Source: Radio New Zealand
Mike and Angela Roy in one of their polytunnels RNZ/Sally Round
Follow Country Life on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts.
There’s a job for even the youngest of the Roy family when the Christmas berry crush is on at their orchard in Piopio.
With queues out the door of their farm shop over the festive season it’s all hands to the pump, according to orchardist and grandmother, Angela Roy.
“Sam’s our little six-year-old. He does the stickers on the punnets, not always as straight as one might expect, but hey…”
Angela and her husband Mike have been growing berries at their 13.5ha King Country orchard for more than three decades and have enjoyed involving the whole family in the operation over the years, along with a team of Piopio locals, up to 100 at the height of the season.
The Roy’s strawberries are picked at their absolute ripeness and only travel 150m to the farmgate for sale RNZ/Sally Round
The Roys’ four children were brought up around the customers who pour in by the carload over the summer for the freshly picked strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries.
Of their produce, 95 percent is sold at the farmgate, about half-way between Hamilton and New Plymouth on State Highway 3.
Not having to worry about exporting or supermarket sales, they can pick the berries at the last possible moment for transport from the polytunnels to the shop, a journey of only 150 metres.
“Then they’re full size and full-flavored. Quality fruit is our main selling point, ” Mike said.
“Unlike some growers, we are a little bit different. We do see everyone that has our fruit. We see them face to face, obviously, in the shop. So, everything about our berries has to be top,” Angela said.
The Roys took on four hectares of blueberries in 1993 and have expanded the orchard, now growing 66,000 strawberry plants under cover, and several varieties of blueberries under nets.
The original blueberry bushes are still producing at 40 years old.
Blueberry bushes in leaf showing their large trunks, aged 40 years-plus RNZ/Sally Round
Angela and Mike netted the blueberry orchard themselves RNZ/Sally Round
“We had a dream of what we could do with the shop, and that required more production to fulfil those dreams.”
Six years ago they made a million dollar investment, installing several large polytunnels and a tiered vertigation system, drip-feeding nutrients and water into the strawberry plants.
A computer balances the water and feed from sensor readings in the tunnels while Mike keeps an eye on pests, especially two-spotted mites.
Predatory insects are brought in to keep them at bay.
“They come in a little plastic bottle, and we just spread them around inside the tunnel houses, and they crawl around, and they will eat the eggs and the immature stages of two-spotted mite.”
Neither birds nor fungi seem to like the environment but the pickers do, the Roys told Country Life on a tour of the tunnel houses.
“It’s a lovely, warm, dry environment in here, and so the pickers love it, because they don’t have to wear raincoats, like they would if they were outside,” Mike said.
“We’ve eliminated a lot of the risk because we’ve eliminated a lot of the weather issues, which, of course, as in all farming, that’s the biggest issue.”
The tunnels also mean they can provide strawberries continuously over six months.
Strawberries are picked when they’re perfectly ripe at Piopio Berry orchard RNZ/Sally Round
Jessie Loomans at the berry ice-cream maker RNZ/Sally Round
The Christmas-New Year period is the busiest time of year and the Roys’ daughter Jessie Loomans describes it as “controlled chaos”.
You’ll find her behind the berry ice-cream machine in the shop’s Berry Cool department.
“These days, the ice creams are just as busy Christmas week, and so it’s such a neat time.
“We probably should be on the ground in a corner, rocking backwards and forwards, but we love it.
“So much laughter.”
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
