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Norfolk County Ontario’s Garden
Norfolk County Tourism

Matz Fruit Barn

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WHO: Christine & Jessica Bauman

WHERE: Port Dover

WHAT: Produce

Christine Bauman is a hands-on farmer, and has the sunburnt face and work-worn hands to prove it. Since 1990 when she bought the farm her parents established in 1962 and where she grew up, she has laboured tirelessly to make it a success and provide a living for her family. Orchards cover approximately 15 of her 21 acres, where she produces sweet cherries, peaches, apricots, five types of pears and 14 varieties of apples. On most of the rest of her acreage she grows pumpkins, squash and gourds, two kinds of melons, tomatoes, peas, eggplant, peppers, spinach, cucumbers, shallots and some herbs. Unable to source good local garlic for her market, she recently began growing her own and now has it for sale. Of course, careful husbandry of the land means that it is not all in production at any one time. Cover crops of sorghum and oats nourish some fields in preparation for planting in succeeding years.

Although she does not wholesale her produce on a large scale, Christine does provide some small, local markets with product from her farm. In turn, she sources her potatoes, strawberries, honey and maple syrup from nearby producers. The owners of The Crepe House in Port Dover buy fresh produce from Christine for their restaurant.

Not content with supplying carefully sorted and packed, fresh and delicious fruits and vegetables to customers of her market, Christine has gradually added other products to her shelves. Her homemade preserves, cider made from her own apples, and delicious all-natural frozen yoghurt are also available at Matz’. Christine is a talented artist, as well, and has for sale the beautifully incised and painted bowls and baskets she makes from her gourds.

Christine is proud of her two children. Her son is at college studying furniture design, but although he has worked there growing up he shows no signs of wanting to remain on the farm. Her daughter Jessica, however, has come back home from studying Sociology in university eager to learn as much as possible about the operation and determined to take it over when her mother retires. She believes she is lucky to have this “great opportunity” to do the work she “loves”, and doubts she would be able to if she had to begin from scratch, on her own. Jessica admits the farm is hard work, but says she “loves getting up in the morning”, and “meeting and talking to people”. With her eye on the future, she continues to upgrade her agricultural knowledge.

From mid-April until the end of October, for most of the past six years, Christine has had the full-time benefit of the same two offshore workers, brothers from Mexico, and finds them enormously valuable. Because they are familiar with the processes of the farm and its equipment, little time has to be spent directing and supervising them, and she saves the time and money that would be necessary to train new workers each year. They are almost like family now and are included in barbeques and bonfires, and join the Baumans for Thanksgiving dinner. While working on the farm they share a comfortable house on the property. In addition to Jessica and these two workers, for the past five or six years Christine has been able to hire up to four local workers, some returning from summer to summer, to help with the farm and market.

Due to Christine’s persistence and dedicated effort, Matz’ Fruit Barn has grown from a tiny roadside stand to a successful, roomy, diverse market, selling the freshest and best produce and other local products directly to satisfied customers – both regulars and those who discover it in the course of their travels. Jessica is given credit for the introduction of their frozen yoghurt two years ago. The success of this delicious, all-natural and probiotic product, made from a base of the Baumans’ own fruit purees, has surprised and delighted them. Christine is also pleased with the popularity of the objects she has fashioned from her gourds. As with any farming operation, working with – and sometimes fighting – nature is an ongoing challenge. Keeping up with the necessary weeding and pruning is a constant battle. When there is not enough rain or sun, or in the years when crops are wiped out by late or early frosts, it can have a serious effect on family income. One way Christine tries to minimize the effects of nature’s vagaries is by planting a diversity of varieties which mature in succession but overall, like any farmer, she is hostage to the elements. Another challenge, she finds, is pricing. Consumers are not always willing to pay a price that reflects the cost of production and allows for a return on labour, when they make unfair price comparisons with imported produce or ‘loss leaders’ in their local chain supermarket.

Nevertheless, Christine says “I love what I’m doing” – “working outdoors”, “digging in the dirt”. She has enjoyed the challenge of “learning to drive a straight row”, and learning to prune consistent with the growth habits of her various fruit trees. Not unlike others, though, she has had to provide herself with a hedge against possible loss of income from the farm. Last year she graduated as a Medical Transcriptionist, and practiced her newly-learned skill from October to May of this year when the demands of the farm took precedence. She is thankful for a government program which, five or six years ago provided her with an assessment of the farm and its potential, and an in-home learning program. She has found the knowledge she gained thereby extremely useful.

Christine’s vision for the future is more a hope – that consumers will be better educated about the source of their food. If people were more aware of the labour and other inputs necessary to produce what they eat, and the benefits of consuming it at its peak of freshness and flavour, they might better understand the price structure and be willing to pay an amount that reflects the farmer’s efforts and “offers a fair return, at the end of the day”, both for him or her and the farm labourers. “I worry about young people going into farming today”, she says, and wonders about the future of the daughter who is set to follow in her footsteps. Although happy about Jessica’s choice, she quite understandably wants her to be able to earn a decent living by it.

Every minute of Christine’s days is busy and accounted for. Therefore, it’s no surprise that when asked what she would do if she were able to be Minister of Agriculture for a day, she answers readily: “eliminate unnecessary red tape, and deregulate”. She frets about the time wasted filling out government surveys, and resents the time it takes away from her farm to draw up “rules and regulations” to comply with bureaucratic demands. “Why can’t government departments rely on the farmer’s own good common sense ” she wonders – a question to which many would surely answer ‘amen’!

More Information: Matz Fruit Barn