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Food and Drink

Pick of perfect peppers

Two things hit me when I got out of my car at Calais Farms’ greenhouse. First was the overwhelming aroma of ripe red peppers. Next was a debate two guys were having near the front doors over the sustainability, or lack thereof, of growing food in greenhouses.

But I was running late for the B.C. Greenhouse Growers’ Association’s open house in Abbotsford so I side-stepped the discussion and followed my nose through the huge doors and into the staging area.

It’s a big greenhouse. Ten acres to be exact, and through the sliding glass doors that lead to the growing area you can see, on either side of a central concrete path, endless rows of super tall pepper plants dotted with bright red peppers. They seem to go on forever.

Ninety-two thousand plants are in there, snug in their humid, 25-degree micro-climate. We just had to wait for our tour guide to get a closer look at them.

This is the second year that the B.C. Greenhouse Growers’ Association has held an open house. This non-profit organization, which represents almost all of the vegetable greenhouse producers in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, promotes research and education. And since I’ve wanted to step inside one of these cavernous glass kingdoms for ages, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

It had been a busy day, likely because people’s interest has been piqued by the ever-growing number and size of greenhouses in the Lower Mainland. Who hasn’t driven Highway 99 south and not noticed them glinting in the Delta sun, or spotted them along the highways in Abbotsford?

Some of them are indeed huge, since the trend has been to greenhouses of more than two acres, which are more efficient to run. But their size also fuels at least part of the eco-debate: how they displace everything from vegetation and voles to red-tailed hawks, and impact surroundings with their bright lights and warm, moist exhaust, and consumption of water and fuel.

In all regards, the growth of the industry in B.C. remains a fact. It started in the 1970s, but didn’t take off until the mid-90s. The last period for which province-wide stats are available show that the sector increased 135 per cent during 1995-2000, with annual growth around 20 per cent in those days (it has slowed a bit).

Greenhouse produce grown in B.C. today is worth around $220 million-$240 million a year. About one-third of that stays in Canada; the rest goes to the States. Even in California consumers find lettuce, cukes, peppers and tomatoes with those cute little B.C. stickers on them — only there they think B.C. stands for Baja California.

But despite the seeming proliferation, greenhouses — those used to grow vegetables, not flowers — still only occupy some 620+ acres in the whole province: about 340 acres in Delta, 145 in Abbotsford, and the rest on Vancouver Island.

The reason we don’t see them in places like Pemberton Valley or the Okanagan is simple: greenhouses do best in marine climates with their moderate temperatures. Ergo their proliferation in Holland, and now the Lower Mainland.

In fact, a good deal of Dutch expertise and materials make our local industry work. One of my fellow tour buffs pointedly asked where the greenhouse materials came from. (The aluminum structure was from Holland; the glass from California; cost: $8-$9 million.) He wondered why we weren’t sourcing it all in Canada. Good question. Even the “robotic” washers that clean the glass roofs come from Holland.

Oregon State University credits B.C.’s greenhouse success to these same high-quality greenhouses, plus high inputs and the technical management made possible by large operations and strong marketing by groups like B.C. Hot House Foods.

I think it’s also because the produce can look and taste great. I’ve yet to find a B.C. Hot House tomato I liked. But the peppers are fantastic, especially the new Sweet Tooth variety. The cukes and lettuce aren’t bad either when you can’t find local field or organic ones, especially in winter.

That’s when local greenhouse produce makes real sense, despite its dependence on fossil fuels. Although some growers use alternatives like wood pellets in the boilers that heat the water that heats the greenhouses, most still use natural gas. As well, the nutrients come from petroleum-based fertilizers. Few have gone organic by using fish fertilizer due to the 30 per cent cost increase.

So we may be sucking up fossil fuels to grow this food, but at least it hasn’t been picked six weeks ago and trucked 2,000 km, plus it uses far fewer chemicals than traditional field-grown produce in Mexico or California.

But it is a shame more local growers haven’t gone organic since the greenhouses already use bio-controls (“good bugs”) rather than pesticides. At the Calais site, I was surprised how many creatures were buzzing around inside. In fact, the whole atmosphere was much less sterile than I had envisioned.

As for the growing cycle itself, the peppers take 11 months to mature. The wee plants, provided by a supplier, are started in December. Foam boxes hold their young roots and the drip that supplies water and nutrients, which are recycled. As the plants mature their roots grow into bags of stable material, in this case yellow cedar sawdust. Carbon dioxide produced when the natural gas is burned is added to the air to increase growth.

Workers prune the pepper plants to create 4-5 “heads” or main stems. The three strongest heads are trained to twist up strings, some of them reaching 15 feet high. Each head produces about 10 pounds of peppers; an area smaller than your bathtub produces 55 pounds each year.

With the help of small hoists that run up and down the rows on the hot water pipes, 14 workers keep the Calais operation going, pinching back suckers, twisting the stems round the strings, and, finally, harvesting the peppers into big bins moved on overhead tracks. Once the peppers are picked, the plants are chopped up and composted, and the greenhouse is cleaned to start the process again.

So how did I feel about the sustainability of greenhouse production after my tour? Much more positive than when I went in. I see the arguments on both sides of the fence that I overheard when I first walked in, and I hope that our B.C. industry takes the lead to become even greener. And I certainly wouldn’t want all my food coming from greenhouses, but I do see the merits of local production. Besides, the nice red peppers they gave me are ripening and adding their delicious aroma to our kitchen.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who packs a lot of peppers in her piperade.