Blog - Thompson Potato Farm - Thompson Potato Farm

The Hypnotic Harvester

10/1/2023

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years working at the farm, it’s that people are utterly fascinated by the potato harvester. It’s huge, it’s impressive and there are a lot of moving parts to watch. This aerial video I shot using my new drone gives you a rare insight into how the harvester works.

Our harvester is operated by my husband RJ who also has to coordinate the windrower and the truck driver while he runs the harvester. The harvester digs 2 rows of potatoes while simultaneously collecting the potatoes left in a row by the windrower. As the potatoes roll up the belts, field debris is sorted out and shot rather emphatically out of the back of the harvester. You can visit “The Wonderful Windrower” if you’re wondering what on earth a windrower is!

The Wonderful Windrower

9/27/2023

This implement is called a “windrower” and it’s something to get excited about as we rock ‘n’ roll through the fall harvest. Our windrower is operated by our son John and it plays a vital role in our potato harvest. It digs up four rows of potatoes at a time and piles them neatly into one long row where they will be collected up later by the harvester. It actually digs more potatoes than the harvester even though it doesn’t look as impressive.

Here’s a fun fact about how the windrower got its name: A “windrow” is a long line of material heaped up by the wind or by a machine. So our potatoes are piled in a “windrow” by the “windrower.” Interestingly enough, it also is the official name for the piles of snow left at the end of your driveway after the snow plow has cleared the road. Now you know!

You can visit “The Potato Windrower” to see another video of our windrower in action.

Tiny Truck

9/23/2023

I’m probably going to get in trouble for saying this but I’m going to say it anyways….look how cute our new little truck is! I was also told I’m definitely not allowed to give the truck a name. BUT, if you were to comment with a fun potato truck name (like “Tater Tot” or “Petite Potato “) I know you wouldn’t get in trouble!

All fun aside, we have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of this new truck to assist with our deliveries to local restaurants and grocery stores. This truck is a 2024 Freightliner. It’s fully automatic, can be driven with a G licence, has excellent vision from the cab, and has a walk down ramp to get the potatoes off the truck. It will carry about 200 50lb bags of potatoes and is perfect for unloading bins of sweet corn at grocery stores. It’s a most welcome addition to our fleet.

You can visit our “Photo Gallery” to see many more pictures of our farming equipment.

Fall Harvest Begins

9/18/2023

Last weekend we began the fall harvest. We dusted off our bin filler (figuratively speaking of course – the bin filler is always rather dusty) and started filling the potato storage. These are our Yukon Gem potatoes that were transported in large bulk trucks from the field to our farm. Curtis is picking out unwanted debris such as grass clumps, weeds and stones as the potatoes fall out of the bulk truck. The potatoes travel along several belts until they reach the bin filler.

Our crew pulls out every last bit of unwanted debris as the potatoes roll along the bin filler. The potato pile will fill this entire section of our storage from floor to ceiling. This is one of our two potato storages that will hopefully be full to the top by the time we finish the fall harvest. You can visit “The Potato Bin Filler” to see a video of our bin filler in action.

Planting Sweet Corn

6/23/2023

Hidden inside the yellow buckets of this planter are one of the most anticipated items we grow here at the farm. Sweet corn seeds! Our phones are already starting to ring with anxious customers calling in to find out if our corn is ready. Not yet. Curtis has been planting our sweet corn for many weeks now. He staggers the planting so we always have one patch of super fresh sweet corn to pick for our customers. Looking forward to seeing you at the produce stand in August! You can visit “Out-Standing In Their Field” to learn more about the men who hand pick all our corn.

Bone Dry

6/7/2023

Yes. We need rain. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time it rained. This video of Curtis preparing land to plant a cover crop makes me feel like I’m living through the famous Dust Bowl of the 1930’s in the USA. Our next job is going to be irrigation if it doesn’t rain soon. And since everyone hates irrigating, please do us a favour and do a little rain dance today! You can visit “Baby It’s Dry Outside” to learn more about how irrigation works at our farm.

The Pumpkin Patch

6/2/2023

Whenever I hear the words pumpkin patch, the image of Linus waiting patiently for “The Great Pumpkin” to arrive comes to my mind. Welcome to our pumpkin patch! John and Curtis are planting this field using our corn planter that has been adjusted with a few modifications. The video pans out to show our entire pumpkin patch where they will plant 5 different varieties of pumpkins as well as butternut squash, pepper squash and spaghetti squash. You can visit “Pumpkins & Squash” to learn more about how John & Curtis figured out how to modify the corn planter in the first year they grew fall produce.

Baby It’s Dry Outside!

7/11/2022

Baby it’s dry outside! Our crops are thirsty, so we pulled out the irrigation reel last week much to everyone’s horror. Irrigation is labour intensive and it runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Every time one field pull is completed, the pipe needs to be laid again by hand. The irrigation requires constant monitoring to ensure there are no leaks or equipment breakages.

The reel needs to be turned off when it reached the end of the pull so there is no flooding. And no matter how carefully we calculate when the reel will be done, the one thing we know is that it almost never finished when we think it will be done. But there is always hope…there is rain in the forecast for tomorrow.

To learn more about irrigation you can visit “Inside Irrigation.”

Random Things We Do - Culverts

3/6/2021

Every business has little jobs that no one really knows about or thinks about. Here is one of the random jobs we do during the fall harvest. Cornelio and Roberto are moving a culvert (which is not called a “big black heavy tube used for air flow” as I previously thought it was called!) The culverts are essential to air flow and temperature control in our storage buildings over the winter. And they do not move themselves in and out of the buildings! To see a little bit more about our harvest you can visit “Tater Tales Oct 6th #harvest17.”

Tractors For Every Season (Turn! Turn! Turn!)

3/1/2021

Sing along everyone. I know you all know this classic song:

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose under heaven
A time to plant
A time to reap

We use our tractors in every season and have implements for every purpose imaginable. Here are our tractors hard at work preparing our land for planting as they pull implements such as the fertilizer spreader, disc harrow, cultivator and manure spreader. The heavy duty tractors pull the large potato harvester and the smaller windrower during the harvest. And sometimes we even allow a special guest to tag along with the drivers to provide some company during the very long summer days!

To see videos of these machines at work you can visit “Tater Tales Potato Planter” and “The Potato Harvester.”