Farm to Table

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The past few weeks have been hectic. One reason for this is our decision to open the Ridge Berry Farm Tea Room. Our concept is to use our Tea Room space and kitchen to share our love for local foods - basically a "farm to table" operation.

In order to do this, we have hired a young local chef: Ryan Beck.

Ryan shares our passion for local and organically grown foods. As a result, he has been working to develop a seasonal menu which reflects what our farm, our neighbors and our forest have to offer (Our Tea Room Link).

Ridge Berry Farm Tea Room Chef: Ryan Beck and his catch of Ramps

He and I have already had an opportunity to hunt for Ramps (Wild Garlic)...and I must admit his pickled ramps are amazing (much better than what I have produced to date).

We've also been sourcing some amazing Ontario artisan cheeses. Touring the facilities was a thrill for cheese fanatic Tristan who managed to get a day off the field.

Shep Ysselstein of Gunn's Hill Artisan Cheese...this young man makes amazing cheeses (you  MUST try his Five Brothers cheese).

It's actually been a pleasure to begin working with Ryan. Not only have we had a chance to sample his pickled ramps, but we've had a taste of his excellent jellies and breads.

Chef's Walnut Sourdough bread...what a treat!

With all of this under our belts, we're now committed to open both the Tea Room and Country Market on June 7th. This will make for an exciting (and very busy) summer!

In the meantime, our foraging activities continue to surprise us. This week, we discovered the May Apple.

This plant covers shady groves in our Carolinian forest, often close to wet lands. Long used as a medicinal plant by the Native Americans, it is also highly toxic. In fact, it is an important wild crop for the pharmaceutical industry which uses it in cancer treatment (primarily for chemotherapy).

The May Apple (Podophyllum Peltatum)

Our interest in this plant however extends beyond its pharmaceutical use. Under the umbrella-like leaves is a singular large flower which turns into an "apple". When green, this apple is also toxic. When ripe however, this is a perfectly edible fruit which was enjoyed by both Native Americans and early settlers.

The May Apple flower which will transform into an "apple"

Now that we know we have a large quantity of May Apples on the property, we will be sure to follow its development and give it a try when it ripens.

This week was also an opportunity to follow up on our initial foraging experiments with cattails. This Winter, we used the rhizomes to make flour. This Spring, it was time to harvest Cossack Asparagus. These are the young green shoots of the cattail.

Cossack Asparagus (or young Cattail shoots)

In order to have tender shoots, we picked the youngest growth (those are the shorter and smaller diameter shoots). Like conventional asparagus, the larger shoots quickly become "stringy" or "woody".

To prepare, we just cut back the shoots to their white parts (some 6 to 8 inches) and pealed back any green or stringy layers.

The shoots can be eaten raw. They are reminiscent of cucumber. However, they do take on an additional dimension when cooked.

Our "wild" harvest: Asparagus, Spring Onions and Cossack Asparagus (Cattail shoots)

We decided to pick some of our wild asparagus and Spring onions and prepare a plate that would allow us to compare the Cossack Asparagus (cattail shoots) to the conventional Asparagus.

Using some butter, we simply pan fried the cattail shoots, the asparagus, the Spring onions and some of our Garlic Scapes. We served these with farm fresh scrambled eggs.

Scrambled farm eggs with Asparagus and Cattail Shoots

This actually made for a very good meal!

So what about the Cossack Asparagus? Well, it is actually very good. It has a mild flavour and the texture is very similar to Asparagus. It also reminds me a bit of Palm Hearts. The taste is not as intense as Asparagus, so it actually complemented the eggs very well and really absorbed the flavour of our butter.

Will we do it again? Absolutely; this is good food. We can now hardly wait for the next experiment: green cattails heads.

As we wait for our crops to grow, we've continued to plant and transplant our vegetables. It is hard to believe but our Zucchini is already flowering. I also cannot believe the size of our Brussel Sprouts and our Garlic.

Our first Zucchini flower.

From tiny seeds...a lush bed of Brussel Sprouts.

Even the Garlic is exceeding our expectations

Given how rapidly things are growing, this is also the point where we realize we've created an amazing salad bar for all sorts of wild creatures that inhabit the farm.

We'll try to defend our plot as best we can....but we are prepared to see some major losses over time. Let's hope they just leave enough for us.

Work on the home renovations continue and this week we will close this week with a new discovery.

The entrance to the cellar which we discovered in the west wing (next to an old foundation which preceded the house) have been worked on. We had to add a step since we were now constructing a floor above the old foundation.

The existing steps were in 2 parts: concrete and a rather thick slab of wood on the top surface. Our contractors decided to re-use the landing which had some damage to the edge, to re-create a step in the same fashion.

The old cellar stairs (Note the thick wood slabs on the upper surface)

The surprise came when this piece was cut. From the cutting we could not only identify the tree (White Oak), but as well the age of the tree.

We're still counting rings....but this amazing piece of wood came from an ancient tree which would have been well over two centuries old!

A cross-section of the landing: a very ancient White Oak!

Needless to say we will now treasure these stairs....we will also keep and preserve the cutting as a discussion piece.

The Last Frost

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We knew we were taking a risk when we transplanted some of our vegetables earlier this month. That risk was frost....and this week started with our greatest fear: two nights of below zero temperatures.

We were caught off guard on the first night. After assessing the damage the next morning, we decided things were not so bad. We had taken in everything we could and in our raised beds the only casualty seemed to have been our heritage wax beans.

On the second night, we decided to protect as much as possible. We improvised by putting together some makeshift greenhouses. In the barn, we had found some plastic vapour barrier. We propped it up using our trellises and covered the most delicate plants (basically everything but the cabbage varieties).

Makeshift "greenhouse" to protect against the last frost

We were not certain this would work but in the end things seem to have gone quite well.

In fact, we do not seem to have been affected...with one exception: our kiwis. We were horrified to see all of our Kiwi leaves turn black as if they had suffered a major burn. At first we were extremely worried. Last year, they had survived a very early Spring and late frost. This year, I was not so sure.

After a few days though, we were somewhat comforted to see new leaves spring out and actually new flower buds. Things may still turn out very well.

Frost-damaged Kiwi vine, quickly on the path to recovery

On the planting front, Tristan and I finished all of our raspberry rows. By dividing the planting process into separate tasks, we were able to bring our timing from 3 hours a row, to one and a half hours and eventually down to 35 minutes.

The front portion of the farming is almost complete and looking rather good. Our skills are slowly improving.

Our rows are getting straighter and our efficiency is improving

Amazingly, our red and black currants, planted just a couple of weeks ago, look like they will flower and fruit (like our Gooseberries). All of of our stock so far has taken to our soil very well. The more we see things like this, the  more we are motivated.

Red Currants: planted as "little sticks" but already showing signs of budding

Having planted all of our stock, we decided to begin work on the side of the barn. Here we were determined to plant Lavender. When I think Lavender, I usually think of the Cote D'Azure in the South of France. However some folks in the Niagara Peninsula have made it a viable local agricultural crop.

Since some of the items we will carry in our store include Niagara based Lavender products, we wanted to showcase this plant close to the country market. For this purpose, we obtained from our friends at Niagara Essential Oils a local variety of Lavender which is effectively a cross between English and French Lavender (it has the scent of French Lavender but is easier to care for and smaller like its English counterpart).

So Tristan and I created a  new raised bed which was eventually covered with gravel. The stone will reflect the sun and provide a hotter climate for the plants.

Planting Lavender...and making it look relaxing!

Now we wait....hopefully over time these 40 plants will mature to beautiful blooming bushes.

This week, we also expanded our vegetable garden toward the Beaver pond. With our potatoes chitted (or pre-sprouted), it was time to create some rows and plant them. I guess we'll see how these turn out later in the year.

Our "chitted" potatoes

The expansion to the vegetable garden: rows of potatoes being tilled

This week, our foraging experience came courtesy of Roger, our neighbour and postmaster. He brought to us a Dryad Saddle mushroom which he had found in the forest. This was an edible find he suggested we look into. He told us where he found them, but try as we might, we simply could not find them.

Returning home a little deflated, we actually discovered some on an old fallen log across our creek leading to the Beaver pond.

These are beautiful mushrooms and given their look, I prefer their other name: the Pheasant Back Saddle mushroom; the pattern on the top is very reminiscent of the feather pattern on a pheasant.

The Pheasant Back (or Dryad) Saddle Mushroom

These mushrooms can grow to well over 12 inches and the ones we found were certainly in that range. When they are large, they are not as tender as younger versions of this variety. In any case, we decided to give them a try.

I sliced them and fried them in butter. We then added caramelized onions and dried herbs. I even tossed in some of our Garlic Scapes. A touch of salt and pepper and some heavy cream provided a decadent topping for an open faced baguette sandwich....what a find!

A great way to enjoy the Pheasant Back Saddle mushroom

With the many trees blossoming, I decided to try to create an inventory of useful trees (for nuts, tapping or fruits).

Since we had used the bush hog to clear some of the inaccessible land last fall, we quickly discovered certain things we had not noticed before. One of these great finds was two rows of Juneberries (Amelanchiers or Saskatoon Berries). I had actually planned to plant some...now, we may not have to.

The last Spring time blooms of the Juneberry

We also discovered quite a few strawberries. These are not wild, but seem to be remnants of the old 10 acres of "pick your own" that used to be on the farm.

These surviving Strawberry plants can be found just about everywhere on the property

These along with the many old raspberry and wild blackberry canes will definitely keep us busy come harvesting season.

I will leave you this week with just a few Spring time photos of some the flowering trees I have been working to identify. The list is long. There is so much, I fear it will be quite a while before we can really catalogue all of the little treasures on this land.

Flowering Dogwood

Black Walnut Blossoms

Still working on this one! (Cottonwood?)

Ash (still need to pinpoint variety)

Sassafras Blossoms

Red Oak Blossoms

We have signage!

To view the latest from Ridge Berry Farm visit our new blog and site!

This was a rather momentous week and a major milestone for the family. Our farm's sign was installed.

In order to do this, Tristan and I first had to do some hard work. The installation posts for a sign were already present, however they had not been used for quite a few years. The posts themselves were mounted on a large raised bed holding overgrown bushes and weeds. The roots of the bushes were so broad and deep, we had to use the tractor to pull them out.

Cleaning out a raised bed with the help of the tractor.

With the raised bed clean, we finished our work using landscaping cloth and a thick layer of gravel, We were now ready for our sign. The process was rather tricky since the mounting posts had warped over the years.

Installation of the Ridge Berry Farm road sign.

In any case, it was finally up and somehow it seemed to make our farm "official". We're now rapidly getting ready for business!

Getting ready for business.

This effort also meant we had to work on the barn, in particular the deck surrounding it. The Tea Room is scheduled to open in early June so it was time to do a bit of "beautifying". We started with the front landscaping and the deck's hanging baskets.

Installing flower baskets for the Tea Room.

With our weeding success between the sign posts, Tristan and I decided to start work on a nuisance that grows in our old raspberry rows: the Manitoba Maple (sometimes called the Box-elder Maple). This is a serious problem for us. This tree grows rapidly and is extremely invasive. The real problem is that if it is not uprooted (and simply cut down), it will grow suckers and build a massive root. Over the years, this is exactly what has happened.

The Manitoba Maple which is infecting our old rows of raspberries.

We tackled our first (of many) Manitoba Maples this week. It took well over two hours and many pulls from the tractor. We were often wishing we had an excavator. However, we eventually got it out but it costs us a few raspberry canes which we uprooted in the process.

Pulling the roots of a well established Manitoba Maple.

Since our policy is not to use herbicides on our land, I fear it will take us years to clear the old crops this way. Perhaps the only way we will effectively salvage our rows will be to completely tear them down, remove these roots and replant our stock.

Of course this is still planting season and this week we received another shipment of stock: over 500 raspberry canes (in three varieties: purple, red and yellow).

A new shipment: 575 Raspberry canes

As a result of this shipment, it was time for Tristan and I to work the back rows which we had cleared last fall. With practice, we have been getting better and more efficient when it comes to posting straight lines.

Our new rows ready for raspberries.

We've now started planting and perhaps will be at it for a few days. Doing this by hand is definitely hard work and certainly hard on the back. But we will get through it all and if these canes adapt to our soil as well as our currants and gooseberries, we will definitely be satisfied.

An arduous process: planting raspberries canes

We did have a chance to check up on the plants we have worked on in the past few months. In particular, the kiwis, the grapes and the apple trees that we pruned. The results are surprising to us. For the most part the grapes are starting to bud (although I am worried by the lack of buds on some stock), the kiwis are flowering (we now need to identify the males and the females) and the apple trees have an incredible amount of flower buds (with the exception of the Pippins which were dramatically cut back).

Budding of the Concord grapes

The beginnings of a Kiwi flower (male or female?)

The blooming of our Empire Apple tree

This being Spring, we were notified of the coming Asparagus. On one hill a lone stalk took us by surprise and reminded us to check on the remnants of an old Asparagus fields.

These lone overgrown Asparagus reminded us to check the old field.

Sure enough we did find Asparagus hiding among the weeds and frankly there is nothing better than fresh food from the land to satisfy a couple of hungry guys coming in from the field.

Our first harvest of Asparagus.

In the meantime, our work on the old Victorian manor continues. I am eager to show pictures but will wait until the next phase is completed.

The entrance to our new cellar is almost complete; it is just awaiting walls and roofing to act as cover for the snowy periods. We did add a special touch though: an old boot scraper. We salvaged this from one of the landings of the barn. When we redid the foundation, the landing fell apart so we decided to replant the boot scraper in the concrete that will act as the entrance to our cellar.

The new entrance to our cellar.

The old and salvaged boot scraper.

We also finally finished our barn renovations. In fact the Tea Room kitchen is starting to look rather professional. The only thing remaining is a bit of electrical and plumbing work.

The old Tea Room kitchen (before).

The new Tea Room kitchen (after).

With all of these activities, we also still managed to pursue our experiments in mead making. With the early success of our experiments so far, this week we decided to process larger volumes. We decided to brew 5 gallon batches of  Pyment (Mead made with grape juice) and Cyser (Mead made with Apple juice).

For the Pyment, we used local Concord grape juice. This is now a rarity in Niagara since most grape growing plots are used for viniferas dedicated to wine making. It is a bit of a shame; for many years the local agricultural economy was based on both the Niagara and Concord grapes. We were very lucky to find one local farmer still dedicated to producing juices from these wonderful grape varieties.

What used to be a key agricultural product for Niagara: Concord grape juice.

To this juice we added our honey (this time a local clover honey), blended with distilled water and pasteurized, as well as some of our wine making yeast. We achieved a hydrometer reading of 1.12 which should be sufficient to get a good full bodied Pyment.

For our Cyser, we used a local cider, an unpasteurized blend of juices from at least five different varieties of Apples. This is where things went somewhat wrong.

When I ordered my juice from the farmer across the street (he makes the best cider in town), he knew what I wanted to do. As such he gave us a 5 gallon batch of juice he normally ferments himself for what we would call here "hard cider".

We did not know this.

When we added our honey to the juice (and before we added our yeast), we had a major "industrial incident". The juice instantly foamed up and overflowed well beyond our fermenter seriously messing up the kitchen. We simply could not contain it. Basically the existing culture in our juice reacted very "favourably" to the addition of nourishing honey.

In the panic, I could not even get a picture of the results. It took us quite a while to bring things under control.

In the end, we still added our yeast and capped it all off without even taking a hydrometer reading. We did however taste the foam and based on this, we think we may just get a fantastic Cyser on our hands.

Finally this week, we have also learned something new about a particular bee, which I simply thought was a large Bumblebee. This Spring, we found this large insect in great numbers on the west side of our barn. They seemed rather aggressive and were somewhat intimidating.

It turns out these large bees are actually Carpenter Bees (differentiated by their black hairless and shiny abdomens).

The Carpenter Bee.

Although, I will accept all pollinators we can find on the farm. These are actually causing a minor problem.

The Carpenter Bee burrows into wood. The result: our barn siding is doted with perfectly bored holes the size of a small finger.

The aftermath of Carpenter Bees.

Technically, Carpenter Bees do not burrow on painted surfaces. It seems we may have waited too long to add a coat of paint to this side of our barn.

In the end, we will not do anything to rid ourselves of this useful pollinator. The males have no stinger and the females really have to be in danger to sting. So even though they may look threatening, we will be keeping these bees on hands in the hope they will promote fruit production in our fields.

As for the barn...it will just require some fixing in the fall.

We will close this week by wishing all Mom's a Happy Mother's Day from everyone of us at the farm!