Farm Fresh Produce-Thanks to the dedication of growers like Spruce Ridge Farm

Spruce Ridge Farm pepper seedlings April 16
Spruce Ridge Farm pepper seedlings April 16 2023

Garden fresh doesn’t have to mean plucked from your own backyard. When I first starting preserving the food of the seasons, almost all of my fruits and vegetables came from local farms or vegetable markets. At that time, I had a little garden, and it was just for everyday meals.

In fact, my husband and I laugh at a statement made by me in those early years. “This year I am really going to follow the market.” He thought- okay great she is going to learn more about financial investing, but what I meant was I would determine when all those lovely, juicy fruits and vegetables were at their peak and at market.



It was in those years that I had the pleasure of meeting some hard-working farmers and orchardists that taught me more than just when the veggies were at their peak. In keeping with our goal at Cansanity to share all the knowledge we have accumulated over our 30 years of garden and food life; we want to share with you a series of blogs called “A tour of Ontario farms” that will highlight some of our favourite farms that we have had the pleasure to visit and the people who run them.

This blog will feature Elaine and Paul Lapadat of Spruce Ridge Farm found in Rodney, Ontario. We first met Elaine and Paul at St. Jacobs Farmers’ Market in St. Jacobs, Ontario more than a decade ago. You see, every year in late August or early September when tomatoes and peppers were at their peak, I would seek out their farm stand. It was my experience that they always had the very best vegetables, and their helpful staff in their bright orange shirts were always smiling and eager to sell us some of their gorgeous bushels of Roma and San Marzano tomatoes, as well as Poblano and ripe red bell peppers.

At that time of the year, those were my target vegetables to buy. My husband used to say I had the “goo-goo” eyes for them veggies. I was always so relieved and content to have my stash of those brightly coloured beauties packed into my car, homeward bound, and destined for Tomato Soup, Chunky Tomato Salsa and Pasta Sauce

Spruce Ridge Farm market veggies 2014
My haul of Spruce Ridge Farm market veggies 2014

Over the years, I learnt that there were other great finds at the Spruce Ridge Farm stand at St. Jacobs market including: tomatillos, an amazing range of mild to hot peppers which included bell, jalapenos, habaneros, chili Cheyanne, crimson hots, Anaheim, ghost, reapers, cubanelles, shepherds, sweet and hot banana and Hungarian stuffing peppers. You can also find beautiful eggplants at their stand.

This April, we decided to visit Elaine and Paul at Spruce Ridge Farm, eager to learn more about their farm including the scale of their operations, seeding process and also the behind the scene look at what life is like on market days.



First, lets talk about the history of their farm. This 80-acre farm has been in the family since the 1940s with the first years growing tobacco and having most of the work done by horse drawn machinery.  In the 1970s, the family sold the tobacco quota and added a half acre of peppers and tomatoes to the corn and soybean production. In 1990, Paul, the third generation of the Lapadats took over the farm; he and Elaine added 3 acres of strawberries and up to 30 acres various market garden vegetables. At present, they are growing 10-acres of market garden vegetables and 1-acre strawberries focusing keen attention on only growing the finest tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and strawberries.

In February-April the Lapadats are busy seeding their plants. First with peppers and eggplants and then with tomatoes. The seeding is done using an automated seeder which has the capacity to allow for a seeding rate of 500 trays per day with each tray having 128 cells per tray.  That’s 64,000 plants! Typically though, they seed only 150 trays per day.

Automated Seeder at Spruce Ridge Farm

Once filled, the trays are watered, stacked, shrink wrapped, and moved to a 12’x 20′ germination chamber. Here the peppers will take 5, eggplant 4 and tomatoes 3 days to germinate. After germination, the pallets are disassembled, and the trays are moved to a 25’x 125′ green house.

Watering the newly seeded tomatoes
Pepper Seedlings at Spruce Ridge Farm
Pepper Seedlings at Spruce Ridge Farm

The greenhouse covered in 8-millimetre poly provides the perfect environment for their seedlings to develop. The temperature is controlled by automatic, electric fans that turn on as soon as the temperature of the greenhouse reaches 75°F.  Here the plants will grow for weeks until the May long weekend, and then they are planted using a customized planter. This planter can plant up to 8 acres a day!

Customized Seedling Planter

In the Rodney farming region, the soil composition is sand-based, making the land perfect for these crops because tomatoes and peppers both prefer a well drained soil. At the start of planting season, an application of a custom formulation of fertilizer is applied, the plants are planted, and then an application of nitrogen is applied in mid-July, once the fruit is on the plants.

Peppers at Spruce Ridge Farm pic 3

Spruce Ridge Farm peppers pic 4

There are a number of pests that have to be kept in check including the European corn borer on peppers, stink bug on tomatoes, and the Colorado potato beetle. Interestingly enough, the Lapadats decided to plant eggplant along with the other nightshades – tomatoes and peppers – because the Colorado beetle is more attracted to the eggplant. So, if they get an infestation of the beetle, they are more likely to be concentrated on these plants, making it much easier to get rid of them.  Fungi, including blight and viral infection such as Rugose, are other problems that can infect the plants.

The harvest starts in August and is all done by hand! Spruce Ridge Farm employs 6 migrant workers from May 24 through October and every market day they employ 10-11 workers. An interesting, fun fact that all us market goers should appreciate is that the Lapadats and some of their staff get up at 1:00 a.m. to load up their two 26′ trucks and head to the market. They arrive at St. Jacobs at 3:30 a.m., and by the time they get set up, the sun is rising! Market opens at 7:00 a.m.  Such an amazing dedication of getting fresh farm to table vegetables for us!



Besides growing their market vegetables, the Lapadats also grow strawberries for sale at their farm stand in Rodney, Ontario, and they also have expanded into custom growing of peppers for companies that specialize in making hot sauce. One of the hottest peppers grown at Spruce Ridge Farms is Dragon’s Breath which is 2.48 million Scoville units on the Scoville scale which is  310 times hotter than a Jalapeno at 8,000 scoville units or 7 times hotter than a Habanero at 350,000 Scoville units! To facilitate this production, the Lapadats invested in a container refrigeration system that can hold 15,000 pounds of sliced and frozen peppers. They have an automated slicer which slices at a rate of 4000 pounds per hour! Try that with your KitchenAid!

It was such a pleasure to meet with Elaine and Paul this April and learn more about their farm and what it takes to get those beautiful vegetables to market. Please go and check them out in August-October at St. Jacobs Market, St. Jacobs Ontario. You can also reach out to them through their website https://spruceridgefarm.ca/ or give Paul a call at 519-476-1169.

Market Goers Arriving at 6:30 a.m at Spruce Ridge Farm stand at St. Jacobs Market



Sweet sign of spring a walk through the sugarbush

Grades of Maple Syrup- Golden, Amber, Dark and Very Dark

When you live where fresh maple syrup is produced (like I do), you look forward to the month of March. Roadside stands advertise fresh maple syrup, and the pancake houses are open!

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of visiting my friend Jim Lumsden and his son Mike at their farm, Lumsden Brothers Maple Syrup ,to see first hand how his family makes this golden Canadian treasure.  Situated on 20 acres of land, his family has been making maple syrup for over 100 years, and, as I saw, they have it down to a science!

The set up of the production actually starts in January with the unravelling of 18,000 feet (3.4 miles) of four seasons tubing, which is made out of 100% resin. Each piece of tubing is numbered and labeled and is attached to a specific tree in the maple sugarbush.  These lines are cleaned out with a solution of 70/30 alcohol to water each year and reused, making this an environmentally friendly operation. This complex maze of tubing, in the case of Lumsden Brothers Maple Syrup farm, includes specific hookups to about 1,100 trees.

Maple tree with two taps at Lumsden Brothers Maple Syrup Farm

A tree can be tapped when its diameter of the tree reaches 10″, and when the diameter is 18″, the tree can support two taps. For the health of any tree over 18″, at most two taps can be installed each year. So, in the case of Jim’s maple farm, he installs 1,435 taps!



To keep the tree nice and healthy, it is important that the taps occur in a different spot on the tree each year. In fact, you would have to wait about 50 years before you can tap into the same spot.

Once the overnight temperature does not go below -4°C and the daytime temperature stays above 5°C, the sap will flow and the process of collecting the sap can start.

Sap Collection

Tubing and sap flowing

Tapped Maple Tree

Pump monitor

The system used to collect the sap is quite nifty. Collection is by vacuum and the pump is set to pull 25 lbs. of sap and is set to operate as long as the tree’s sap is running. The vacuum pump is set to turn off automatically when the air temperature hits 0°C .

The sap is collected and then, using reverse osmosis, 55% of the water is removed. Then the sap enters a wood-fired evaporator which is 3 feet wide and 13 feet long. It evaporates 90 gallons of water per hour!

It takes approximately 3 hours from the time a drop enters one end of the evaporator until it condenses and accumulates enough to be able to draw off a batch of syrup.

The syrup is ready when the temperature reaches 219°F and is stored in 34-gallon stainless steel barrels or 10-litre plastic jugs in the freezer until ready to bottle for sale.

reverse osmosis

Stove

Moving the finished product

maple syrup storage containers

There are four grades of maple syrup: golden, amber, dark and very dark.  You get these shades naturally from the tree because the first sap to come out of the trees produces the lightest colour which is the golden and every week further into the season a darker syrup is produced. So, at the end of the sugaring season you will get the darkest syrup.



Now let’s talk about all the fantastic ways you can use maple syrup! Typically, the golden is used to make candy and confections, the amber is what most people  use for pancakes and waffles and the dark and very dark are fantastic in cooking and baking. Each shade of syrup has its own unique flavour so if you get a chance to sample before purchasing, do so because you might find that for your palate you prefer one shade over another.

To learn how to make “Maple Pecan Scones” check out this video.

And, here are three of my favourite baking recipes that use maple syrup:

Maple Pecan Scones
Maple Pecan
Scones

Maple Blueberry Muffins
Maple Blueberry
Muffins

Oat Scones
Oat Scones