The BC grown list keeps on growing

This is pretty weird, bringing you hail updates all the time, but your customers may want to know why apples are going to be so darn expensive this year. The latest storm outbreak on Tuesday missed some producers completely, and damaged apples extensively for others. With a diminished B.C. supply, and a very small crop in the east (Ontario and the U.S.) with a loss of 1.6 billion pounds, many are estimating Washington’s big crop will sell through very early in 2013. Buyers are already firming contracts in S. America, for the spring of 2013, two months before the trees have blossomed! The first Galas out of Washington are packed and on their way. Blueberry supply continues to be excellent, with later varieties now starting harvest. Lemon supply is tightening, with some fruit now coming from Mexico. Melon sales are excellent, with lots of B.C. in the works. We’ll see the first of Cliffe Farms Splendors early next week, with cantaloupe on its tail. We’ve been selling their melons for 11 years, and they never disappoint. There’s a wide plum selection coming on, but volumes will be down this year – wind blew off an average of 20% of the crop. Strawberry quality is excellent, with cool temperatures in Watsonville / Salinas producing great quality fruit. Mary Forstbauer’s rich coloured Green beans are in good supply. Nice to see B.C. Red Torpedo onions on our price list. A traditional Italian salad onion, these will attract some attention – maybe consider subbing these for regular Reds on your shelf for a couple of weeks. To go along with those, how about the best tasting onions of all – Yellow Cipollini – literally ‘little onions’. For roasting, sautéing or grilling, these are definitely WAY better than yellow storage varieties. We haven’t had these on our list for 4 years from B.C. Our local potato selection has ramped up with good supply of German Butter Yellow’s rolling in. Slower growing Yukon and Russets are just starting, with Yukon volume all in nuggets. Interior Tomatoes are now pouring in, with hot weather the last 10 days bringing everything on quickly. This is a great feature item for the next 4 or 5 weeks – and with such a short growing season, we always push as much volume as we can for our groundcroppers.