If your mouth is watering for a juicy, ripe tomato, hang in there.
West Virginia-grown tomatoes should be just about ready to hit the shelves.
Gritt's Midway Greenhouse, located between Eleanor and Buffalo, has an acre and a half of hydroponic tomatoes and soon will deliver them to 65 Kroger stores throughout the area. They are now plump and green with a white star shape on the bottom that tells growers they are about to ripen.
This is good news for tomato lovers who have been suffering in the wake of the frigid weather that struck Mexico and the South, damaging crops and leading to price hikes.
Some area restaurants have been skipping the tomatoes or using them only if requested because of the cost and poor quality of the dwindling supply.
Gritt's hydroponics are grown in a carefully controlled environment inside a greenhouse and under the watch of expert growers.
Hydroponics are grown primarily by water and not soil, said Penny Goff, co-owner of Gritt's. "We are out of production for three months, January, February and (generally) most of March. Last winter, it was darker. We are ahead of production because of the warm, sunny days we have had.
"Everything is hand-picked and hand-packed," she added. "We deliver to our customers twice a week."
The 65 Kroger stores Gritt's supplies get 15,000 to 17,000 pounds of tomatoes each week from March to mid-December.
Meanwhile, Andy Crihfield is hoping for a fine crop of field tomatoes this year.
Plans call for sowing seeds for field tomatoes and market plants this week.
"We do about 35,000 to 40,000 tomato plants to sell at the farmers market," he said.
source
West Virginia-grown tomatoes should be just about ready to hit the shelves.
Gritt's Midway Greenhouse, located between Eleanor and Buffalo, has an acre and a half of hydroponic tomatoes and soon will deliver them to 65 Kroger stores throughout the area. They are now plump and green with a white star shape on the bottom that tells growers they are about to ripen.
This is good news for tomato lovers who have been suffering in the wake of the frigid weather that struck Mexico and the South, damaging crops and leading to price hikes.
Some area restaurants have been skipping the tomatoes or using them only if requested because of the cost and poor quality of the dwindling supply.
Gritt's hydroponics are grown in a carefully controlled environment inside a greenhouse and under the watch of expert growers.
Hydroponics are grown primarily by water and not soil, said Penny Goff, co-owner of Gritt's. "We are out of production for three months, January, February and (generally) most of March. Last winter, it was darker. We are ahead of production because of the warm, sunny days we have had.
"Everything is hand-picked and hand-packed," she added. "We deliver to our customers twice a week."
The 65 Kroger stores Gritt's supplies get 15,000 to 17,000 pounds of tomatoes each week from March to mid-December.
Meanwhile, Andy Crihfield is hoping for a fine crop of field tomatoes this year.
Plans call for sowing seeds for field tomatoes and market plants this week.
"We do about 35,000 to 40,000 tomato plants to sell at the farmers market," he said.
source
No comments:
Post a Comment