History
|
Quinn Farm is family owned and operated by Phil and Stephanie Quinn. They bought the farm from Phil’s parents, Elwood and Marie Quinn in 2010. The farm was started in 1982 when Elwood and Marie bought the 110 acres of brush land. They worked hard removing small trees and shrubs in order to work the land. They installed drainage and planted berries and sweet corn.
|
Stéphanie, Alex, Keith & Phil
The History of Quinn Farm
In the next two years their efforts were concentrated on expanding crops to include the first pumpkins, a few rows of asparagus and more berries. 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. A ravine was dammed in order to form a man-made irrigation pond with 1,500 loads of soil and 2 weeks of bulldozing, resulting in a 35 million litre reservoir.
In 1990 the farm had its 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 the first Christmas trees were planted with 1,600 Balsam Fir trees. More trees were added each year and now the farm has over 13,000 trees and a range 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.
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 a variety of animals and is host to
many rare breed animals.
In May of 2009 Phil & Stephanie gave birth to Keith Andrew Quinn, beginning the 3rd generation of Quinn’s on this farm. In January 2012, their second son was born, Alexander Arthur Quinn. They already love to work on the farm, and have beautiful projects for the future of our family business!
In the fifth year of operation the orchard was planted with more than 18 varieties of apples and a total of 3,800 trees. A ravine was dammed in order to form a man-made irrigation pond with 1,500 loads of soil and 2 weeks of bulldozing, resulting in a 35 million litre reservoir.
In 1990 the farm had its 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 the first Christmas trees were planted with 1,600 Balsam Fir trees. More trees were added each year and now the farm has over 13,000 trees and a range 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.
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 a variety of animals and is host to
many rare breed animals.
In May of 2009 Phil & Stephanie gave birth to Keith Andrew Quinn, beginning the 3rd generation of Quinn’s on this farm. In January 2012, their second son was born, Alexander Arthur Quinn. They already love to work on the farm, and have beautiful projects for the future of our family business!
