Sunchokes

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

It is Sunchoke season!

It's amazing, but very few locals would know what we're talking about. Also commonly known as Jerusalem Artichokes, they are sold as very expensive "exotic" food in the "big city".

Our first harvest of the year.

The reason we are amazed is that this wonderful food is actually indigenous to Niagara. You can often see these beautiful tall yellow flowers growing in the ditches between here and Simcoe county. They were at one time a great source of food for the native Canadians (Samuel de Champlain discovered native crops in 1605)....and yet now, few locals even know they exist.

Sunchokes in bloom

A distant cousin to the Sunflower, the Sunchoke grows tall and generates a daisy-like yellow bloom. The edible portion of the plant is the tuber.

In this area, once planted, these flowers can quickly overtake a patch of land (this is why we've tried to contain them in raised beds). They literally grow like weeds....and this is why we like them so much. They require little care and year after year will produce much more than you can consume. One tuber can generate from 70 to 200 tubers by harvesting time (mid to late Fall).

Growing your own Sunchokes is a "breeze", but there are quite a few other reasons anyone local may want these in their backyard. First they are rich in potassium, iron, niacin, thiamine, phosphorous and copper; they are also a good source of dietary fibre. And yet, they are low in starch or carbohydrates (1 cup amounts to just over 110 calories!) and can replace potatoes in just about every recipe. You simply need to avoid overcooking them as then tend to go "mushy".

The taste is similar to potato although the texture is not starchy. It does have a resemblance to Artichoke although perhaps less sweet or nutty.

Here at the farm, we will definitely be making some Sunchoke soup for the Tea Room, but we also enjoy them pickled and these we will also be serving with some of our menu items. There are many recipes for this vegetable and we thought we would embed a video giving everyone a feel for how these might be used: Tapas by the Perennial Plate.

So what are the drawbacks?

First the roots are ginger-like, meaning they are difficult to wash or peel. Luckily most recipes work well without the need for peeling.

Second and perhaps most importantly is their high content of "Inulin". Inulin is not digestible and everyone will be familiar with its effect when we'll just say the other vegetables high in Inulin  are beans :).....As a warning, Sunchokes can have as much as 5 times more Inulin than beans!

There are ways to overcome the issues of Inulin in Sunchokes; this involves marinating or storing the roots for a period of time. The best way is to simply gather the tubers after a few frosts. The more frosts these tubers are subjected to, the more Inulin is transformed into sugars.

Finally, the roots do not keep well for a long time (unlike potatoes). The ideal storage method is to simply keep them in the ground until you are ready to use them.

Having said this, we do hope more locals will plant Sunchokes. They will generate good, healthy food, year after year....and if you grow them yourself, it's free!

Elsewhere on the farm, it was time for a photo shoot. The old manor is going to be featured in the next Niagara edition of Our Homes magazine. For those wishing to get a glimpse of our home, now that it has been fully restored, this article should give everyone a good feel for what was accomplished.

The old manor under the spotlight

Meanwhile in the Tea Room, Christmas decorations are already going up! We're preparing for our Open House on the 6th and 7th of November. Everyone is invited and there will be some free tastings!

"Decking the halls" for the Tea Room Open House (Nov 6 &7)

We'll finally close this blog entry with a view of the amazing Fall colours which now form the backdrop for our Growing Dome.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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

It's already that time of year in Canada when we celebrate the harvest and our Thanksgiving weekend.

It also means it's Pumpkin season. Beautiful Pumpkins of all sizes and shapes can be bought at markets everywhere in the area and it's a real shame that most simply use them for decoration. They are so inexpensive (and will be even cheaper after Halloween) that they should definitely be used as food instead of their canned counterpart (which for the most part are made with Squash....NOT Pumpkin).

Local Pumpkins ...wonderful food!

Preparing pumpkins for pie or soup or even as a side is relatively easy. All you need to do is quarter them and clean them of their seeds (save them for roasting or even to plant your own Pumpkins next Spring....they're so easy to grow). We bake them until tender; at this point, the skin is then very easy to peel. Two medium sized pumpkins will yield almost the equivalent of a dozen cans of prepared Pumpkin/Squash and that's only for the price of $3 at most.

So for us, this means it's Pumpkin pie season in the Tea Room. We have however decided to put a twist on our pie by using some of the remaining Maple Syrup we processed earlier this Spring. So for a while, we'll be serving Maple Pumpkin pie.

Maple Pumpkin pie

When using real Pumpkins, you'll find your pies will be less sweet and lighter in texture....but of course no less decadent (particularly with a dollop of fresh cream).

Elsewhere on the farm we're actually still harvesting tomatoes. This should be the last of this year's crop. As such, it's also time to save our seeds.

Ready for picking....for the last time this year.

We recover our seeds by scooping them out of some of the best specimens. For each variety, we place the seeds in mason jars with a bit of water. We cover our mason jar with a cloth or paper towel. We leave these in a warm spot to allow the gelatinous part of the seed to decay (it takes a couple of days). We then wash the seeds and dry them in paper towel.

Collecting Tomato seeds for next Spring.

We were really pleased with our tomatoes this year. We certainly had a great return and all of our varieties performed rather well.

Meanwhile, with all the time spent on the Tea Room, our Growing Dome work has not progressed much. However, with the anticipation of the first frost this year, we decided to quickly salvage some of our Water Spinach. This Asian semi-aquatic plant has done extremely well in our raised beds; it was now time to get some cuttings and attempt to propagate them in the dome. The idea is to use this plant in our Aquaponic set-up in the long run. We're just not sure how it will winter in this passively heated greenhouse.

Water Spinach cuttings in the dome.

Aside from these cuttings, we only have one plant left in the dome. A Zucchini seed must have gotten away from us and fallen into an unused pot! In any case, the plant is doing extremely well. In fact, it is now flowering and showing signs of fruiting. It will be interesting to see how long this will last into the Fall.

A "run away" Zucchini plant is thriving in the dome.

We'll close this week with a quick pic of the latest find for the farm. We got our hands on a beautiful old barn door. Our idea is not to use it as a "door", but rather as a canvas for a large painting we want to display in the back of the barn once the renovations are complete.

A perfect "canvas"