Reesors have lived and farmed in the Markham/Stouffville Ontario area since their arrival from Pennsylvania in 1804. Since then, many generations of our family has been growing and providing food for the region. My father was a dairy farmer in Markham who also grew specialty crops like green peas, sweet corn and forage crop seeds. I remember my first farm marketing lessons as a child, picking sweet corn and then selling it at the side of our gravel road.
I began my own farm business career in 1984, five years after completing my crop science degree from the University of Guelph. In that year I had the opportunity to farm my Uncle Harold Heise’s farm at Leslie Street and Elgin Mills Road in Markham. Back in those days I grew wheat, grain corn, soybeans, and sweet corn. This once agriculturally productive farm currently offers a Costco, a Staples, a Home Depot, and a Starbucks.
In 1985 another small farm became available with a house, barn and 22 acres at Ninth Line and Elgin Mills Road in Markham. This is where our current farm market operates. Back in those years I grew strawberries, sweet corn, tomatoes and pumpkins just like today, but I also was raising pigs and laying hens. In the first year we sold all of our produce off a farm wagon at the end of the driveway along an increasingly busy Ninth Line. In 1986 we built a very modest, little shed as a market to keep us out of the wind and dry from the rain. Over the years we have gradually added more space to our market including produce cooler sand bakery preparation facilities to better serve our growing number of loyal customers.