COLUMN: Carillon Flashback September 1, 1950: Small fruits are grown in a big way at Kleefeld

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/05/2024 (360 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kleefeld community is taking the lead in small fruit growing in the Southeast with acres of raspberries and strawberries; scrupulously clean without a single weed showing, providing a good living for their owners, and during the picking season, profitable work for young and old alike.

Jac. Koop has been working with small fruits for a long time. About 12 years ago, he started an orchard, hoping to sell apples and plums commercially. He started with over an acre of apples, and another acre of plum trees. Unfortunately, in the next eight years, he learned, because of the Manitoba climate, his project simply wouldn’t work. The orchard was planted in a hard gumbo subsoil and many of his trees did not survive.

These setbacks did not dismay him, and he kept adding hardy ornamental shrubs, and different varieties of sand cherries, until he had a plantation covering seven or eight acres.

Four years ago, Koop bought a seven-acre cleared patch about three miles away and began a new garden with strawberries and raspberries.

Koop still maintains a considerable plot of hardy ornamental shrub and fruit trees that have proven to be able to survive and thrive in the severe Manitoba climate. Years ago, neighbors began coming to him for advice and hardy trees and plants, with the result that, quite without intent, Koop’s garden has developed into a nursery.

During the course of the past few years, his shrubs have found their way into almost every province in Canada. Curiously enough, he has sold more rose bushes to British Columbia than to any other province.

In going through Koop’s garden, one must marvel at what can be done in four years by a man who knows his onions, or fruit trees, if you please. There are dozens and dozens of varieties of shrubs, fruit trees, roses and perennial flowers in the nursery. Several acres of Gem ever bearing strawberries and Chief and Latham raspberries provide most of the revenue for Koop and a sprinkler system assures an ample supply of moisture.

But Koop does not think that there is any chance of people going into small fruits on a large scale in the near future.

“We have only scattered plots in the district, where the soil is suitable for small fruit growing. And a certain amount of patience is needed until these things begin to pay off.”

Growing strawberries must be contagious, for at the same time Koop started his new garden, four years ago, H.D. Fast and his son Arnold and son-in-law Jac. Kliewer planted the adjoining lot with strawberries.

Their venture has been most successful, and today, they have seven acres in strawberries and four acres in raspberries. When they installed their sprinkler system last year, it paid its own $2,000 investment in one picking, made possible through irrigation.

P.K. Schwartz is another of the “big three” small fruit growers at Kleefeld. He had the only exhibit of ripe tomatoes on display at the recent Horticultural Show in Steinbach.

Schwartz also has seven acres in strawberries in his beautiful Kleefeld garden, along with large apple trees that bear two kinds of apples and one variety of crab apples.

The trees are his own experiment and have not yet been named, Schwartz says. He has developed another apple tree which he claims is the hardiest in Manitoba. Schwartz is also a well-known beekeeper and still keeps about 100 hives, but flowers, plants and trees seem to be his main interest.