hello welcome to Kate's Ag today i'm here in Barrie Ontario with Morris Gervais owner
of Barrie Hill Farms and you are going to be teaching me all about strawberry harvest which
is very interesting thank you yeah you're welcome this is an incredible operation you have here
why thank you it's uh it's we've been doing it here for a long time we've been growing
fruits and vegetables since exclusively fruits and vegetables since
the early 1980s and uh yeah we're happy growing healthy food for people
today we're standing in a you pick strawberry field would that be correct that's correct these
are our mid-season variety of strawberries called Jewel and you've come on a perfect day because
they're absolutely fantastic it's at the peak of harvest and the weather is perfect even though
it's kind of cold this is perfect the strawberries are all ripe they're not getting ripe too quickly
so hopefully we'll get a chance to harvest them all and how long would strawberry harvest last
strawberry harvest summertime strawberry harvest lasts for about three to four weeks
however many growers in ontario now have begun growing what are known as day neutral strawberries
so when the summer strawberry harvest is finished we'll switch into our day neutral production
towards the end of july and then all through august so we will have strawberries available for
picking right through until october right through until there's a hard frost we like to try and get
to the end of october with strawberry picking that's amazing and what is your growing timeline
of the strawberries well strawberry harvest starts here in Barrie around the 20th of june and so june
strawberry picking will go from mid-june right until late july and then in early august we kick
into our day neutral strawberry production and that lasts right through until october
is your strawberry crop replaced each year or how long would a strawberry crop last year yeah we in
this field you're standing we'll try and get two to three harvests from this field our day
neutral strawberries really we plant them in the spring and you harvest them all summer and it's
a one-year crop so there's different uh different production cycles but uh yeah we're growing about
40 acres of strawberries here every year that's so amazing that you can provide an experience to your
customer of really seeing what the strawberry plant looks like and being so connected to your
food well absolutely and it's something that uh even though strawberries you know on the
food terminals of north america are a commodity uh people really enjoy absolutely connecting to their
food you cannot get it any fresher than picking it and off the bush and taking it right home so
people really love it they really do enjoy uh connecting to their food and i think it's really
important that people you know are aware of where their food comes from yes definitely and so you
take people out in tractors to the field yeah and it's become we've been doing it so long our first
strawberry harvest here was 1977. it's become a family tradition for many generations to come
strawberry picking and it's kind of who we are as Canadians to celebrate Canada Day on July 1st
with strawberries yes so strawberry picking and Canada Day it's really a big deal it's part of
our culture so people get really excited to come and celebrate the start of summer like
when strawberries are ready summer's here school's out people are always really excited to come and
make some good family memories and have some great family traditions about picking strawberries and
going home and having a fun summer that's so amazing and so right now people are picking
strawberries and how many visitors would you say you get per day well we have thousands and
thousands per day this is a quiet day because it's monday but on the weekend there were
thousands of cars came and visited us and and our kind of claim to fame here on our farm you've
missed asparagus harvest but people like to come and pick their own asparagus fresh asparagus and
that's really cool we're one of the only farms that do that and then there's always something to
pick every day all summer so after strawberries we have peas and raspberries and green yellow beans
and blueberries and we let people come and pick their own sweet corn which is fantastic people
love do that then we have our fall strawberries then we kick into our apples and our pumpkins and
i even forgot to show you we even grow a little bit of popcorn here so so people in late october
or you know into october uh once the corn is dry they pick their own popcorn they go home and make
popcorn and watch a movie very cool and what growing conditions are optimal for strawberries
strawberries like this weather here cool not too hot they really don't like it if temperatures
get up in to the high 20s and low 30 degrees celsius so you know even though it's cold and
we have a jacket and people are saying i don't know if i like this weather this is fantastic
weather if i i don't think you'd like to see some of these strawberries let me kind of show you some
they are just loving it they're in the shade here they're nice and cool and they're just absolutely
gorgeous do they prefer a specific type of soil or composition they like a sandy well-drained soil
which we have here so these look at these are just awesome these are just perfect they're
beautiful berries this strawberry was released out of i'm pretty sure Cornell University in
New York State and it's really a beautiful berry i've grown many many varieties of strawberries
and it's hard to beat Jewel it's got a great flavor it's firm it holds up well it keeps well
if you pick it and put it in the cooler it has a nice shiny look to it so it looks really great
tastes really great good size it's just it's it's hard to beat it's one of my favorite varieties
of strawberry and it is pretty much an industry standard here in Ontario wow that is incredible
and they look delicious yeah you want to try one oh i'd love to there you go thank you
oh the juice is dripping down see the most spectacular strawberry i've ever had
and probably the freshest one you've ever had have you ever oh for sure have you ever been
strawberry picking before i have not there you are incredible well i will definitely be back to pick
strawberries awesome so here they come wow those are and all the boxes are scanned for quality
right right and production and quality control and traceability that is very interesting so
this is not a you pick field but a field that you have pickers in pickers sales at our farm or for
wholesale sales into Toronto now we sometimes pick in a closed container these that would go
to a grocery store these ones right now we're picking these will go to on farm markets where
we want them to look farm fresh no lid no clam shell we're looking for a really
ontario farm fresh look that's great how long would it normally take to harvest a field of
strawberries and how large is this field well this is a three acre block this field that we're
picking in there's another three acre block over there everything's in three acre blocks and we had
a short day yesterday but it would probably take us about two days with you know there's about 30
guys here it takes about two days to pick this field then we go to the next field two days
and then we can even pick this field again the next pick the fruit will be a little bit smaller
there won't be as many big berries but they'll still be really nice marketable berries just
sizes a little smaller but still great flavor and still that beautiful shiny crimson red jewel look
yes and do you grade your strawberries at all or separate them by size nope just as you see them
there that they come out of the field and they're never touched again until they get to a consumer's
plate well you can't get fresher than that that's absolutely correct and is there a strategy to what
rows you pick or or where each person is picking well yeah we we we're going in order so we're
coming this way through the field so if you look back that way you see far far fewer uh far fewer
red strawberries because we're going this way so you know the guys pick you know a row on each side
they go down the middle one on each side one row on each side and away they go that's really cool
if it were to go to 32 degrees celsius all these berries would ripen so quickly we'd never be able
to harvest them and they would get over ripe and past their perfect past sale ability too quickly
this is just dream weather right now it could stay like this for another two or three weeks and the
strawberries love this weather this is so cool and do you have these strawberries on an irrigation
system yes i could show you that at the far end of the field if you'd like to see underneath each row
is a little trickle irrigation tube so that we provide water to the roots only which is where
they need the the moisture we don't want the fruit to get wet because if the fruit gets wet then you
can have mold and disease issues and that would not be good at all correct that's why california
and chile and places on the west coast of north america are such great places to grow fruit
because it rains very infrequently there so if you irrigate and provide water to this to the plant's
roots while maintaining the flowers and the fruits dry you can grow really really beautiful
fruit that's why just outside of San Francisco in the Watsonville area of California is a massive
strawberry growing region because the climate is just perfect for that
we struggle here in Ontario because we get far more rain than they do so but anyways that's it's
part of the battle of producing local food in less than ideal climates but once again we can still do
a really nice job here and i'm just happy when it's not too rainy during harvest season if
it's too dry i can irrigate and i can fight back but when it's raining raining raining
there's nothing you can do definitely and how much moisture per year would these strawberries require
the the rough rule of thumb it's kind i don't know if it's not sign i can't give you a scientifically
proven amount but is that they need about an inch of rain per week oh okay right quite a
bit right now the other day when it was hot juul has an even higher water requirement when juul is
fruiting it has so much fruit and the plant is working so hard to produce fruit when it's hot
like it was the past few days we have to provide this these fields with two hours of irrigation
every day every day an hour in the morning and an hour at night otherwise the the plants you can
see them start to wilt because they're working so hard the plant is working so hard and has
such a massive uh water requirement to size all the fruit that you really need to make sure it
has enough water so you can even kind of see here going back this way you can see how the plants are
wilting a little bit because the guys have gone through and they've roughed it up a little bit
and they've picked through there so they can see them molting over there though no it's looking a
little bit better so we're going to come through and that's the beauty of this drip irrigation
is we can irrigate right while the guys are picking if we keep giving it water this berry
will continue to grow and size up it's tiny it's tiny right now compared to some of the will you
come back for a second harvest on these oh yeah absolutely so so that's why today is the 27th
of june and we'll be back in here by until the 10th and 15th of july hopefully oh wow
so these berries will all grow in size and we'll be able to have another harvest here
that is great and would a lot of your berries go to the Toronto Food Terminal
some go there some go there some go to local grocery stores and some are sold right here on
the farm thank you so much for watching today's video i hope you learned a little bit more about
how your strawberries get to your table make sure to like and subscribe and to learn a little bit
more about Barrie Hill Farms you can google Barrie Hill Farms b-a-r-r-i-e like the city of Barrie,
Ontario barriehillfarms.com and thanks for coming today kate it's really a lot of fun thanks for
coming thank you so much it was a pleasure speaking with you and so fascinating to learn
about the strawberries glad i'm glad i could uh visit with you it was a pleasure meeting you bye