Tuesday, June 23, 2015

The Annual Pelham Heritage Tea

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

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

No comments:

Post a Comment