Who Are We?
APPLES, PUMPKINS, & GRAPES...OH MY!
Harvest Mill Farm was established in 2013 when our family took over the property that had previously been worked for generations by another family. It was our enormous pleasure and honour to be able to carry on working this beautiful land that we were now able to call our own.
Our orchard began long before we purchased our farm. We learned to graft our apple trees while developing a small nursery of trees located on Geof's family's farm outside Perth, Ontario. The inspiration was to save the strain from the fallen McIntosh apple tree that had been planted nearly 100 years earlier by Geof's great grandfather who received them from his cousin who was a horticulturalist from the University of Guelph. It was this great old apple tree that became the inspiration for our orchard. Using a family approach is so important to us. All of the trees in our orchard have been planted by family and close friends who came together to help us make our dream a reality. This year, our daughter Lily is able to help out where she can. See our blog post in the News section for photos!
We now have approximately 300 apple trees made up of 38 different varieties in the Harvest Mill Farm orchard. Each one hand grafted and hand planted with care. We use organic practices when growing our trees eliminating exposure to chemical pesticides. Our trees are still very young and it will be a few years yet before we get an apple harvest but stay tuned to our News section where you can follow our progress.
Although the orchard was our main inspiration to start farming, we now have a small vineyard on the shores of Dog Lake with 4 different varieties of wine grapes. We have had a small harvest of grapes but have yet to make our first bottle of wine!
2017 was our first year where our guests can pick their Halloween pumpkins from our waterfront pumpkin patch. Please see the Events section for more details about this year's events.
We can't forget to mention our resident pigs Jasper and Hampton. They both love their treats of apples and belly rubs!
Our chickens roam free giving us wonderful brown, white and blue eggs.
Harvest Mill Farm was established in 2013 when our family took over the property that had previously been worked for generations by another family. It was our enormous pleasure and honour to be able to carry on working this beautiful land that we were now able to call our own.
Our orchard began long before we purchased our farm. We learned to graft our apple trees while developing a small nursery of trees located on Geof's family's farm outside Perth, Ontario. The inspiration was to save the strain from the fallen McIntosh apple tree that had been planted nearly 100 years earlier by Geof's great grandfather who received them from his cousin who was a horticulturalist from the University of Guelph. It was this great old apple tree that became the inspiration for our orchard. Using a family approach is so important to us. All of the trees in our orchard have been planted by family and close friends who came together to help us make our dream a reality. This year, our daughter Lily is able to help out where she can. See our blog post in the News section for photos!
We now have approximately 300 apple trees made up of 38 different varieties in the Harvest Mill Farm orchard. Each one hand grafted and hand planted with care. We use organic practices when growing our trees eliminating exposure to chemical pesticides. Our trees are still very young and it will be a few years yet before we get an apple harvest but stay tuned to our News section where you can follow our progress.
Although the orchard was our main inspiration to start farming, we now have a small vineyard on the shores of Dog Lake with 4 different varieties of wine grapes. We have had a small harvest of grapes but have yet to make our first bottle of wine!
2017 was our first year where our guests can pick their Halloween pumpkins from our waterfront pumpkin patch. Please see the Events section for more details about this year's events.
We can't forget to mention our resident pigs Jasper and Hampton. They both love their treats of apples and belly rubs!
Our chickens roam free giving us wonderful brown, white and blue eggs.
