Small Bancroft farm boasts market garden, mixed salads, maple syrup and a variety of meat

BANCROFT — Out of the hardscrabble Bancroft landscape, Jon Faulknor, 46, and Kristen Holyoake, 37, have carved out a sustainable market-garden and fresh-meat enterprise renowned for luscious lettuce and pasture-raised Jersey beef and Kunekune pork.

The couple only moved onto the 75-acre spread three years ago but that was enough time to make an impact — and find themselves honoured with a Farm Family Excellence award from OMAFRA minister Lisa Thompson in October.

“It’s still a work in progress, but we’ve become the largest producer of vegetables in Bancroft area,” Holyoake said at Everlily Maples Farm.

They’re known for their carrots and beets, garlic, spinach, potatoes and other vegetables. Faulknor adds that their top seller is a salad mix containing “four or five lettuces, depending on what I put in there. There’s a red and green sweet crisp lettuce, and there’s a red and green butter crunch lettuce. I wash it and bag it up in half-pound bags and people flock to it.”

He adds, “It’s fresh-picked, locally grown and the people are getting two-and-a-half weeks of shelf life in the fridge out of it.”

They retail almost all of their produce at a local farmers’ market, a local spa and at another retailer located about an hour’s drive away. A smaller quantity is sold through a temporary farm stand at the end of their laneway, though they hope to increase farmgate sales with the planned construction of a permanent stand in 2024.