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Mac Market offers consumers a buy-local option
Fresh fruit and vegetables popular with shoppers
Alycia Ambroziak
The Gazette
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Mike Bleho of Macdonald inspects pumpkin patch.
Many of the apples have been picked, the green and red peppers are selling fast, the garlic didn’t do so well this year, but the tomatoes, eggplant, zuchinni and squash are fine, as are the onions, some of which are larger than softballs.
And the pumpkins, the most colourful crop of all, are just ready for harvest.
“We’ve got about 1,000 pumpkins that we’ll begin picking very soon,” said Mike Bleho, senior technician in the department of plant science at the Macdonald campus of McGill University.
Bleho is in charge of the Mac Market where students and staff as well as the local population can purchase fresh fruits and vegetables grown on campus in Ste. Anne de Bellevue.
“The market is doing very well this year. People are really getting into the buy-local concept,” Bleho said. “And we’re happy to serve the staff and students and community.”
Bleho said the primary reason for the market is educational.
“Students learn how to go from growing fruits and vegetables through to marketing them.”
As he spoke, two Food Science students came up to the front door of the market building, checking for store hours.
“It’s great to have a fruit and vegetable market on campus,” said Nathalie Cimetière who, along with her friend, Virginie Tang, came from France to study at McGill.
“I purchased some tomatoes from the Mac Market a couple of weeks ago and they were delicious. They tasted really fresh.”
Bleho said the on-campus produce is not organic.
“But our goal is to use the minimum amount of pesticides and on some crops, we don’t spray at all,” he said.
Bleho said there are a couple of giant pumpkins, at about 400 pounds each, growing in the university’s pumpkin patch but they are not for sale to the public.
“One has been set aside for a fundraiser for the farm management technology student graduation party and the other is being set aside for an upcoming breast cancer fundraiser in Pincourt.”
The regular pumpkins – the 20-pound and smaller variety – will be on sale this month for $3 to $5, Bleho said.
Mac Market is open Mondays to Fridays from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Macdonald campus 21,111 Lakeshore Rd. in Ste. Anne de Bellevue. Follow the Mac Market signs.