BECK Farms

On September 11, 2013 I had the priveledge of going for a visit to Beck Farms with my Production Horticulture class from Olds College.

Beck Farms is part of the Innisfail Growers Co-Operative. Innisfail Growers is a group of five families of growers and entrepreneurs that group together to market and sell their goods.

Beck Farms is owned and operated by Shelly and Rod Bradshaw, with the help of their two sons and a few employees they seed and harvest about 50 acres of produce. They are mainly known for their Nantes carrots but also have cole crops, beets, parsnips, dill and hot peppers.

Their goods are sold at about 20 farmers markets in Alberta per week, from Red Deer south to Calgary.

Here is a picture of their Nantes Carrot field, it is approximately 32 acres in size. Your average carrot farmer would seed in the area of 600,000 seeds per acre. The Bradshaws prefer roughly 1,000,000 per acre.

 

Here you can see Rod harvesting the carrots with their Top Lifter harvester. A bar goes into the earth to loosen the soil and the harvester pulls the carrots from the top.

Here you can see the carrots being dumped into the water to be cleaned and processed. No chemicals are used in the process. Beck farms are know for how clean their packaged carrots come.

Here you can see Shelly explaining how the sorter works. This sorter seperates three different sizes of carrots, baby, pickling, and jumbo.

Here you can see the carrots bagged and ready for storage. 

Here are the carrots being stored and stacked high in the cooler. With their cooler system, carrots can be stored for up to ten months!

Among the many things the Bradshaws sell at the markets, one that they are known for is their pickled carrots. They recently finished canning 6000 jars!

Thank you Shelly and Rod for having us out to see your growing operation!!