sand pile that was stocked with a variety of toys. My daughter ran over to the kid-sized wooden train that was right beside the paved tricycle track. My kids loved these attraction much more than they cared to pick strawberries. They were in tears when we had to leave (being past their nap time didn’t help though.)

Extended Season

Now I will have to check this out for myself later this fall, but I understand there are activities going on at the Jungle even into the fall. They have a pumpkin patch (great for pictures of the kids), hayrides, a corn maze, a bay maze and more. This is also a great time to pick up some of their famous pickles. But I’ll have to tell you more about that later.

A Final Word

If I’m planning on bringing kids with me next time I pick berries, I’ll certainly go to the Jungle Farm. It’s great to have a place where the kids can have lots of fun (and dad can fill his basket with fruit). I’ve very excited to take the kids to the pumpkin patch this fall and get a few bags of cukes (as I did last year) to make some pickles. So if you AND the kids want to head out to a upick - be sure to check out the Jungle Farm.

Want to Visit the Jungle Farm?

Here’s what you need to know:

Location:

From the Innisfail overpass continue on 6 kms north. On the right-hand side you will see the U-Pick sign for The Jungle and then farther on you will see a sign for “The Old Pole Road”. At this intersection turn left (west) and go 2.5 kms. They are on the right side of the road (north). Park in the lot near the little red barn.

Produce:

Strawberries, raspberries, flowers, cucumbers, pumpkins, lettuce, onions, artichokes, and more.

Prices:

At the time of this article, strawberries were $2.50 per lb.

Other information:

You can check out their website for upcoming events and other important info. http://www.thejunglefarm.com

Gardening in Alberta certainly has it’s challenges. The #1 challenge has got to be the weather. Late & early frosts, May blizzards, hail, wind - it all takes a toll on the garden. But there is another enemy. A cute and cuddly, seemingly harmless enemy. It’s the deer.

This is the first year that I have not (yet) been ravaged by hail - but it is also the worst year I have ever had with deer. Why, just this morning I interrupted this little fellow at my square-foot salad bar…

On the menu today was lettuce, kohlrabi, asparagus, peas, strawberries, and assorted flowers. It seems lettuce was the favorite today.

So if the deer are regular customers at your garden, here are a few things you can try…

• Have a radio loudly on throughout the night.
• Scatter human hair around your garden - ask your local barber to bag a day’s hair.
• Hang pieces of strong-smelling soap around the garden.

The problem with all of these and other deer-deterring techniques is that deer are pretty smart and quickly learn your tricks and ignore them. From my experience there are only two real options.

Option #1. Build a fence. If you have the money and don’t mind an eight-foot fence around your garden, this is probably the best deer-proof solution.

Option #2. Live with it. If you live in Alberta, there will always be bad weather… and there will always be deer.

I’ve been wrong before - and I’ll be wrong again. Just last week I wrote a post regarding baby potatoes. I had dug around gently in my straw looking for some potatoes, but only found a little pea-sized spud. I then declared at the end of my post that I would not be eating baby potatoes for at least a couple of weeks.

I was wrong.

I enjoyed my first meal of baby potatoes this afternoon. I even had a fresh carrot to go with them. I’m not sure if those potatoes grew that much in a week or if I just didn’t look hard enough the first time. But there they were. So if you’ve planted some potatoes this year, go ahead. Gently dig around in the dirt (or straw) and see if you can snag one or two. Because, by George, they sure are tasty.

This is my third season of growing tomatoes, and believe me, I have learned a lot in three years. But perhaps one of my greatest sources of knowledge came from a Hydroponic Tomato Growers Workshop that I attended last spring in California. This workshop was geared towards people who were considering starting their own greenhouse tomato business. This was a HUGE source of information for me! There were so many things that I wasn’t doing, and so many things that I was doing in the wrong way. So, from my experience and from what I learned at that workshop, here are are Seven Essentials to Growing Tomatoes.

#1. Start ‘em Early

Ok, you probably knew this one. In Canada our growing season is so short, not only due to the cold, but also due to our limited sunlight hours in the winter. We do have enough sunlight to grow foliage (like lettuce and the like), but we don’t get enough sunlight to produce fruit until about March. So if you have a sunny south window (or artificial lighting), start your tomato plants in late February/early March. That should give you a well established plant to transplant into your greenhouse. Read more about transplanting tomatoes…

#2. Grow Tomatoes in a Greenhouse

You know, tomatoes can be grown in the great outdoors, but they will be one or two months behind those that are in a greenhouse. I’m not sure how many frost-free days you have in your specific area, but you probably don’t want to lose two months of them.

So build a little greenhouse. It doesn’t have to be huge, although you can build a good sized greenhouse for little money as this article explains. Otherwise, Alberta’s weather may greatly hamper your bumper crop.

#3. Don’t Plant ‘Em Too Close

This can be said for lots of things. But especially tomatoes. They are such little plants when you transplant them, it’s easy to forget what a jungle they will grow to be in a couple of months. I did it. (twice) My mother-in-law did it. But don’t do it.

Tomatoes need proper air circulation, not to mention that pruning a jungle is difficult. The exact spacing will vary with variety, but as a general rule, put at least two feet between plants.

#4. Mulch Like Crazy

A good layer of straw mulch will help in a couple of ways. First of all, it’ll suppress the weeds. (That alone is worth it.) Secondly, it’ll keep the soil moist. Tomatoes are heavy drinkers and need a lot of water. A drip irrigation system coupled with a good thick mulch will make sure your tomatoes get the water they need. Just be sure not to over water - that’s what causes your tomatoes to split.

#5. Prune Often

This is the one that often gets missed. Some people believe that the more leaves the plant has, the more energy the plant will receive. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Yes, plants do need some leaves, but too many leaves will actually drain energy away from the plant. All the water and nutrients that the roots soak up must be distributed to those extra leaves, instead of the fruit. So here’s what you need to do.

First, eliminate all suckers. Suckers are the little shoots that appear in the elbow between the stem and a branch. Just bend it over and it will snap right off.

Secondly, remove any branches that are brown or wilting at the bottom. These do your plant no good. Get rid of them. For these, grasp the stem firmly in your hand and push the branch down with your thumb - it will snap off at its natural breaking point.

Did you know that it only takes three branches to support one cluster of fruit? A healthy, unstressed tomato plant should put out three branches, then a cluster of fruit, three more branches, another cluster of fruit, etc… Once the tomato plant has reached a good size, you can start removing three branches per week from the bottom of your plant. Thus, by the time you are ready to pick your tomatoes, there will be no leaves below that fruit cluster. Sounds crazy, I know - but that’s what the professionals do!

Note: For all tomato pruning, avoid cutting them off with a knife or other tools. Snapping them out with your fingers is very easy and the wound caused by breaking heals quickly. A cut is more likely to allow disease to enter.

#6. Pick BEFORE Tomatoes Are Ripe

This is another one that sounds crazy. Popular belief would have you “vine-ripen” your tomatoes. Surely they are sweeter, tastier, and probably better for you…. NONSENSE.

The fact is, by the time the tomato just starts to turn color (that slight greeny-orange color), it already has all of it’s goodness in it. And it’s actually the seeds inside that make the tomato ripen. As the seeds release ethylene (the gas applied to green bananas to make them turn yellow), the tomato ripens.

Don’t get this confused with the tomatoes in the store that are picked green and sprayed with ethylene - these are picked too early and do NOT have all the goodness inside yet.

So why not let them stay on the vine? A plant’s job is to reproduce itself. If the plant thinks it has successfully produced fruit, it will begin to shut down and produce less. But if you take the fruit away before it sends the “Mission Accomplished” signal to the plant, the vine will continue to pour it’s energy into producing fruit. (I hope I didn’t get too scientific for you there…)

#7. NEVER Refrigerate Tomatoes

Store tomatoes at room temperature. Never refrigerate. Temperatures below 12° for even a half an hour will begin to destroy the flavor. They may keep longer, but the amazing flavor that comes from a home-grown tomato will be lost.

So there you have it - not a comprehensive list by any means, but it’ll certainly get you on your way to growing delicious tomatoes in your own backyard. If you know of any other essentials to growing tomatoes, feel free to leave your comments!

I just thought I update you on how my ‘potatoes grown in straw‘ experiment is going.

Right now, my Red Norland potatoes that I planted on May 19th are just beginning to bloom. That would be eight weeks from planting. (This, by the way, is a crucial time to keep your potatoes regularly watered to get large, scab-free potatoes - read more about that in this article.)

One cool thing about this style of growing potatoes is that you can easily check on the progress of the tubers forming underground (or rather, understraw). I was curious to know just how big my little potatoes were at this point, so I carefully pulled away the straw at the base of the plant. And lo, and behold…

There it was. A tiny little potato not much bigger than a large pea.

So I learned/confirmed a few things today.

#1. Flowers on plants = formation of little spuds

#2. Potatoes grown in straw are going to be wonderfully clean

#3. I won’t be eating baby potatoes for at least a couple of weeks.

Yesterday I experienced the joy of my first u-pick of the season! I had been anxiously waiting for strawberries, and my poor little strawberry patch was simply to small to keep up with my appetite. That’s why my little girl and I ventured out west of Bowden to Red Lodge U-pick.

My Experience

The very first thing I noticed was good signage. Between the highway and the farm there must have been at least four signs - the first on the highway 6 km before the range road. There’s nothing like clear instructions to make a u-pick day more enjoyable.

Upon arrival, we parked our car (in the clearly marked parking area) and were warmly greeted by Gary Thorpe, the owner/operator of Red Lodge U-pick. Gary gave us a basket and took us out to where the ripe strawberries were.

Gary had nets over the ripe rows to keep the birds from pecking holes in all his berries. (And it’s a good thing too - any unprotected strawberries at my house have been pecked up.) You might think it would be a hassle to have a net over the berries, but the nets were easy to pull aside as we picked.

The plants were covered in berries and it was very easy to fill our basket quite quickly. The strawberries were juicy and very tasty - so much better than anything you buy in a grocery store! My daughter had a great time picking the berries (and an even better time eating them on the way home!)

When we had filled out basket, we returned to the farm entrance and my daughter pressed the ‘the red button’ to page Gary. He appeared from another part of the farm and weighed us out. When all was said and done, we had a basket of strawberries weighing just under 4 lbs. So at $2.55 per lb. we paid our $10 and left with a large basket of strawberries and a very enjoyable experience in our memories.

A Final Word

Over the past couple of years I’ve been to the Red Lodge U-pick several times now. And I keep going back because I really enjoy the experience. It might not be the largest u-pick in the area, or the fanciest - it might not even be the cheapest. But in my experience, it’s certainly one of the friendliest. And for my family, that’s an extremely valuable asset.

Care to visit Red Lodge U-pick?

Here’s what you need to know:

Location:

Go 3 km west of Red Lodge Provincial Park (or 18 km west of Bowden on highway 587) to range road 31, turn south and go 3 km to the end of the road, turn east and go just 1/3 of a km to the farm. (Just follow the signs - its easy!)

Fruit:

Strawberries, raspberries, and cherries (and Gary is always experimenting with more)

Facilities:

There are bathroom facilities available (though I must admit I didn’t personally check them out).

Prices:

At the time of this article - $2.55 per lb for strawberries.

Hours of Operation: Contact Info

Red Lodge U-pick doesn’t have a website, but you can get the latest information by calling (403) 224-2425. Or you can email Gary at gthorpe1@telusplanet.net

Remember the article I wrote back in May about How To Build An Inexpensive Hoop-frame Greenhouse? Well, my mother-in-law (who is greatly enjoying her Mother’s Day present), took some pictures of the things she has growing in there. So I thought I’d share them here to further inspire you to build your own greenhouse next year.

Tomatoes down the length of the greenhouse

Roma Tomatoes

Beefsteak Tomatoes

Zucchini

Beans

Watermelon

Peppers

Inspired yet?

Oh, and incidentally… I just visited my brother’s A-frame greenhouse, built in the same style as my plasticless A-frame greenhouse, and it’s doing beautifully. He used the woven poly from Northern Greenhouse Sales and it’s showing no signs of wear. I am absolutely going with their plastic next year.