The Okanagan tree fruit harvest is in full swing, with peach season at its tail end and apples, pears and other fruits arriving. However, it has not all been smooth sailing; the summer was hot and there were wildfires throughout the valley.
Jennay Oliver, owner of Paynter's Fruit Market in West Kelowna: “Everything is coming off the trees really nicely and out of the garden perfectly, and it’s been an amazing harvest. Our last variety of peaches are just starting to harvest right now and they’re called cresthavens and we have lots of stuff coming out of the garden. We’ve got pick-your-own tomatoes … cherry tomatoes, melons, all sorts of things."
The extremely hot and dry summer made for an earlier than usual harvest. “This year it was kind of like jumping on a freight train, so we had nothing but tons of hot weather, and that just sped everything up and everything just ripened at once," said Oliver. "We’re seeing a lot of crops that are coming into the market right now that we wouldn’t see for maybe two weeks from now.”
The wildfires did not impact the crop, but they did scare away tourists, which are big buyers of the fruit.
Source: castanet.net
