When Shaye Howard talks about his family’s farm, Howard Greenhouses and Produce, he frequently refers to the phrase, “turn around”.
These turnarounds or pivots, marks major changes in his family farm’s direction, sometimes with unexpected and amazing results.
The family’s story starts with Howard’s grandparents, who settled on their current Windham Road 12 farm, actively farming it in 1947. His grandfather, Kitchener Howard, transitioned it as a market gardening operation, selling produce at the Hagersville and Simcoe Farmers’ Markets into the 1960s.
In 1971, when Howard’s father, Wayne, desired to farm full time, the family built a greenhouse to produce pansies and primroses in order to expand their market season. “My father took over (full time). He loved what he did -- he loved to farm.” Because Wayne enjoyed greenhouse work, they added more greenhouses in 1975 – one glass and two plastic-covered ones.
The family built new greenhouses in 1980 to replace their original ones, which were wind-damaged by the August, 1979 tornado. “Since then, we’ve grown from 600 square feet to now a little over 10,000 square feet,” said Howard. During the 1990s, the family acquired a stall at the Ontario Food Terminal (OFT). Their sales pivoted towards grocery stores and gar- den centres. Wayne died in 1998, leaving his wife, Marie, and son to run the farm.
Outdoor crops today include 100 acres of zucchini, 100 acres squash and 40 acres of cabbage, which the family harvests with some local help and several Jamaican off shore workers.
The Howards’s seasonal routine began with “greenhouse season” with the family moving into the fields around Father’s Day. When his brother, Shawn, returned home to grow the field crops, Howard focussed on the greenhouses.
A recent pivot created a fourth generation of “team partners”, as Howard described it: his son, Wayne Jr., who studied green- house maintenance and techniques at Niagara College, and nephew Brandon, who shares Shawn’s penchant for field work.
The declaration of the pandemic in March, 2020 created unparalleled stresses.
“I remember working in the greenhouse at the start of the shut down, and hearing word of closures. We weren’t thinking about selling our product at that point,” said Howard. “But talking with hundreds of greenhouse plugs that another grower was “literally throwing out – we took them to help him out.”
“It resulted in us having greenhouses that were absolutely full with nothing moving.”
By May, Howard and Wayne noticed that people began buying entire racks of bedding plants at the OFT. A Buy Local movement had arisen on social media, with people publicly patronizing smaller garden centres with curb side pick ups.
“We were getting support from the pub- lic who were tired of being shut down for two months.” Then Premier Doug Ford’s announced that garden centres were allowed to re-open on May 9
“Within one hour of the Premier’s announcement our phones began ringing. Business boomed for the month of May; more specifically from May 9 to28.”
“We sold out in three weeks!” exclaimed Howard. “It was an incredible turnaround from March. The support was there – it was great! People were buying flowers for their grandmothers in nursing homes, even showing the plant through the window to see their smiles. It showed us that we were all in this together.