It’s apple picking season and our first stop this year was at Quinn Farm, located in Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot, which is a 30-35 minutes drive from downtown Montreal.
The first thing you have to check nowadays are the COVID-19 measures, which are surprisingly making things a lot simpler when you’re planning an outing. Instead of going there and queuing to get tickets and go in, you book your tickets online, select a specific date & time for your visit and just head there.
What’s also important for us, having two young kids, is for the farm to have a nice animal barn, a spacious play yard and picnic area. We’ve been to a couple of farms last year that were very small and had more of an industrial-feel than a family-friendly one.
Having said that, Quinn Farm is definitely one of the biggest and nicest farms we’ve been to so far. It’s a huge farm, very well organized, clean, staff is very helpful & friendly, apple orchards are big enough, the animal barn is relatively small but you bump into other animals, like horse and sheep while walking around. They also have a nice little garden maze, a tire pyramid and slide.
There were three types of apples to pick: McIntosh, Spartan & Cortland. There are ladders to help you pick from the trees and large cases to drop any rotten apples or leftovers. The orchards weren’t that closely surprised but the number of visitors was limited and people were keeping their distances.
On our way back in the wagon, we were shown the pumpkin & butternut squash fields. The pumpkin picking season hadn’t started back when we visited, but it is now.
We dropped by the farm shop before leaving and bought some items from their gourmet shop. We got corn, a wine bottle, jam, two pinwheels and a Dutch Apple pie.
The whole visit lasted two hours, the farm is very easy to walk around and the kids enjoyed it. We’re coming back in the coming week or so to pick up some pumpkins 😀!
If you’re interested in visiting at any time during the year, check their calendar to see what’s available.
It’s apple & pumpkin picking season right now, and during December they sell Christmas trees.
