Farmers market vendors keep on with crops despite challenging conditions

Despite the drought and fluctuation of weather this year, vendors at the farmer’s market can still be seen with smiles on their faces.

980 CJME took a stroll through the pop-up tents lining Regina’s City Square Plaza to see how the growing season is going so far.

Based out of Balgonie, Saskatchewan, Country Breeze Farms is a berry operation that is a family owned business at its core. The farm’s main production is raspberries and the Saskatoon berry.

“Our dugout is almost empty,” said Diaana Durling, owner of Country Breeze Farms. “We’ve been trying to get as much water as possible from there to irrigate our crops because without irrigation, we wouldn’t really have a great raspberry crop or Saskatoon crop.

“We’ve had two years now of being dry. There isn’t any reserve in the ground and last year we also irrigated, and we didn’t get much snow. So, therefore, our dugout barely increased in levels at all.”

Irrigation is defined as “the artificial application of water to land to assist in the production of crops.”

Durling explained this isn’t the first time the weather has caused problems for them.

“Well, the drought probably was a minor factor in production,” Durling said. “It was the winds, the hot weather, followed by two nights of frost, followed by an ice storm, followed by winds, then drought.

“It’s been a very tough growing season for us.”

Durling was astonished the bushes even produced berries this year.

“The drought has probably concentrated the sugars within the berry, so it’s very sweet,” he said. “They’re still quite plump because of the irrigation but the production is a lot less than it was last year.”

Compared to last year, Country Breeze Farms production is down approximately 70 per cent.

“We’re the only ones at the market with a (berry) crop this year,” Durling said. “So we have great business, but we can’t supply the need. We feel bad for that, and we wish we had more pickers because if we had more pickers we would be able to pick more crop.”

Also among the regular vendors was Arnie Hofer with the Southland Hutterite Colony from Herbert, Saskatchewan. They specialize in fresh veggies, fruit, poultry and eggs.

“(The season) has been a challenge because we haven’t had any runoff this year,” Hofer said. “Our dugout, really that’s what we’re relying on.

“We really haven’t had any water runoff whatsoever and no rain. So we’re irrigating with drip lines, which helps cause they don’t need as much water. Almost every day, we have to water our garden in order to keep it growing.”

Similar to Durling, Hofer has had a challenging year due to the weather and relies on irrigation to produce his crops.

“It has definitely been a different year for us,” Hofer said. “First of all, we had a nice beginning and all of a sudden we’ve had minus 10 (weather). We lost our first crops in quite a few varieties like, cucumbers and cabbages, which we had already planted, so we had to replant them. (We had to replant) cucumbers three times before we could actually get a crop.”

Despite the harsh weather, Hofer explained the year is starting to see some turnaround.

“It was so bad two weeks ago, then all of a sudden it got such a boost,” Hofer said. “I can almost say it’s actually just as nice as it has been any other year.

“Our peas … we thought we had lost them completely. But then we had three times the rain. There’s something magic coming from the upstairs,” Hofer said.

“(It’s) amazing how they turned out. So now we actually have an abundance of peas. That has been our biggest concern, but it actually turned out very good.”