Thursday, June 30, 2011

Strawberries

As I mentioned in a recent post, I managed to get out and pick some fresh Ontario strawberries last week.  I spent quite a few years working on a berry farm, so strawberries have a special place in my heart (and my mouth of course!).  There's nothing quite like a sweet, juicy strawberry freshly picked and still warm from the sun.  It's a short season and I was glad to be able to pick 3.5 baskets for jam, freezing, and smoothies.  I was sad to see, however, that although strawberries were a big feature in all the grocery store flyers last week, there was a problem.  See what I mean:   
 
Yeah.  All these gorgeous, WAY more delicious Ontario strawberries grown just minutes away from home, and still the stores are all carrying imported and far less tasty fruit.  I realize it's hard to organize delivery of local produce, but it seems like such a shame to buy another country's strawberries when there is a MUCH better product grown right here.  Please, go out and buy your berries from a local farmer instead!!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

right on Rachel. how can anyone not support local farmers? even if the prices are lower than those for local ontario berries, they still are 'loss-leaders' and are very inferior tasting than the local berries. c'mon folks buy ontario

Dad

Shirley said...

We're going strawberry picking tomorrow at Tigchelaar's! :) We're going to try to make jam.

Niki Devereaux said...

Headed to Tiggy's in the morning!

Unknown said...

What better way to spend Canada Day! It's always a crazy day on the farm :)

ADasa said...

I find there are so many products out there that aren't Canadian - and so many consumers aren't concerned! It's a big concern for me - check out eggs, for instance. If you read the packaging at a lot of stores, they are packaged in Canada but NOT a product of Canada! It gets me so angry. I've been shocked this summer so far seeing so many products from CHINA! And they're in people's carts. This is a good post, Rachel. We really need to be careful who we're supporting!
Dawn
PS I talked to a manager at Fortino's about their American eggs -and he didn't seem to care. It was a non-issue to him - which saddened me. So many have an apathetic attitude and one day they'll be sorry when we can't buy local anymore (hopefully the "Buy Local" campaigns will take over though!)

Anonymous said...

Loved your post Rachel. We had so many people come to the Tigchelaar Berry farm and they just raved about the berries. the smell, the taste, the abundance. and yes this year they were blessed with a rich abundance of beautiful berries.
mom