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The Quinn farm is a family run farm started by Elwood and Marie Quinn in 1982 when they purchased the 110 acres of land. Since then the Quinn family have concentrated on making their farm a fun place for families to come for their u-pick activities. Most recently their son Philippe bought Marie's shares of the farm and has become an official partner in business with Elwood. The history of Quinn Farm
Quinn farm was purchased by Marie & Elwood Quinn in the spring of 1982. That first year, after removal of small trees and shrubs and the installation of drainage,the couple planted 2 acres of strawberries, 5 acres of raspberries, 10 acres of mixed cereals and 2 acres of sweet corn. In the following year the couple added 10 more acres of strawberries and excavated a small pond, in the front of the farm, so that they would be able to irrigate their crops. In the next two years their efforts were concentrated on expanding crops to include the first pumpkins and a few rows of asparagus, 2 acres of blueberries, additional raspberries, gooseberries and currants. Quinn Farm installed a drip irrigation system to help conserve water, one of the first systems in the province to re-circulate tile drainage water for irrigation. In the fifth year of operation the orchard was planted with more than 18 varieties of apples and a total of 3,800 trees. In 1987, a ravine was damned in order to form a man made irrigation pond. 1,500 loads of soil and 2 weeks of bulldozing resulted in a 35 million liter reservoir. Also in that year tile drainage was completed with approximately 15 kilometers of tubes. In 1990 the Quinn family had it's first major use of compost, approximately 300 tons were applied to improve the condition of the soil. They continue to collect leaves and other organic matter from local municipalities and landscapers in order to make compost and now apply about 3,000 tons to their fields every year. In 1992 the barn which now houses the store and bakery was built. It is an old fashioned timber frame barn and on May 2nd was raised in an old fashion barn raising, by hand. Recycled barn timbers and wood was used as much as possible and family and friends helped in its design, cutting of timbers and pegs, raising and finishing it. In the mid 1990’s we started planting Christmas trees with 1,600 Balsam Fir trees. We have continued to plant Christmas trees each year and now have 13,000 trees and a handful of different varieties. Because Christmas trees take so long to grow, they take up a lot of space and at Quinn Farm a technique was developed to regenerate trees from an old stump in order to get a full grown tree more quickly and save replanting trees. Customers are asked to leave one or two branches on the stump when cutting their tree and these are turned up in the summer and they fill out and grow into trees in 4 to 5 years instead of taking 8 years. Phil Quinn, at 15 years old, buys his first Belgium horse Laurie with his savings. His beloved mare who worked hard to give sleigh rides at Christmas time, pull wood out of the bush and mothered several foals, one of which, Rosie, still works on the farm today. In 2006 another barn raising took place with family and friends in order to build the Animal Barn. All of the wood in this barn was harvested from the forest on the farm and handmade as an old fashioned timber frame building. The barn now houses pigs, sheep, horses, a donkey, chickens and rabbits. In May of 2009 Phil & Stephanie gave birth to Keith Andrew Quinn, beginning the 3rd generation of Quinn’s on the farm. In the winter of 2010 Phil Quinn bought Marie’s half of the farm and becomes an official partner in the business with Elwood. |
