Fruit and vegetable growers are hoping for summer-like temperatures this fall to sustain a late-maturing crop through harvest.
An early frost that hit Saskatchewan and Manitoba on Aug. 20 hurt cucumbers, peppers, corn and pumpkins, many of which were already well behind normal, said Andrew Sullivan of Saskatchewan Agriculture.
The vegetable crop specialist said warm weather is needed to speed up crop development in green pumpkins that would normally be orange by now.
Temperatures dropped to about Ð1 C at Oliver Green’s market gardens at Outlook, Sask., but didn’t stay long enough to do much harm.
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“There was frost on the pumpkins but no damage,” he said, noting they can take a few degrees of frost until their harvest in mid-September.
Green, who is harvesting cabbage, celery and green peppers, credits field windbreaks and Outlook’s location in one of the hotter areas of Saskatchewan as factors in warding off frost damage.
He is now banking on a stretch of warm weather.
“We’ll keep our fingers crossed that it will be good for a while.”
At the University of Saskatchewan field plots, Doug Waterer said pumpkins lost half their leaves to frost.
He said Saskatchewan is normally self-sufficient in pumpkins, which might be “as rare as hen’s teeth” this fall.
“The pumpkins will struggle to get off,” he said.
Even before the frost and hail last week, he said many market gardens were late, developing slowly through the cool spring and summer.
Sullivan was pleasantly surprised with how well many vegetables fared in the frost, with some protected by high tunnels and within windbreaks.
He said potatoes are looking “half decent” while lettuce, radishes, peas and spinach are phenomenal and already harvested.
Strawberry and saskatoon berry growers are also reporting a pretty good year, said Sullivan.
In Manitoba, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage have been harvested, but the wet weather has delayed fall work.
Anthony Mintenko, fruit crops specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, said a second harvest of vegetables is not likely.
He expected sweet corn was hit the hardest by August’s frost and the cool growing season generally.
Frost was just one of a series of setbacks for a poor pumpkin and cucumber crop in Manitoba.
“I’m not sure there would have been many to harvest anyway,” Mintenko said.
Onions and carrots came through the frost well, but are delayed.
Fall bearing raspberries and apples are late in maturing and may not make it, he said.
Generally, fruit like raspberries, saskatoons and strawberries had average to above average yields this year.
“Things have worked out for the fruit crops,” he said.
In Alberta, raspberry, saskatoon and strawberry yields are average, with black currant yields about 30 percent below normal due to late spring frosts.
Fruit and vegetable scientist Chris Neeser with Alberta Agriculture at Brooks called it a good year for processing vegetables like peas. Cabbages and carrots are also in good shape.
Harvest is under way on sweet corn, but the crop is late.
Herb and spice growers will have to wait till harvest before learning their fate, said Connie Kehler, executive director of the National Herb and Spice Coalition.
“Everything is all wait and see,” she said.
She predicted that annual spices would be hurt more than perennial herbs.
Spices need early moisture and a hot, dry summer, so were delayed. Kehler expected heavy damage in borage and coriander, already three weeks behind normal.
Growers could get some harvest help from Mother Nature in September.
Bob Cormier of Environment Canada forecasts average to above normal temperatures for the month with near normal precipitation. Unsettled weather is expected this week.
“There’s no real dry stretch for the first week, other than a day or two,” he said.
