The Jungle Farm Tour

September 13, 2013 - The Jungle Farm Tour

Leona and Blaine Staples took over the operation of The Jungle Farm in 1996.  Leona is the greatgranddaughter (fourth generation) of the original proprietor Jacob Quantz who started the farm in 1897.  They also immediately became part of Innisfail Growers who asked them to grow strawberries initially which is now their main product line.

The Jungle Farm Website Link

The 12 acres of strawberries are complemented by 10 acres of vegetables like onions, squashes, pumpkins, lettuce, spinach, kale, cucumber and artichokes.  They also have an acre of saskatoons and raspberries.  They still farm the traditional grain crops that were started by founder Jacob as well.

Leona has also translated two of her passions of Education and Agriculture (connecting people to their food) to some value added products and services on The Jungle Farm.

Education:  Approximately a 1,000 children come on school group tours.  The expansion of this component of the business required the Staples to upgrade their wagon to meet insurance and safety standards.  This division of the business now covers some of the labour costs of the farm.

Agriculture:  Jungle Farms now offers CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) where the members pick up weekly fresh, locally grown fruit and vegetable baskets right at the farm.  The members pay for the product in advance of the growing season which provides funds for purchase of supplies, labour costs, etc.  Jungle Farms had 40 members this year and expects this number to increase significantly in future years.  In addition to the vegetable shares they offered BC Fruit shares this year which did really well.  Other possible future shares are pies, meat and eggs.

The general policy for CSA is to bring the product to farmer's markets but Leona recognized the value in bringing the customer to the farm so that they have an opportunity to spend additional money on some of the other value added products offered for sale at their General Store.

As they are part of Innisfail Growers they also participate in twenty Farmer's Markets from Lacombe to Calgary.

An additional area of expansion is to attach the commercial kitchen to the General Store that the Staples will be doing once time and resources become available.  This will allow them to extend their regular store hours.  Currently they are also open by appointment year round.

The Jungle Farm also has an area set aside for Farm Experience activities such as bale maze, corn maze, petting farm, pumpkin patch, pumpkin sling shot, calf lasso corral, scarecrow factory, etc.  School groups, birthday parties, corporate groups can take advantage of this agritourism program.













Leona's focus in these areas allows Blaine to focus on the growing side of the business which is his passion rather than dealing with the public.  For example, Blaine has a cover crop of oats, radish and faba beans on one section.  This 'Green Manure' will replenish the land with phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen. The radishes will provide aeration to the soil after the roots disintegrate over winter and the cover crop is worked up in the spring.  The cover crop also helps to stop erosion of soil in comparison to if the field was left fallow instead which also helps to clean weeds.

Crop rotation is an important component of the growing process.  In fact the industry recommendation for strawberries is leaning towards waiting 10 years before replanting new crop of strawberries on the same piece of land.  Since the strawberry crop's best productive years are generally only three years planning is essential.

Diversification is important to spread out risk in case of crop failure or some other unepected problem.  The Jungle Farm grows a number of varieties of strawberries.  This year is an excellent example of the importance of this practice as their one field contained a bumper crop but due to the heavy rain received the prior weekend the berries were rotting in the field largely due to this variety being susceptible to that fungal problem and much of the product was going to waste.  Leona finds innovative ways to handle these problems and has organized the local Hutterite colony to come in soon to take care of the problem berries while they pick good berries for a reduced price.

The Jungle Farm has invested in a number of pieces of equipment like water wheel planter, raised bed with drip tape, weeder, hillside multivator and fertigation machine to automate as much of the process as possible and save on labour.  Regardless of these time savings The Jungle Farm still employs a number of foreign workers throughout the growing season.

Leona capitalizes on the use of social media for advertising about products and services offered at The Jungle Farm by posting regularly to Facebook.  She also uses Facebook as a tool to keep track of what her competitors are doing and gain information about the industry.  Leona can entice customers coming to the farm the same day if she posts a sale opportunity on Facebook.  They also have many 'Special Events' throughout the year to draw people to the farm such as Strawberry Festival, Sauerkraut Festival, Full Moon Maze, Family Fall Festival plus they offer a number of courses for making jam, pickles or baby food.

The Jungle Farm is another excellent example of a larger successful horticultural business that has a diversity of product and service offerings.