Canada: Overabundance of crops from Inuvik Greenhouse’s first turn at urban farming showers town in fresh produce
Most of the hens are expected to end up as chicken soup in the fall
By Eric Bowling
Inuvik Drum
August 2, 2020
Excerpt:
Urban farming at Inuvik’s Greenhouse is proving far more viable than expected, with the non-profit facility establishing a chicken coop and growing so much food workers are now making jams, pickles, chetneys and even giving the food away in some cases.
Greenhouse executive director Ray Sol0tki the greenhouse had harvested 300 kilograms of food by mid-July and still have two months of growing to go — and so far they’ve only gotten to the light crops.
“This year we’ve been running the greenhouse as a farm, and we weren’t sure how that would go,” she said. “In our best years we’ve harvested that much in a whole season — this year we started harvesting five weeks ago — and we haven’t even harvested the heavy stuff yet.
“Bumper crop is probably the best way to describe it.”
With sales as abundant as the harvest itself, Solotki said the greenhouse has both acquired a temporary food permit and expanded its days of sale to four, from its normal farmer’s markets on Thursdays at 4:30-6 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to include an ‘odd box’ sale on Tuesday — a small box of two-to-four vegetables and other goodies left over from the Saturday markets for $6 each and available to people who may have missed out on the ‘veggie box’ subscription the greenhouse offered at the start of the season. Excess bags are also available for $2.
