Perfect picking

The early bird got the worm but for those heading to the Belluz Farm, being early means getting a basket full of strawberries.

That’s the reason why Jason Arnold, Amy Parker and their two-year-old-daughter, Abigail arrived an hour early to the local farm out on Candy Mountain Drive for the first weekend of the strawberry picking season.

Arnold and his family first visited the farm last year in order to make Abigail a strawberry birthday cake and decided to repeat the process this year.

“What better way to start a family tradition than at the Belluz family farm,” he said. “I think having this available to the community and have somewhere to bring your kids to have fun in the fields is great.”

Parker said it’s wonderful to have an opportunity to bring Abigail to a farm where she can get a real sense of where her food comes from.

Arnold’s family wasn’t the only ones that came early.

Clayton Shaw, his stepfather and 21-month-old daughter Addison also took to the fields to find the perfect strawberry patch.

Although it has been over a decade since Shaw picked berries, He said he wanted to bring his daughter to the farm so she could experience it for the first time.

“It’s always a nice way to spend a couple of hours,” he said. “The great thing about being a parent is letting your kid experience new things. If you don’t support these local farms then they’re not going to be around for you to experience these things.”

Traditionally, the berry-picking season attracts around 500 pickers but the season usually starts around July 5.

Jodi Belluz, co-owner of the farm, said they’re just starting the berry picking season so she expects that more people will come later on in the season.

She said the late start wouldn’t have any impact to the picking season.

“It’s looking like a decent season out there and is pretty much the same as last year,” she said. “Last year we had wonky weather where we had a really hot spring, which can be challenging for berries. This year we had a really cold, wet spring. It has had the same affect.”

One of the biggest challenges for the field was in December when a cold snap came in. Belluz said berries need good insulation, which large piles of snow would have provided, but instead they put bails of straw on top.

Following the strawberries, residents will have a chance to pick saskatoons, peas, raspberries, cucumbers and other local produce.
Belluz said it’s important that farms keep diverse in order to stay sustainable.

“We’re really lucky because we’re a different kind of farm in that we sell directly to the public,” she said. “We get to be in charge of a lot of stuff that a typical farmer isn’t. We set our own prices. We can set it to reflect what’s going on in the field.”

But she added that the biggest challenge any farmer faces is the weather.