The Tea Room Opens Tomorrow!

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

It's Spring time and of course, this means our Tea Room is re-opening for the 2016 season. We will be open as of tomorrow, March 22nd. Our hours are Tuesday to Sunday, 10AM to 6PM.

Spring time and the tea pots are blooming! Ready for the 2016 Tea Room Season.

We've updated our menu a touch. As promised, we've replaced our (unsustainable) Tuna salad with Niagara Coronation Chicken. This is our own version of a UK classic, using a chutney made from local Peaches. We've also now sourced our drug-free and hormone-free meats from sustainable farmers.

We've also made some significant upgrades in our egg procurement. We have finally found local eggs we can use in our restaurant (Provincial regulations mean they have to be graded). These eggs are somewhat more expensive but well worth the difference in price. The multi-coloured eggs are from free-range heritage varieties locally farmed by  Bertha's Bounty. You can tell the difference in quality just by the strong egg shells and the large orange yolks. We're really looking forward to using these.

Finally! A local source of high quality eggs (Bertha's Bounty)

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the farm, it is Maple syrup season. We've been collecting our sap (this year a lot earlier than before). In fact, we'll be switching to Birch soon and this is a few weeks ahead of last year, given the Spring like weather we faced in February.

Spring like weather has made it easy to collect sap this year.

We'll close by suggesting to everyone that it is now time to visit your local "sugar bush". A good place to visit in Pelham would be White Meadows, where everything they do is Maple themed.

Re-Opening Soon!

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

March is upon us and this means Spring...it also means the Tea Room will be re-opening soon! Many have asked when this will occur and we're happy to say Tuesday, March 22nd. For this new season, we will be open 10AM to 6PM, Tuesday to Sunday. We will be closed on Mondays.

It is now time for us to get out of hibernation and get ready! Over the coming weeks, we'll be working on updating our menu and trialing some new items for the upcoming season.

Although, we've not accomplished much this Winter, we still managed to get the first phase of our barn restoration completed. Finally, the back half of the barn is looking a lot more "civilized".

The back of the barn was looking a little sad...

...a  face lift has provided it with new life.

There is still much to be accomplished in the interior, but this is a great start, Our ultimate objective is to have a patio where guests can dine overlooking the berry fields.

Although our Winter was a lazy one, we did manage to discover and develop a few new things. One of these is a "white" wine made with (of all things) Raspberries.

Of the new berries planted in our fields, the most difficult to use has been the Yellow or Golden Raspberries. They taste great and are very similar to their red counterparts. However, when cooked, they turn brownish and are not exactly appetizing,  Although tasty, even the associated jams and jellies tend to take on this darker colour.

Since our plot is generating quite a few berries each year, we have more than we can use. This Winter, we were left with a reasonable amount that we ended up freezing for long term storage.

We decided that one option might be to transform these into wine.

Delicious golden raspberries ready to be transformed into wine.

The result, has surprised us completely. We ended up producing a distinctive white wine. The bouquet is all Raspberry and so is the taste. Not as sweet or "liquory" as some of the other fruit wines we've been playing with, this wine is perhaps the best we've managed to produce to date.

A Raspberry "white wine", perfect accompaniment to....chocolate!

We'll close this week with one thing that we were able to accomplish during this rather warm Winter: pruning. The lack of snow and bitter cold weather meant that a few days could be spent catching up on our pruning...although we still have a heck of a lot more to do!

An easy Winter means easy pruning!