The 1017 Orchards Haskap Story

Our Mission

We strive to provide high-quality haskap berries for our community, friends and family alike.

Our Story

Our haskap journey began back in 2007 in Spruce Grove, Alberta, while looking to add some edible landscaping to our recently developed yard. Growing up on different farms, our families had always taken great pride in planting large vegetable gardens each summer along with various fruit trees planted throughout the yards. Looking to make the most of our limited growing season and viable options our search for the perfect new plant addition began

We ended up at a local greenhouse one spring weekend, and after wandering around the facilities ended up leaving with a couple black raspberries shoots and three small Haskap plants. To this day still do not recall the exact varieties, only that we had purchased three different varieties for cross pollination purposes. We planted them in our front yard together as a small hedge accent. They grew quite well as a small shrub hedge bush, but we had not put much thought or time into them over the years as they only produced very small, tart berries. Only later on would we come to learn they must of been of Russian lineage and that much larger and better tasting varieties existed.

The bare beginning of our haskap farm, came years later on while visiting a relative in Edmonton who happened to have several beautifully, well-manicured Haskap shrubs thriving in his back yard. The haskap plants here were the newer University of Saskatchewan (U of S) cultivars with much larger berries and incredible taste, something unique. It was similar to a blue berry but different, unique in both shape and taste; and from that day forward after sampling these delicious purple, berries first hand we knew it is more to us than a backyard shrub. Our next step? To find out why we didn’t already know more about these; more importantly, what, and where we could find them.

We spent more years of countless google searches, reading and research including attending Dr. Bob Bors Haskap School Days at the U of S in Saskatoon. Attending the Haskap School was an incredible help, being able to not only listen and learn but to see and taste the different cultivars firsthand in the University’s orchard. We followed through with more years of researching, planning, and saving to make the investment. We finally took the leap forward and planted three thousand Haskap plants in the summer of 2022.

We selected the most recent late season varieties from the U of S, to start our orchard which included Boreal Beauty, Beast and Blizzard. These were said to produce some of the largest and best tasting varieties at that time. Unfortunately for us it ended up being one of the hottest, driest summers we had noted in recent years so it became a challenge keeping the three thousand young plants alive during their first summer in the ground. Luckily for us the hard work, irrigation efforts and countless hours paid off.

In 2023 our orchard continued to grow and establish itself with focus on vegetation management and watering the young plants. Finally, many years after our first initial Haskap purchase back in 2007, we were pleasantly surprised to see a substantial number of blooms in the orchard in the spring of 2024. Those blooms slowly transformed into our first fresh fruit harvest of all three varieties in July and August of 2024. In July of 2025, we opened our orchard to the public for the first time and we look forward to improved haskap berry production with each new year. So circle your calendars each year and explore our haskap berry orchard nestled in Parkland County, Alberta.