The Rural Voice, 1992-10, Page 29With the arrival of fall the demand
is for Indian corn, gourds and
pumpkins. Also at this time of year,
Perry's hosts the arrival of many
young school -children, eagerly
anticipating a close-up tour of the
pumpkin patch.
Throughout the entire year Perry's
Pumpkin Patch retails Diane's own
canning and preserves as well as cut
flowers. They have a small orchard of
young trees, from which they
eventually hope to harvest apples,
plus they raise turkeys and chickens
for consumers. With one hand
helping the other, Diane says the
leftover produce is fed every other
day to the livestock. "One year we
finished the turkeys on pumpkins,"
she said. "They were delicious."
In addition to retailing their goods,
Perrys wholesale their supplies in the
spring and vegetables in season at
local stores.
Diane attributes much of their
success to the neighbouring
Mennonites who obviously, in view
of their method of travel, can't get to
a lot of the places to purchase their
gardening supplies. She says that was
a factor given consideration by them
when they decided to start Perry's
Pumpkin Patch as well. "When we
were looking for supplies ourselves,
we had to drive to several places
located in an area between Grand
The Perrys' store, a converted farm
building, overflows with vegetables
and fruit of the season.
A large bright
sign and a
highway
location help
attract
customers.
PUMP' IN
PATCH
resh E39S
Bend, Elora and Georgetown," she
explained. Diane still makes the trips
to direct growers and distributors, but
by buying in volume she gets the
product cheaper so, she says, the
savings can be passed on to their
customers.
As with operations like Perry's,
the customer is usually assured of
quality control.
While they are not organic farmers
they do use as little fertilizer and
chemicals as possible. Some, such as
broccoli, would be virtually
impossible to grow successfully
without some pest control, she adds.
Looking back on the
entrepreneurial venture, Diane
remarks that some parts have been
worth the effort, particularly being
able to be home with her small
family. "The first few years we kept
fooling ourselves that it all was," she
smiled.
She says that while there is good
profit in certain areas, many are not
as lucrative as they appear. Pumpkins
for example were being sold at
Perry's for $1 with the intent of
selling 1000 per acre, meaning a
gross return of $10,000. "But taking
everything into consideration, that's
not a lot of money," says Diane.
"You have to, quite simply, have a
set market for some vegetables before
you plant." To grow pumpkins in this
area for the canning industry is not
lucrative, she said. Unfortunately,
due to this year's poor growing
season, Tom says the pumpkins have
been a disaster and adds that any frost
will mean no saleable pumpkins.
"What we really need is frost -free
weather until the middle of October,
which I don't think is likely to
happen,"said Tom. Fortunately, the
scope of Perry's business helps
during years such as this. "We have
enough variety that there are things
the frost can't hurt," he said, adding,
"But the vine crops are susceptible."
Diane says Perry's have tried to
keep their prices competitive with
stores, but knows they can't compete
with everybody. Also, she says, it is
an unfortunate situation that as more
and more farm families try to
supplement their depleting .incomes
this way, it becomes less and less
viable for each. "As the market
becomes flooded, prices have to be
cut," says Diane.°
OCTOBER 1992 25