Farm Feature Interview: Holtrop Family Farm

I had the pleasure of chatting with Gwen Holtrop of Holtrop Family Farm in Keswick. They are a York Region family farm offering farm gate sales specializing in sweet corn and pumpkins.

the cutest dog!!

How did the Holtrop Family Farm come to be?

Well, how it started was I married into the family, and it was decided early on that when we had kids, I would stay at home. But I liked sweet corn, and so my husband said, you like sweet corn so much, you grow it and sell what you don’t eat. That’s what it started as. Part of it as a sanity break to talk to grown ups, and partly to have as much corn as I wanted to eat and then I shared what I didn’t eat. And then we got into the pumpkins, well, the kids were little and they liked pumpkins, and then the stand just kept growing and growing. 

We were looking back at it and the first time we did the corn, we sold for 5 days! And that was in 1998. That was our first year. It doesn’t seem like it’s been so long, but it has been. 

The main farm does wheat, canola and soy beans, then there’s my stand that is not so little anymore.

What's the biggest change you've seen since you started, and how have you adapted to it?

The biggest change was out front - we went from a 2-lane road to a 5-lane road. The hardest part nowadays is getting in and out - for the tractors. For our customers, it’s a bit easier because of the turning lane in the middle. We also made more parking spaces available on our land. 

Before the change, our customers used to park on the side of the road - it was safer then! We encourage our customers to park in our place properly. Fortunately, during the construction, it didn’t affect our business too much. 

What’s your biggest seller between Pumpkins and Sweet Corn?

Pumpkins for sure. The season for pumpkins last longer. The Sweet corn season is only about a month long. Sweet corn does not do well if you get a frost, so once you get into September (traditionally), you want to get it done. Having sweet corn and pumpkins at the same time was not a good combination. You have to pick the sweet corn every day - first thing in the morning - and if it’s cold in the morning, then you have cold and wet hands (not pleasant) and then harvesting the pumpkin takes a lot of time and energy. We also have the main farm doing their harvesting at the same time - so it’s a few too many eggs in one basket.

Except for the last couple of years, it was just the family that did it. So it was decided that once the pumpkins started, the sweet corn was finished.

What do you do with the extra sweet corn that hasn’t been harvested?

We keep doing it occasionally because of the weather. We do it until it’s done, but sweet corn is kind of like tomatoes. It’s good on the plant for only so long, and then it becomes too ripe and starchy. So, it’s only about a week and a half that it’s really good to eat before it’s not so good.

What's one quirky farming superstition you secretly (or not-so-secretly) believe in for a good harvest?

For a harvest, not really. But for raining, so we can have a good harvest, when it hasn’t been raining (like at the moment), we’ll put out the laundry that we desperately need on the line to make sure that it rains. But you have to be careful about that. If you use it too often - Murphy’s law, it won’t work anymore. OR you wash your car. 

What keeps you going in this demanding profession?

I love sweet corn. And I enjoy sharing good food with other people. We are proud of the corn we are producing. If I don’t find it’s good enough for me, I don’t sell it. It’s a bit of pride as well, to have a good crop to share. And with the pumpkins - it really is just watching the kids: it’s adorable. And now that we’ve been around so long, we have people who came as kids that want to bring their kids! Which is so lovely. It makes it worth it. I think that’ll help us get through these times. 

Do you have a preservation technique for sweet corn?

I freeze it. Real simple. I just cut it off of the cob (I don’t cook the cob) and then I put it into freezy bags and put it into the freezer. We usually use it all up in the winter time. I found over the years that blanching it before freezing it just gave me hot fingers and a wobbly cob. And me and knives don’t work the best together, so I like a firm cob for my cutting. I didn’t find it made a difference - especially if it’s just over winter. Maybe if it was for a couple of years, blanching might help. I mean, it never lasts that long for us. By April/May, I’m like, “There’s no corn left!”

What message do you have for Ontarians about the importance of agriculture in our province?

Well, for one thing, when you buy local, it’s not being trucked in so that’s better for the environment. I know there’s produce that Ontario can’t produce, but for all of the stuff that Ontario can produce, it’s better to buy from your own backyard than going “out” because if you don’t buy local, then it’s gone. And once the farm is gone, at least here close to TO, that means there’s going to be houses instead. If a farm is viable, then that farmer won’t be selling to developers.

What is your favourite holiday and why?

Halloween. Because of all the Pumpkins that are out and about! It’s the end of the stand for that season. Then we get to see all the weird pumpkins. I like weird pumpkins. When we go into Keswick, I’m like, I know that pumpkin. You can’t tell with all of them, but the really weird ones I tend to recognise. A weird pumpkin is about colour, shape and warts. Odd colours, odd shapes and warts. The kids always get on my case about. Everyone else has these perfect pumpkins and I have the kind of green, green and yellow mushy thing that has lumps all over it and sits sideways. You don’t have to do anything with it - it’s its own decoration.

What is your favourite little-known growing tip you'd like to share with the people of Ontario?

We move our crop from farm to farm so that we don’t have volunteer pumpkins. I actually like the volunteer pumpkins because they’re always hybrids. A volunteer pumpkin, well, if you throw your squash or pumpkin in your compost bin…there’s been lots of people who say they’ve got a pumpkin coming out - that’s a volunteer pumpkin. Strangely enough, if you plant the stuff, and it’s a crop - well, anything can kill it. You throw it into a compost bucket or it comes up the next year, nothing kills it. We have to be careful with our gourds, because we have gourd patches in several of our farms from where we planted them before and they just keep coming up. I don’t know how many times I’ve been sent out to rip up patches of volunteer pumpkins.

What is your favourite recipe.

Corn: just straight up - no salt, no butter, just cooked

Pumpkin recipes: Grandma’s pumpkin pie recipe is by far the favourite. But pumpkin cookies and cake and basically all things pumpkin.