The Saskatoon Berry

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A couple of years back when we started to clear our farm land, we happily discovered a couple of rows of Juneberry shrubs (also called Saskatoons out west, or Service Berries in the US). They were hidden by overgrown wild roses and young mulberry bushes, back walnut and black locust trees. We freed our small Juneberry bushes, but last year found just a few berries.

This year, we will be getting a great harvest and they are now ready to pick.

The Juneberries/Saskatoons/Service Berries are ready to pick

The berries resemble a Blueberry, but they have small seeds similar to apple seeds. Experimenting with these in the past, we found that they contained a significant amount of pectin.

The taste is somewhat similar to a Blueberry and pretty much anything done with the Blueberry can be done with the Saskatoon. So with our first basket picked it will now be time to say goodbye to our Strawberry pies in the Tea Room, and hello to Saskatoon pie! We're even planning to make some Saskatoon jam and Saskatoon syrup.

In fact, a lot is tarting to come from the local fields including our own farm.

The Black Currants are just about ready for picking and the raspberries are now coming on line (including our favourite: the Black Raspberry).

The Black Currants are promising to be a bumper crop this year.

We'll even have a pretty good crop of Black Raspberries coming soon

With the Tea Room rather busy this year, we'll have to keep the blog entries rather short. So we'll just close this week by announcing our next major event: a Downton Abbey Tea Party. This will be in September.

We have a lot of folks asking about this, so anyone interested should call Carol (289-897-8943) for more information or to book a seating (numbers will be limited).

The Annual Pelham Heritage Tea

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The Tea Room will be closed this Saturday, June 27th. But do not despair, we are closing the Tea Room to take part in the annual Pelham Heritage Tea.

Last year was a great success for this event, however as we helped to host this with the city, it was quite clear that the Tea Room had met its limitations. So this year, it will be held at the Old Pelham Town Hall (just down the road from the Tea Room). As we are catering this event, we invite everyone to join us for this fun day where all are urged to come and dress up in their best period costumes.

Pelham Heritage Tea 2014....the costumes were magnificent.

Meanwhile, we've been so busy on our side that we actually completely missed last week's blog. Between showers and our hosting the Pelham Business Association (PBA), we had little time to get to our computer.

The "spread"...ready for the PBA.

In the Tea Room, the meals are finally getting more of that local flavour from the field as we now have wonderful Spring Peas available. They are so sweet!

The local Peas are in!...They make a great side for our Tourtiere.

On the farm, we are even gathering our own Strawberries....which means more traditional Strawberry pies as well as Strawberry jams. The berries taste so much sweeter when picked ripe, much better than those that must ripen during their logistics cycle. We urge everyone to go and  find those local fields where you can pick your own. You won't be dissappointed.

Our own strawbeeries have progressed much better than anticipated.

Another thing that has needed harvesting is our Lavender. We have been picking it in the closed bud stage for cooking (they're an essential ingredient to our Lemon Lavender Shortbreads). But we will now also be picking them as they bloom.

Bouquets of Lavender are drying and ready for sale in the store.

It's even time to consider harvesting the Garlic Scapes. They are amazing simply pan fried. Some even claim that harvesting the scapes generates larger bulbs as the plants energy is redirected to the roots once the flowers are cut. Based on our experiments last year, we would tend to agree.

The curling Garlic Scapes are just abut ready to pick.

Finally,one of the other things keeping us busy over the past couple of weeks was our garage sale. Something we need to do again over the coming months as we attempt to "declutter". In the process, we met an elderly woman who was actually born in our old Victorian Manor. She brought to us a small treasure trove of picutres which add another chapter to the history of the property. We were just thrilled to see these as they show some common landmarks of the property in a very different era.

Sorting Peaches next to our barn, c. 1937

Local Strawberries Have Arrived!

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The Season is progressing and a good sign of this is the availability of local strawberries. We were thrilled last week to get our hands on our first "flat". At the Tea Room, this means goodbye to the seasonal Rhubarb pie and hello to the traditional Strawberry pie.

A real treat: our first flat of local Strawberries

Of course, we now aim to have a few additional goodies in the Tea Room based on local Strawberries (from tarts to cakes).

This does not totally mean the demise of Rhubarb at the farm. We're letting our plants grow and keep processing whatever we gather into jams. They really capture the taste of Spring better than any of our other preserves.

Rhubarb jam....a taste of Spring

Meanwhile at the farm, we still manage to progress on our Growing Dome water tank project. We discovered that there are some serious limitations as to how deep we can bury the structure. As a result we lowered it a bit over two feet and we feel that this may just do us fine.

Does not look like much, but once the floor is resurfaced, this should really work out for us.

Finally, we'll close this week's blog entry with a couple of photos from the wedding that has kept us so busy these past few weeks. Official photos have not yet been published so you'll have to make due with this amateur for now.

The three amigos/siblings (two of three now married)

Now, Mr. and Mrs. Morelli

The Tea Room Will be Closed this Weekend...

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

...for very good reasons. We are going to celebrate the second family wedding in two years. As such June 6th and 7th, the Tea Room will be closed as we entertain family and enjoy the festivities. Hopefully we'll be able to post a few pics next week.

This week however was not all about the wedding. We managed to make some good progress on our Growing Dome project. Our main water tank has been drained and it is now a matter of digging....and digging.

Pondering the task at hand....it's now a matter of digging sand and gravel
in the hottest and most humid environment on the farm.

At the Tea Room, we've also made some changes. At first, we were considering opening 7 days a week for the Summer. We've decided to extend our opening days from Tuesday to Sunday. As we are getting a lot of good feedback on our baked goods and pastries, we've determined that we need at least one day to properly prepare.

We're also considering changing our menu a touch. So far we've had two pizzas (a classic and a vegetarian version) made with local cheeses, local cured meats and roasted veggies. We've come to the realization that we're really not set up to do these properly. Particularly when the restaurant is busy. As a result, we've decided to experiment with two new options. One of these is a Tourtiere, the classic French Canadian meat pie.

We've experimented with our recipes and came out with a Tourtiere that might just satisfy a lot of folks. We'll be running it as a special at first and hope to have it become part of our main menu by next week.

This first attempt at a Tourtiere worked out just right,
convincing us this might be the perfect addition to our Summer menu.

Meanwhile, the farm is covered with flowers of all kinds, some of which we have started to use in our plating.

The most surprising of all are the flowers of our perennial herbs. These are quite beautiful and the herbs not only provide a great addition to our recipes but act as a lovely ground cover in our raised beds. Previously we covered our Chives and Chervil. This week, it was time for the Sage to bloom. So we'll close this week with a picture of these beautiful and useful herbs.

Our Sage...a beautiful and useful ground cover.