MOUNTAIN — Fifty acres of apples and 10 acres of strawberries weren’t enough to support two families at Mountain Orchards, south of Winchester, through the 1970s. But it took a total crop failure in 1983 to drive home the point.

With interest rates running between 18 and 20 per cent, Shelley and Philip Lyall and co-owner Robert Hobson, found themselves with debt they couldn’t pay and no employment.  Shelley went to work off farm. Philip and Robert, who had worked on some of the newer homes in luxurious Manotick, noticed their interior trim was of low quality. They bought a moulding machine and began manufacturing on the farm to meet a niche market. The business took off right away.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, Mountain Orchards suffered the same fate as many small horticultural businesses. It became a victim of the times: Pick-your-own dropped way off and the South Americans and later the Chinese began dominating the juice business. Shelley says the return was so low on wholesale apples they couldn’t make a profit and some wholesalers wouldn’t pay. They couldn’t hire local labour, and with 50 acres of trees they were too small to bring in off-shore labour. They scaled back to 20 acres of pick-your-own and produced cider and juice. And held on.

Then a four-lane highway connected Ottawa to the 401 Highway and the business changed. Ottawa’s west end was only 40 minutes away and Quebec was less than an hour. They blitzed the west end of Ottawa with flyers.

When the week-ends turned sunny, families came in droves. On the third Sunday in September this year 6,000 people turned up to a pick-your-own operation that had undergone a great transformation. Two wagons carried an endless stream of families to and from the nearby orchard. Kids jumped from straw bales into straw in the Straw Barn room. The small barn didn’t cost much to build and has been enormously popular, she says.

On the way to the orchard, families pass a one and a half mile nature trail and a maze, zigging and zagging through an acre-corn field. A tether pole has been erected in the orchard and about 15 ladders are available for pickers. The ladders are fun for tots and teens who reach for the apples on the upper branches. Though the majority of the trees is semi-dwarf, some are regular size.

One of the main attractions is made-on-site: Apple donuts washed down with a glass of apple cider. People used to line up for an hour and a half for the donuts, too long a wait so they brought in a faster machine and added products – relish, honey, apple chips — customers could peruse on the way through. The longest wait now is about 20 minutes.

"We had to give (customers) something when they got here," Shelley says, explaining the food and entertainment. But Mountain Orchards kept a farm atmosphere rather than go for a Disney-like experience.

The way the operation is managed has also changed. The pruning is done by a team of four men who come in from Georgian Bay every winter and a horticulturist checks the trees regularly for insect damage and blight. Strips on the trees catch insects and are counted. They no longer make juice or cider and the apples that fall to the ground rot there.

It takes 14 people to run a busy weekend. Shelley and Robert hold down the front gate while Philip does "meet and greet" in the orchard.  But this is still a fair weather business. "We lost our whole crop to hail one year," Shelley says. And when it rains the crowds go somewhere else.

Her greatest pleasure is standing in the orchard’s gentle breeze. "I have raised three kids here and the orchard has given us many happy memories," she says.