Greenhouse Vegetable Harvest Video

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Admin

24 Jun 2016

http://www.virtualfarmtours.ca
Watch how greenhouse crops like peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes are planted and harvested.

Transcript

Dean: We have a period that usually lasts eight to nine months of the year when it is primarily the harvest period. The greenhouse industry is quite labour intensive. The employees that we bring in from other regions come primarily from areas like Mexico and Jamaica. It is a great opportunity for us as producers here in Canada but also for them. In a lot of cases they're earning as much as 10 to 20 times here opposed to what they would make back at home.

All greenhouse products are harvested by hand. So our staff, in the case of mini-cucumbers will be harvesting them on a daily basis so they'll be visiting each plant and harvesting cucumbers. On the long, seedless cucumbers they'll be visiting the plants every other day.

Each product that we grow in the greenhouse has its time when it's time to harvest. In the case of tomato, it's traditionally in the beginning of its ripening cycle. These tomatoes are grass-green but they'll probably be harvested from the time they start breaking. Breaking means when they start to change colour, to the colour that they are going to be grown. Those tomatoes take approximately four to five days before they are eaten. And peppers are very similar to tomatoes. When they just start changing colour they'll be harvested.

All peppers start off green, all the peppers that we grow. There are green varieties, there are yellow varieties and there are red varieties and it's basically due to the genetics that are there.

As it relates to cucumbers, primarily it's the size. So individuals as they're going through the crop will feel the fruit, make sure that it is the proper diameter or size and they'll get harvested, put into crates and go to the packing facility.