Ferme artisane Hortus & Fungi

Ferme artisane Hortus & Fungi: Where Agronomy Meets Mycology Near Quebec City

On Chemin Filteau in Saint-Nicolas, just across the river from Quebec City, an agronomist named Jerome Ouellet has built a farm that refuses to choose between vegetables and mushrooms. Ferme artisane Hortus & Fungi is exactly what its name suggests -- a working marriage of traditional market gardening (Hortus) and mushroom cultivation (Fungi), operated with the kind of scientific rigor that comes from a formal education in agronomy at Universite Laval.

An Agronomist's Farm

Ouellet purchased the Saint-Nicolas property in 2017 and set about building something that reflected both his academic training and his personal convictions about food production. The farm uses bio-intensive techniques on a relatively small surface area, producing a remarkable diversity of crops without pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. During the summer growing season, the farm's weekly baskets contain more than forty varieties of vegetables, herbs, and freshly harvested mushrooms.

That number -- forty-plus varieties -- is worth pausing on. Most small-scale market farms settle on 15 to 20 reliable crops. Pushing past 40 requires serious agronomic knowledge, meticulous planning, and the ability to manage multiple growing systems simultaneously. The mushroom component adds another layer of complexity, demanding controlled environments that operate on different cycles than outdoor vegetable production.

The Fungi Side

The "Fungi" in the farm's name is not decorative. Mushroom cultivation is a core part of the operation, not a sideline. Ouellet integrates mushroom growing into the farm's broader ecosystem, with spent mushroom substrate contributing to the soil health that supports the vegetable side of the business. It is the kind of integrated thinking that agronomy programs teach in theory but that few graduates actually implement in practice.

The farm's mushroom varieties complement the seasonal vegetable offerings, giving customers access to fresh, locally grown fungi that would otherwise need to be imported from larger operations elsewhere in Quebec or Ontario. For a region like Levis-Quebec City, where the local food movement has deep cultural roots, that kind of hyper-local mushroom production resonates strongly.

Louise-Helene Joins the Team

In 2020, Louise-Helene joined Jerome at the farm, bringing expertise in graphic design and leisure technology. Her arrival added new dimensions to the operation -- not just in terms of labor capacity, but in how the farm communicates with its community and presents itself to the public. The combination of Jerome's agronomic expertise and Louise-Helene's communication skills has made Hortus & Fungi one of the more visible small farms in the Quebec City region.

The farm was featured on Radio-Canada's Premiere Heure in a segment called "Connais-tu ton maraicher?" -- a profile that introduced Jerome and his farming philosophy to a provincial audience. That kind of media attention reflects both the quality of what they produce and the compelling nature of their story.

Saint-Nicolas and the Rive-Sud

Saint-Nicolas is part of the city of Levis, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River directly opposite Quebec City. It is a community that has retained significant agricultural character despite being within commuting distance of a major urban center. For a farm like Hortus & Fungi, the location is ideal -- rural enough for serious food production, close enough to a city of 800,000 people to sell everything they grow.

The farm's 4.9-star rating across 13 reviews puts it in the top tier of agricultural businesses in the region. Those reviews reflect not just product quality but the overall experience of buying from a farm where the grower can explain exactly how everything was produced, in both official languages and with genuine enthusiasm.

You'll find Ferme artisane Hortus & Fungi at 2326 Chem. Filteau in Saint-Nicolas, Quebec.