Canada: Favourable spring weather brings strawberry bounty

Rob Galey was in his strawberry fields with 20 workers at 6 a.m. Thursday to pick the first berries of the season to sell at the farm’s market on Blenkinsop Road. They collected 500 pounds in the morning and started selling when the market opened at 9 a.m. It might sound like a lot of berries, but Galey said when the season is in full swing, thousands of pounds of berries are picked daily. Spring weather has been good for strawberries, he said. “The quality is exceptional. The sugar levels are very, very high.” Warm weather early in the season allowed the plants to get well established a little earlier than usual, he said. The farm’s half a million strawberry plants started blooming with large blossoms, indicating that large berries were on the way. Berry-ripening slowed down last week due to cooler weather. The best temperatures for strawberries are between 18 C and 22 C, Galey said. Many of the farm’s 20 workers arrived in April from Mexico and have come up in past years to stay ...