Page 11 - RealDirtENG2020

Mushrooms all year long
Mushrooms are one of the few crops that can be grown in Canada year-round. Canadian farmers grow more than 145 million kilograms
of mushrooms every year35—mostly white button, followed by brown and Portobello. Demand for specialty mushrooms, such as Shiitake, Oyster, King Oyster, and Enoki, continues to grow. Oh, and the little black specks you sometimes see on mushrooms at the store? That’s the very important compost mixture (called substrate) used to grow beds of mushrooms—just rinse or wipe it off before eating.
Fruits and vegetables
More than 120 fruit and vegetable crops are grown in Canada, on approximately 14,00036 farms. These include many long-time favourites from apples, peaches, pears, blueberries, strawberries, and grapes, to carrots, peppers, onions, lettuce, potatoes, asparagus, cabbage, cucumbers, and tomatoes, but also ginseng, cranberries, garlic, cauli ower, cherries, apricots, hazelnuts, Saskatoon berries, and many more.
British Columbia has the most fruit farms in Canada, and farmers in British Columbia, Québec, and Ontario grow 90 per cent of Canada’s fruit crops37. In
the early 1990s, a chance seedling (a genetically unique plant that has been unintentionally bred) was discovered on an orchard in Cawston, BC, after the farmers noticed its unique and delicious apples. This variety was later named the Ambrosia Apple, meaning “food of the gods”.
Ontario is Canada’s vegetable king: home to almost 70 per cent of Canada’s production of greenhouse vegetables; the leader in eld vegetable production (those that are grown outside in a eld instead of in a greenhouse); and also the biggest producer of mushrooms in the country38. Québec and British Columbia are Canada’s other two big vegetable-producing provinces.
Career Pro le
Fruit & Vegetable Farmer
Chris Oram
One of the biggest challenges of farming in Newfoundland is unpredictable weather, as fruit and vegetable farmer Chris Oram and his family can attest to. Spring can be late in coming and winter early in arriving which makes for a short growing season compared to other provinces. As such, “cole” crops (or cool season plants) like cabbage, rutabaga, carrots and potatoes are popular crops grown on the island. The family also grows “A to Z” – apples to zucchini and everything in between which they sell at their family’s market and others in the area. Rutabaga is an island speciality. “Everyone says we have the sweetest rutabaga in the world because of our cold climate,” Oram noted.
After high school, he wasn’t planning on farming with his parents Dick and Arlene. He attended university, playing on the varsity basketball team. But the longer he was away, the more he missed the family business. His wife Kayla also now works with them and they look forward to welcoming a third generation in the months ahead.
Jodie Aldred
QUICK
FACT
Space spud – the rst vegetable grown in space was a potato! NASA and the University of Wisconsin rst tested seed potatoes in space aboard the Columbia space shuttle in 199539.
DID YOU KNOW?
Farmers and researchers in Ontario are experimenting with a crop called Tiger Nut? It’s a small tuber, or root crop, that is the key ingredient in a popular Spanish drink called Horchata de Chufa.
Chapter 2: Crops and plants 11