More thunderstorms for BC

Damage reports flowed in all week from apple and stonefruit growers across all local growing regions – some producers missed the bullet, others lost high percentages of crops, and now we have storm warnings out right through the weekend for another potential onslaught of severe thunderstorms, from the Fraser Valley right into the Shuswap. All we can do is keep our fingers and toes crossed.  We are seeing some initial shipments of cherries from growers who were lucky, and also some apricots a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.  Local blues are still a week away, however we are receiving small quantities of the earliest varieties. Good supply of apples and pears with late CA openings in Argentina and Chile pushing more volume than expected into the market.   We’re sitting on WAY too many 24 ct Avocado.  This fruit is eating very nice, but we’ll be back to the first Mexican crop in a couple of weeks, so have slashed prices.  When we buy Fair Trade, we aren’t allowed to specify sizing – we take what is harvested, and this last load was heavy on small fruit.  We also have bagged 20 X 3’s for next week.  We’ve had a huge run on seedless mini watermelon and brought in another ½ a truck load of these – weather is perfect!  We even have a few early Paul Friday (PF1) local peaches.  All this local fruit is going to be thin pickings for a couple of weeks, so plan on Washington and California, and be extra lucky if we have B.C. for you!  As promised, we have lots of pears for you – and Fairtrade Grannys.  Beautiful green beans from Prince George – wahoo!  The vegetable world looks a lot better, although a lot of spinach has been shredded in storms, especially south of the line, so, once again, we have a spinach hole!  Some clever grower with big hoop houses could be making a killing on spinach right about now!