Eastern Ontario crops confused by weather

By Renee Rodgers

Don’t expect Ontario fruit and vegetable harvests to be right on schedule this season.

Heavy rainfall this spring, coupled with extreme heat during the summer months, has wreaked havoc on local crops, pushing harvest times all over the map.

Eric Lawlor, regional information coordinator at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food & Rural Affairs in Brighton, said wet soil in the spring forced many local farmers to put off planting their crops.

Delayed planting meant cucumbers were not available at Cedar Crest Farms’ Belleville Farmers’ Market produce stall until the last week in July, said Bill Neale, who has been working at the farm for 10 years.

According to Ontario Foodland’s fresh produce availability guide, cucumbers are usually ready in June. Neale said that sounded about right.

“Normally cucumbers would be about three weeks in this time of year,” he said.

Steve Braun, an Ontario Foodland representative, said harvest times in Ontario vary year by year. The availability chart should be used as a rough guideline only. Unpredictable weather patterns, like those experienced in the local area this year, can advance or delay harvest times by a matter of weeks.

Delayed planting was not the only problem local farmers experienced due to heavy rain. Many crops that were planted in early spring, before the ground got too wet, didn’t fare well.

Susan Vanden Bosch, of WillowCreek Farms in Frankford, planted some of her crops early but the heavy rain destroyed an entire cucumber patch, and much of her early corn, carrot, beet, and bean crops.

‘We had an excellent crop of asparagus but we lost a lot of our other early crops … just very poor germination of the seeds,” she said. “They need a certain amount of heat and not so much rain.”

Lawlor said the heat wave local residents recently experienced did help some late-planted crops to catch up in their growing cycle. But several days of heat with no rain can be harmful to crops as well. He said some crops in the area began to show signs of stress due to the heat.

“Luckily, about two weeks ago or so, we got some decent rain in the area,” said Lawlor. “And that came just in time.”

Vanden Bosch agreed.

“Now that we got some rain, it has really turned out main season crops around,” she said. “Our corn looks fantastic. Our tomatoes are really good.”

Fruit and vegetable crops need a delicate balance of heat and rain, Lawlor said. Since local crops got a sufficient amount of rain, and, later in the season, heat this year, crop quality should be fairly good. Yet it won’t be a year for bumper crops, said Lawlor.

“I would expect to see average yields,” he said. “We’re not going to have as good yields as we did last year.”

For more on farmer’s markets in the Quinte region, click here.