The former Haney Greenhouses was a Japanese-Canadian owned greenhouse-based farming business that was situated in Maple Ridge, east of 240 Street and between Dewdney Trunk Road and 112 Avenue. The property was owned by the three Nagai brothers, Manjiro, Yoichi and Hidesaburo. The three brothers bought a quarter of a section of property in Haney in 1919, approximately 300 acres. At that time the land had many hills and gullies and was covered in forest.

At the southern edge of the property, Kanaka Creek flowed around a flat space. It was here that the brothers built their first house. North of the house, on a mesa-like hill, they decided to plant some crops and build a greenhouse to grow tomatoes and cucumbers for market. From 15th Road (now 112 Avenue) they created a drive that curved behind the house, bridged the creek and led up the hill. With that access, they cleared the hilltop of more trees and started fields of strawberries while building the first glass house.

The brothers, together with their wives, first grew tomatoes and cucumbers in climate-controlled greenhouses. Because of competition and objections by local non-Japanese growers, the Nagais joined the Haney Nokai, a co-operative produce marketing group organized by the Japanese farmers.

All the adults worked the land and were helped by the older children after school. Besides the cash crops, they had a large vegetable garden for family use. The “kitchen” garden was the responsibility of the women who tended the plot after the usual day’s work in the greenhouses.

By 1941, there were several acres under glass and the open fields reduced. To heat the greenhouses they built several boilers fuelled by sawdust. During those years the families’ investment was more than $45,000. They produced about 60,000 crates of cucumbers and 90,000 crates of tomatoes annually. It had become the one of the largest enterprises of its type built by Japanese Canadians in BC.

By early 1942, when all the Japanese in BC were told they had to relocate 100 miles inland from the Pacific coast, the Nagai greenhouse farm was a thriving business with five glass greenhouses, a packing/storage building, machinery, tools, vehicles and supplies such as fuel and fertilizer and a nursery. There were also two cows, a piano and a small gas donkey (for clearing land), all to be left on the property. The farm assets were to be turned over to the Custodian of Enemy Property with the promise that the land would be returned to the Nagai family when the war ended.

The property, however, was not returned to the family. Legal action over the value of the property that was to provide compensation to the family along with insufficient caretaking activities and the sale of land and equipment to Chinese buyers ultimately led to the property falling into disrepair.

Following settlement of the legal claim, the family bought the property. Manjiro’s eldest son Toshio, his wife Fumiye and their three daughters moved back there and had to rebuild the neglected home and greenhouses. They did so during the 1950s and 60s. Initially, they planted tomatoes and cucumbers, but gradually converted to commercial roses. They rebuilt the business with equal partners Kazuo and Yoshimi Yonemura (Fumiye’s sister and brother-in-law) and Asano Nagai, Fumiye’s widowed mother. The five called their enterprise Haney Greenhouses. Toshio also created two koi ponds near the new house.

The roses were cut, packed and taken to a wholesaler in Vancouver, David L. Jones, three times per week. Every few years the greenhouses needed soil replaced and new variants of seedlings planted. It was unrelenting work that the partners carried on until the 1990s. At that point, they decided to sell the business. It took several years to negotiate but eventually, it sold to people who were not able to keep up the work required.

Today the greenhouses and other building foundations still exist, but their superstructures have collapsed onto themselves and are invaded by blackberry bushes.