After planting over one million tulips in the fall, U-Pick farms in Fenwick, is inviting ticket-holders to come hand pick tulips ahead of Mother’s Day.
Paula VanHaaster is a master florist who will be in charge of the activities at the farm on picking day. She said the idea came when the team at the farm wanted to give back to the community, by offering them something fun to do while stuck in a pandemic.
She said the hope was to give visitors an authentic Dutch tulip farm experience. VanHaaster, of Dutch background herself, said that growing up in the Netherlands, flowers, especially tulips, were very much a part of daily life.
Growing up in Haarlem and Nijkerk, “Everybody works in the flower industry,” she said. “When I was five, six years old, you went with your parents to the warehouse and started peeling the (tulip) bulbs, and that's how you make some money in the summer.”
She said walking through the tulip fields was a normal thing in the Netherlands but, “you don’t have that here,” she said. “So we just wanted to give people a fun experience.”
TASC, the company that owns the farm was initially hesitant to open the field to visitors given the provincial lockdown, however after the community expressed interest in the ‘U-Pick Tulip Farm Experience’, the company decided to go through with it.
As a result, COVID-19 restrictions are in place, and the farm is strictly open only to those who have purchased tickets.
- Moosa Imran, Local Journalism Initiative, Grimsby Lincoln News
