A look back at the glory days of celery production in the Okanagan

Celery isn’t grown commercially locally these days, but once upon a time there were acres of it growing in the Okanagan.

Kelowna resident Domenic Rampone’s family immigrated from northern Italy to Kelowna in 1893 where they grew acres of celery for decades.

“The Rampone’s were growing celery in large volumes here, especially in the 1920s,” he said. “The climate in northern Italy is almost identical to the one in Kelowna, we can grow all the same stuff. Back then there was more opportunity here.”

It was Rampone’s great, great grandfather Luigi Rampone who arrived to Kelowna first at the bequest of his friend and former neighbour back in Italy, Giovanni Casorso who had arrived a decade earlier to take advantage of the prime growing ability in the region.

Both families grew immense quantities of vegetables, including celery, for decades, that went to packing houses and canneries to be preserved, and they weren’t the only ones.

“Jack Low was a Chinese farmer on Swamp Road and he had fields of celery, he was a big producer. I remember seeing that as a young guy,” Rampone said

He later grew smaller amounts of celery on his own plot on the family farm, about 100 feet by 30 feet of the green stalks, among numerous other vegetables.

“We had a fruit stand for 40 years on Gordon Drive where we sold our veggies and the celery always grew just fine,” Rampone said.

Rows of celery are pictured growing in a field in Armstrong 1921. iNFOnews.ca/ Armstrong Spallumcheen Museum and Art Gallery

Further up the valley, Armstrong was once known as Celery City. In 1904, a farmer from Michigan, E.R. Burnett, brought seeds from his hometown and planted them on his farm. The farm was producing impressive yields within a year, and in 1910 Burnett grew 400 tons of celery and was dubbed the Celery King, according to BC Regional Digitized History.

Other farmers began growing celery and employing Chinese workers to help who, after learning the trade, became commercial growers themselves.

Soon packing houses were built and celery was shipped out on trains.

The industry began to decline around the First World War as farmers turned to growing potatoes that were better suited for dehydration, allowing for longer storage and transportation.

Today some BC celery is grown on commercial farms in the Lower Mainland but most celery we see on grocery store shelves is imported from the U.S. making it difficult for Thompson-Okanagan residents to source it locally.

In 2023, Canada imported 68 million kilograms from the U.S., according to World Integrated Trade Solution.

“Celery is always a very tricky one, it’s a long time in the ground and takes a lot of water,” said Abbotsford vegetable farmer Riyad Reid in a previous interview with iNFOnews.ca. “By the time it’s ready for harvest, we get hammered by U.S. celery coming up that’s super cheap, I can’t compete with the prices.

“It’d be similar in a greenhouse, but you’d likely require more water in a greenhouse.”

Celery grows all year round in parts of the U.S. with the vast majority of it grown in California. In B.C., farmers have a growing season of nine or ten months.

Rampone said he would love to see more commercially grown celery in the region because it grows so well when properly irrigated, but when it comes to economies of scale, it’s too expensive.

“For some of the farmland here and towards Kamloops, sometimes you can pay $200,000 an acre and you’re not growing celery and making money at that price,” he said. “If you have a small farm, you could probably make cash on the side.

“Another problem is in distribution. If you have an acre of celery and harvest it, you couldn’t get rid of it locally all at once. You’d have to try and plant so you have it growing all season long. It does store for a bit but not forever.”

Rampone is no longer growing crops but has fond memories of his lifetime of producing food.

“There is so much potential for growing stuff we can use, we can grow almost anything here, there is so much potential,” he said. “We have lots of land but farmers need more incentives.” 

In the summer, Rampone looks after domestic sales for Jealous Fruits and sits on the agriculture advisory committee for the City of Kelowna. This time of the year he is a business development officer for West Manufacturing and he sits on the Italian Chamber of Commerce In Canada.