Fern Hollow is forty minutes north of the restaurant, at the end of a gravel road that floods every spring. Most of what you eat on our late-summer menu grew there.
Picking before the heat
We arrive at six, while the tomatoes are still cool. Fruit picked in the morning keeps its sugar and travels better; by noon the same plants give softer, flatter tomatoes.
Each row is a different variety. We taste as we go and choose by flavour first, colour second.
Beets, roots and leaves
The beets come out of the ground with their leaves on. We use all of it: the roots roasted whole, the stems pickled, the leaves wilted into butter for the lamb.
What the season brings next
By September the squash takes over. The first crates arrive in the same week we switch the kitchen to braising, which is not a coincidence.
Golden carrots and red beets, washed in the farm shed before the drive back.
If you want to see it yourself, Fern Hollow opens its gate to visitors on the first Saturday of each month.
