Stroud Farms is a 2nd generation business and owns over
270 acres on the north side of Taunton Road in Ajax-Whitby
where they operate their main store location. A roadside
market is located just west of Lakeridge Road on the south
side of Kingston Road in Ajax. Our markets open right
after the July 1st holiday weekend and close in early
December. We
Are Open From 10:00 A.M To 5:00 P.M. 7 Days A Week until
November 27th.
Many customers that visit either of these locations began
buying our fresh fruits and vegetables from us back in
the 1960's when we operated a store in Pickering on Kingston
Road west of Whites Road.
Len Stroud is the managing partner of Stroud Farms. His
concept of direct-to-the-public fresh locally grown produce
has grown to be extremely popular.
Everything we grow on the farm is for sale at our market
– sweet corn, apples, pears, pumpkins, tomatoes.
It’s amazing how many people want to buy from the
farmer directly.
Foodland Ontario is talking about the miles traveled with
the produce.
And there’s zero food miles to consider when you
buy where it’s grown.
We’re
able to pick our tomatoes ripe and sell them rather than picking them green to
ship. The taste, it’s altogether different. A tomato that’s picked on
the green side will ripen, but you don’t get the same flavour as a tomato
that’s been ripened on the vine. And
of course corn, the sooner you can cook it, the better it is. It starts to lose
some of its sugar content from the time you pick it. Buy corn from a grocery store
today, it had to have been picked yesterday -- it’s already at least 24 hours
old. That’s
why we pick every day. We have a number of people who will be waiting at the farm
for us to come in with the corn in the morning. And that’s nice – I
like that. They
say, ‘Oh you’ve got the best corn.’ ‘You grow such lovely
tomatoes.’ ‘Your potatoes are the only ones I want.’ Nothing ups
your ego like hearing that. It’s those things that keep you wanting to farm. Farmers
appreciate the customers who patronize the farmer’s markets and roadside
stands. All of the farms that are selling on the roadside are the same –
they’re growing stuff there, offering it to the public, trying to cut the
middleman out and increase the quality of produce the consumer purchases on any
given day.
Farmers are pretty happy to have people buying like that. | 
