Five things you might not know about Ontario fruits and vegetables

(NC) Ontario is Canada’s garden – home to more than 125 different fruit and vegetable crops grown in fields, orchards and greenhouses across the province. With many of them now ripe and in season, fall is a paradise for local food lovers.

1. Ontario-grown produce includes many long-time favourites, from apples, peaches, pears, blueberries, strawberries and grapes to carrots, peppers, onions, lettuce, potatoes, asparagus, cabbage, cucumbers and tomatoes. Ontario farmers also grow ginseng, cranberries, garlic, cauliflower, cherries, apricots, hazelnuts, haskap berries and many more. Foodland Ontario’s online availability guide (ontario.ca/foodland/page/availability-guide) will show you what’s in season.

2. Ontario is Canada’s vegetable king. We are home to almost 70 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse vegetable production and we are the national leader in growing field vegetables – those grown outdoors instead of in greenhouses.

   • Did you know Ontario has the most vegetable greenhouses in Canada, covering almost 1,250 hectares (3,100 acres) or about the equivalent size of nearly 8,000 Canadian ice hockey rinks.

3. New fruit and vegetable varieties are being developed especially for the Canadian climate. Radiance is a new sweet potato that is ready for harvest earlier in the fall and can tolerate cooler temperatures than traditional varieties from the United States. Cold snap is a winter-hardy and tasty new pear variety developed by tree fruit breeders at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

4. Wine is a perennial local favourite in Ontario. The province’s established wine regions in Niagara, Lake Erie’s North Shore and Prince Edward County produce a wide variety of delectable and award-winning wines. Growers and wine makers are also experimenting with vineyards on the shores of Lake Huron, in Norfolk County and from Southern Georgian Bay across to the Ottawa Valley.

5. Migrant farm workers play essential roles in helping Ontario farmers grow, manage and harvest their fresh produce crops every year. There is a chronic labour shortage in agriculture, making it hard to hire local workers, and growing fruits and vegetables is very labour-intensive. That’s because many crops bruise or damage easily, so they need to be planted, harvested and cared for by hand.

Of the more than 17,000 farm workers who work in Ontario every year through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, many have been coming here for decades and often stay on the same farm for years, where their knowledge and experience make them a valuable part of the farm team.

“We started with the farm worker program in 1979 and we presently have 60 Jamaican workers helping us. We consider these workers our family. There would be very little horticulture in Ontario without this program,” says John Ardiel, a Georgian Bay-area apple grower. “I’m always amazed at how the workers speak of the program and its importance to their families. They are really proud of what they have been able to do for their kids, and that makes them proud of themselves – and we’re proud of them too.”

Attention Editors: This content is reserved for distribution in Ontario only.