Tasting the Alberta Berry Harvest

This year's Taste the Alberta Berry Harvest gave me a great excuse to do what I love most, get out to farms and see agritourism in action. On August 7th, I spent the day visiting three Agritourism Alberta member farms in Central Alberta: DNA Gardens near Elnora, The Jungle Farm near Innisfail, and Billyco Junction Gardens near Lacombe. Different farms, different families, different generations of history but the same spirit of hospitality, hard work, and genuine connection to rural Alberta communities.

DNA Gardens: Where Fruit Becomes Craft

My morning began at DNA Gardens, just outside Elnora, and it set the tone for the whole day. Visitors were out picking saskatoons, raspberries, and tart cherries across the farm's 25-acre orchard, moving easily between the rows and the farm store — which is really a destination in its own right. Inside, the shelves were full of prairie fruit wines and spirits, jams and sauces, all made right there on the farm.

DNA Gardens is the work of Dave and Arden Delidais — the "D" and the "A" behind the name — who have spent more than 50 years growing fruit in Alberta's tough prairie climate. That kind of longevity shows in how thoughtfully the farm has grown: beyond the orchard and store, there are walking trails, on-farm camping among the fruit orchards, and a full calendar of seasonal dinners and events.

The farm's on-site Bootlegger Café carries that same philosophy through to the plate, featuring local, fresh ingredients sourced proudly from the region. Sundays bring a morning pancake breakfast that's become a tradition of its own, drawing visitors out for a relaxed morning among the orchards. I wasn't there for a meal this time, but I've experienced it firsthand before: their smoked beef brisket long table dinner is a standout, and deservedly popular, drawing people in from near and far for a shared meal that feels like an event in itself.

What really sets DNA Gardens apart, though, is how they've built wine right into the visitor experience. Tasting tours happen out in the orchard, glass in hand among the very bushes the fruit came from — a completely immersive way to understand where flavour actually starts. It's this kind of thoughtful layering: u-pick, farm store, restaurant, orchard wine tours that turns a simple berry farm visit into something visitors remember and come back for.

The Jungle Farm: Century-Old Roots, Growing Toward the Future

From there, my day continued at The Jungle Farm near Innisfail in Red Deer County and it was busy, as usual. Families with kids of every age were spread across the ripest rows, filling baskets with strawberries and vegetables, the whole farm humming with that particular energy of a place that welcomes a lot of people and still makes it feel personal.

That's no small thing, considering the scale: The Jungle Farm now welcomes over 30,000 guests a year, drawn mostly by its u-pick strawberries, though the abundance goes well beyond that one crop. It's a multi-generational operation, farmed by Leona and Blaine Staples and their family, on land that has been in Leona's family since 1897. Over more than a century, it's grown into one of Central Alberta's best-known farm-direct and agritourism destinations; proof that the best agritourism destinations aren't built overnight, they're grown and nurtured, generation by generation.

Richard Staples, one of Leona and Blaine's sons, took me on a tour of the operation, walking me through the extensive range of produce they grow. We stopped in on Blaine and Leona, who were busy packing freshly picked strawberries bound for the farm store and for the many farm markets and stands they supply across Alberta, a reminder that a farm like this feeds a lot more tables than the ones that show up in person to pick.

Beyond the u-pick rows, The Jungle Farm also runs a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program — a partnership between the farm and its customers where members receive a fresh supply of berries and vegetables straight from the fields each week. It's another way the farm builds an ongoing relationship with the people who eat what they grow, well beyond a single visit during berry season.

What stayed with me most was hearing just how much skill and adaptability goes into growing food here, managing everything from variable temperatures to drought in the same season, season after season. And it's not a static operation leaning only on tradition: The Jungle Farm is now experimenting with robotics in the field, blending a century of farming knowledge with new tools to meet the same old challenges. It's a good picture of where agriculture is headed, deeply rooted, and still willing to innovate.

Billyco Junction Gardens: A Taste of the Alberta Berry Harvest

My last stop of the day was Billyco Junction Gardens, just east of Lacombe. Bill and Edie Biel greeted me warmly at their reception and sales station, a farm building doing a lot of work, stocked wall to wall with fresh berries and vegetables, jams and jellies, pickled veggies, and dried herbs and flowers. It's the kind of space that tells you everything about a farm before you even walk the fields: this isn't just a place to pick fruit, it's a place that's built a full harvest experience around it.

And the fields backed that up. I wandered through orchard rows of strawberries, raspberries, saskatoons, cherries, and currants, past u-pick flowers and vegetable beds, with pickers coming and going the entire time. There was a steady rhythm to it, baskets filling, kids running ahead of parents, college students out picking on a summer afternoon, and a line at the counter of people paying with genuinely happy faces.

What struck me most was the conversation happening around Edie at that counter. Customer after customer told her their plans for what they'd just picked: pies, jams, preserves, a weekend of canning. Farm-to-table wasn't a marketing jingle here; it was just what people were doing, out loud, with real enthusiasm. I saw moms and daughters picking together, families with young kids, and not so young folks who skipped the picking altogether and simply bought fresh food that had already been harvested for them.

More than anything, the atmosphere was relaxed, unhurried in a way that's rare these days. Again and again, I heard customers thank the Biels, not just for the berries, veggies and flowers but for being there, a local family choosing to open their farm and their work to the public, so a community can eat fresh, local food and feel connected to where it comes from.

What These Three Farms Have in Common

A century-old operation welcoming 30,000 guests a year, a fruit farm growing a craft winery and restaurant, a family farm building its reputation one basket at a time; on paper, these three farms don't look much alike. But spend a day at all of them, and the common thread is obvious: real farm families, working hard against weather and uncertainty, choosing to open their farms so the rest of us can get closer to the land and the work behind it, and understand where our food actually comes from.

That's the real harvest in Taste the Alberta Berry Harvest, not just the berries, but the connection between the people who grow our food and the people who eat it.

• 01 DNA Gardens

  Just outside Elnora. U-pick, farm store, café and orchard wine tours, with walking trails and on-farm camping among the fruit orchards.

  Also from this farm: prairie fruit wines and spirits, jams, and a full calendar of seasonal dinners and events.

  Plan your visit dnagardens.ca
• 02 The Jungle Farm

  Near Innisfail in Red Deer County. U-pick strawberries and vegetables on land that has been in the family since 1897.

  Also from this farm: a farm store, and a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program delivering berries and vegetables each week.

  Plan your visit thejunglefarm.com
• 03 Billyco Junction Gardens

  Just east of Lacombe. Strawberries, raspberries, saskatoons, cherries and currants, plus u-pick flowers and vegetable beds.

  Also from this farm: jams and jellies, pickled veggies, and dried herbs and flowers.

  Plan your visit billycojunction.com