The Pineberry

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

The past few weeks have not been very productive at the farm. Most of our work has been delayed by the incessant Spring rains.

Things however are progressing in our Growing Dome. Seedlings are sprouting and awaiting transplant to the raised beds. It's now all a matter of patience....waiting for that last frost (which in this region averages around May 25th).

Borage and Scarlet Runners are doing well in the greenhouse...they're our favorite edible flowers for the Tea Room

In our last post, we also mentioned that the dome would finally be put to more productive endeavours. Well, we can finally announce that it has become the new home of Southshore Saskatoons. For those not familiar with the Saskatoon berry we urge you to do a search on this blog. We've covered it a few times since we discovered two rows of this native berry bush on the farm. We also planted some additional saplings last Fall.

In the dome, Southshore is attempting to propagate the plant from seeds. We have a total of 450,000 seeds now waiting to sprout. Some of them have already taken.

Saskatoon seedlings...a very small percentage of what is coming

The Saskatoon nursery has now convinced us that these may be our baseline crop. It will take a few years but Southshore and the team at the farm are looking forward to bringing this delicacy to the region.

Another oddity in the dome this year is the Pineberry. Many of our readers know how we love to experiment and this is our latest.

Nursing Pineberries...we may actually have a couple of fruits this year.

The Pineberry is a rather new "offering". It was developed in the Netherlands in 2010.

When the family left Switzerland some 5 years ago, they were becoming a hit in Germany. The berry is actually a Strawberry cultivar which cannot be readily reproduced from seeds, so it has taken us quite a while to come across some plants.

The reason we are keen to try them is the fact that they are quite attractive and tasty (resembling pineapple). The berries are smaller than conventional strawberries and are white with red "seeds" and a yellow flesh.

When we saw these, we had to give them a shot.

If these work out, we think they might be a great decorative addition to the Tea Room menu.

Although, it normally takes 2 years to begin producing, the plants in the dome would suggest we may actually be lucky and get a couple of berries this year.

Finally, everything is evolving on the land (as it should). The Asparagus are out in full force and many plants are in flower.


Nothing like fresh, organic Asparagus in the Springtime!

The Apple trees are always a good indicator of the great things to come.





Even the Rhubarb is blooming (time to cut it back).

We'll leave you for this blog entry with a clear indication of Spring...the so ever colourful Tulips!



Spring is in the Air

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

After what will hopefully be the last snow of the season, signs of Spring are everywhere. The Crocuses have come and gone, and just in time for Easter, the Daffodils are blooming....next are the Tulips.

The last of the Crocuses....

...and the first of the Daffodils.

This means its time to get back to work on the farm...and there is certainly a lot of work to do.

For us it was time to get back to the greenhouse dome and every year. when we get back to the dome, we get a few surprises. This year, we found that a few stray seeds took hold and we were pleased to find a couple of Borage plants blooming successfully....somehow they managed to get enough water to survive all this time.

A couple of stray seeds and a minor amount of water and voila! Borage.

As we cleaned the dome, we also found a rather strange dead fern. Surprisingly, it turned out to be Asparagus. How do we know: we have nice white shoots. The lack of sunlight under our growing shelves turned the Asparagus white. How they got there is simply beyond us.

Dead Asparagus fern from inside the dome.

White Asparagus shoots.

The cleaning of the Dome was essential since it is now the second week in April and it is high time for seeding.

Our core group of vegetables are based upon your typical Mediterranean diet: Tomatoes, Zucchinis, Peppers and Eggplant, and of course Basil.

We always enjoy the Tomatoes and have been growing a few heirloom varieties every season. This year we decided to greatly expand on this with a new selection.

Our seeds are planted.

For those looking for a local source of heirloom seeds we recommend: The Cottage Gardener. Over the past four years, we have been ordering some of our seeds on line and they have always provided us with speedy delivery and quality seeds. Their selection of plants is also fascinating.

Although the dome has had some limited use in the past year (with our Aquaponics set-up taken apart). We actually have a coupe of exciting ideas for it...so watch this space! We hope to make some announcement in a couple of weeks.

Now that the Tea Room is up and running, we've also decided to make some additional investment in our operation. 

We usually make our jams in very small batches (8 to 12 jars at a time). The limitation is really due to our stove-top equipment. The result is that we always run out of jam for our market shelves.

This year, we invested in a steam jacket kettle. This will now allow us to make batches 6 times the size!

Our new steam jacket kettle...just needs to be wired.

This is it for now, but stay tuned for the "dome announcement"!

A Simple Soup

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

Well its now Spring and the team is preparing for our Tea Room's seasonal opening next Tuesday!

Meanwhile, since our last blog entry, we had the opportunity to compose a new soup recipe based on what we had on hand.

The last (hopefully) snow storm of the season, did not stop us from trying to dig up some Sunchoke roots. With what had been a rather mild Winter, we thought the ground would be soft enough to recover a few tubers and we were quite right.

Gathering Sunchoke tubers following what we hope to be the last snow storm of the season

 In the past, we had always harvested our Sunchokes late in the Fall and usually after the first frost. We were told that Inulin (the carbohydrate that causes flatulence) turns into sugars when the tubers are subjected to low temperature.

Picking the tubers so late in the season was an opportunity to test this thesis.

The Sunchoke Tubers, once cleaned, were ready to be processed

Once cleaned, we decided to taste them raw. Usually, we found the Sunchoke to have a nice mild and nutty taste. We were quite surprised to find that this late in the season, they are indeed very sweet. They almost tasted like carrots!

We decided to turn these into a soup. In the past, we have tended to use a simple combination of potatoes and Sunchokes to make a nice creamed soup. This time, we decided to combine these with some Squash. We roasted the Sunchoke tubers with diced Squash and added them to a combination of cooked leeks, onions and garlic. Since we had some at our disposal, we threw in a few handfuls of pumpkin seeds.

A great vegetable base for a soup.

We added some stock and once the vegetables were fully cooked, we took the mix through a blender.
The result was a very good and simple Sunchoke and Squash soup.

A simple Sunchoke and Squash soup, garnished with Pumpkin seeds

Finally, the inspiration for this soup was the theme of our first 2017 SlowFood Niagara convivium meeting which was hosted at the farm last Sunday. The theme was: Aboriginal Foods.

The members really outdid themselves by preparing a potluck that included everything from Pemmican, to salmon, bison stew and wild rice.

SlowFood Niagara meeting....a great "spread"

March 27th!

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

This is our first blog entry in quite a while....and we're back!

The reason for this quiet period is simple: we've been hibernating.

During this time, we've had a lot of people ask when will the Tea Room open again for the season. Well, the date has now been set: March 27th.

This is a bit later than expected. But during this relatively mild Winter, we've not stopped any of our major projects. This year, this has involved finishing the first floor of the barn. Basically insulating it all and extending our kitchen/production area. With some of our wall covering on back order, we simply could not finish it all in time for our originally planned 21st March seasonal opening.

The back of the barn's first floor: in its original configuration

The back of the barn: a new and improved production area

Meanwhile, the Winter months have allowed us to continue experimentation in wine making and fruit liqueurs. The focus of our work has been the Kiwi berries we harvested last Fall. We continue to work on Melomels (a fruit-based Mead or Honey wine). The results have been quite good and we've now perfected the clarification of our wines.

In the end, the process is rather simple and involves just 4 basic ingredients: fruit, honey, water and yeast.

Kiwi berries drenched in Honey

Once water is added, the activated yeast does all the work

Within just a few weeks, our fermenter is ready to disgorge a beautiful dry white wine

Finally, quite a few changes are expected in this year's Tea Room operation. We hope our patrons will benefit from all these changes. In any case, we now are looking forward to a great new season and the blog is now back on, full swing with weekly updates.