CUPAR, Sask. – For a greenhorn at greenhouses, Harold Keyser has been having success.
While a third of his English cucumber crop died this spring, his hand built greenhouse, residing in the back of an ice cream parlour, is making sales. It is his first year of greenhouse operation, said Keyser, 76, a farmer who is still making the transition to retirement.
“Yesterday me and two other guys were out combining lentils for my son. Between us, we had 216 years.”
The greenhouse is across the street from Keyser’s home in Cupar, Sask., where he and his wife Phyllis live half the year. The other months are spent in Palm Springs, California in their other house.
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It was the winter home that led to the greenhouse. A fellow from Medicine Hat, Alta., where Phyllis is from, wanted to trade them cucumber seed for the grapefruits they brought back from the United States.
The 200 plants have been producing vegetables since July with trickle irrigation at a rate of three litres of water per day per plant. Keyser is proud that he uses no herbicides or pesticides, just fertilizer on the cucumbers.
In the correct environment the plants would yield 40 cucumbers per season but Keyser’s operation is producing about half that. Next year he wants to try planting the vines in bags of sawdust rather than the ground.
He sells the cucumbers at local farmers’ markets in Fort Qu’Appelle and Indian Head and through the storefront where he also dispenses 15 flavours of ice cream. And he doesn’t stint on that side of his summertime hobby, offering two large scoops for a loonie. The most popular flavours for children are Rollo and chocolate chip cookie, while adults prefer maple walnut or black cherry.
The whole business is dubbed Keyser’s Corner, after a real location in southwestern Ontario where his descendants are from. Their busiest time was the second week in July when 1,500 people came to the town’s homecoming. Then the ice cream parlour also offered hot dogs and hamburgers.
“It’s not a big money making thing. I haven’t retired yet,” Keyser said with a smile.
In fact Phyllis said it doesn’t pay the power bill yet.
They both laughed when recalling the day they put up the top plastic skin over the internal one. Of course it was a windy day and while trying to pull the plastic tight by hand, one of the men got all wrapped up when a gust of wind blew the plastic around him.
