In 1983 we purchased a five acre parcel of land at the corner of Secor and Erie in Temperance. Our plan was to build a home and open a fruit and vegetable stand for the summer months, and to have pumpkins in the fall.
In 1985, we built our home, leaving Toledo for the country. We moved in just three days before Christmas. Along with the new home and the new year, we also needed new seed catalogs and a new name. We decided to combine our names, Bairon and Janice, to name the farm, BJ Farm.
We opened for the first time in July of 1986, with tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash and cantaloupe. In the fall, when the U-Pick pumpkin patch was ready for harvest, we had pumpkins, acorn and butternut squash and gourds. We were amazed, when after only two weeks we were out of all of our fall produce! The following year, in 1987, we only grew fall produce, forging the summer crops to leave more room for planting our fall crops.
We have truly been blessed over the last 36 years as we have watched our business grow. Never did we plan for something this big. To think, we started out with a couple of card tables and some wheelbarrows in the front yard, adding just a little more each year. The good news is that we are neither too big, where you can feel overwhelmed, or too small where you can’t find all that you need for a wonderful fall experience.
Today we are open from mid September – October 31st. We have great photo ops, corn maze, hay rides to the u-pick patch, straw and corn stalk tunnels, BJ’s Little Pumpkins playground, Fresh donuts, apple cider, host parties and so much more.
We are very family oriented and try to everything we can to make your time spent with us a wonderful memory and family tradition.
We thank the Lord for how He has blessed us in ways we never imagined.