The Rutland Farm Market on Rutland Road will offer fresh, locally grown strawberries long after outdoor berry crops are finished for the year.
(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)
June 26, 2017 - 8:00 PM
KELOWNA – Fresh Okanagan strawberries may soon be available year round, thanks to a Kelowna family.
Rutland Farm Market on Rutland Road has been growing fresh vegetables for the Kelowna market for the past seven years. Manjit and Raj Basra started growing cucumbers in 2010 when they took over the Kelowna Rose Garden, but soon branched out into other fresh produce.
Strawberries are one of their most popular crops, Raj says, but only partly because they are only available for a month in the spring.
They hope to change that.
“We did things differently this year,” Raj says. “Last year a guy who helped us told us about this new thing.”
The new thing is stacking the strawberry plants for more efficient use of the indoor space but also to share water. Only the top plant in the stack is watered, with excess running down to the other five.
The Basra family, including daughter Gurleen, 11, help gather the strawberries every second morning. It usually takes around two hours, but is made much easier by an ingenious rail cart system they’ve installed.
Rutland Farm Market uses a rail system both to heat the greenhouse and carry a powered cart.
(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)
Parallel bars run between all the Basra’s rows, and carry a powered cart with a chair for the picker and a collection basket.
This new way to grow strawberries will yield twice as many per square metre, she says, and make them available to the public much longer.
The stacks of strawberry plants also hang above a seventh planter, containing a different experimental crop.
Companion planting has been around for thousands of years and is used to maximize garden space and increase yield. However because this is a relatively new way to grow strawberries, Raj and Manjit need to find out which plants like to grow near strawberries.
They’re trying everything from eggplant to tomatoes to dill. Kale, she says, is thriving.
“There is lots to learn still.”
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News from © iNFOnews, 2017