Agritourism Ottawa

Archive for June, 2011

Ottawa Valley Strawberry Guide - Click for full picture

Today’s West Carleton EMC newspaper had a nice full-page ad showing the various places around Ottawa where you can get fresh, local strawberries. The ad’s focus is berry farms to the south and west of Ottawa. If you click on the picture to the left, you can read the ads from each berry farm and then head out to get your own delicious strawberries!

Fresh-picked strawberries

As you can see from my latest posts, I’m still working away at my Great Canadian Cheese Festival articles. I better hurry up, because the summer agritourism season is now in full swing and there’s so much to write about. And what better way to start than to write about STRAWBERRIES!!!!

Yes – finally – the pick-your-own strawberry season has begun, and to celebrate, I headed out yesterday to Cedar Hill Berry Farm in Pakenham. It was a race against the weather, as the skies were turning dark and the rain was on its way. But several days of hot, sunny weather had ripened the strawberries to perfection, and I was able to pick a 4 Litre basket in under 15 minutes.

I’m a big fan of Cedar Hill Berry Farm, having visited them last December for their Christmas tree season (which you can read about here). The setting is so idyllic, with the farm located at the end of a dirt road, beside a small creek with a covered bridge.

Your first stop for berry picking will be the barn beside the parking area. Read the rest of this entry »

Picnic lunch at Vicki's Veggies

A highlight of our All Day Cheese Tour was stopping at Vicki’s Veggies for a picnic lunch. We arrived quite hungry from a busy morning of touring, and were happy to take a seat at the picnic tables that had been set up on Vicki Emlaw’s and Tim Noxon’s property. Here we savoured a delicious box lunch from Prince Edward County’s East & Main Bistro, while free-range chickens wandered around us looking for handouts.

During our lunch, Vicki Emlaw provided a history of the farm business that she and her husband run. After spending a couple years at university, Vicki spent twelve years travelling the world. She would return in the summers to work evenings in local restaurants, and would spend her days working in her mother’s garden. At a party one night, she met a local carpenter whose recent hand injury was preventing him from being able to can his home-grown tomatoes. She volunteered to help him, and the rest is history.

Now the couple lives on an 8-acre property where they grow non-certified organic mixed vegetables, herbs, fruits, flowers, mushrooms, and eggs. Read the rest of this entry »

Fifth Town: Aging Cave

When we finished our tour at Maypul Layne Farms, we headed off to Black River Cheese Company. This small-scale cheese factory is located on the Black River – a very picturesque spot in Prince Edward County. The company is a small co-operative owned by local farmers, and specializes in cheddar, mozzarella, brick, and fresh curd.

Our tour included an overview of the cheese making process, followed by a peek into the warehouse containing over $1 million in cheese. There were some interesting discussions about the milk quota system, which sets the amount of milk that cheese makers are entitled to; if they need more, they must lease the extra quota from another producer (which I assume is quite expensive). We were told that the only exception is when a cheese maker develops a cheese that no one else is producing, in which case, they can apply for up to 10 million litres extra quota per year. I’m not sure how they define a unique cheese, but apparently it doesn’t count if you just add different flavours (like hot peppers, for example). Read the rest of this entry »

Martin Miller with one of his dairy cows

As readers of this blog know, my main writing focus is agritourism. I profile farms and agribusinesses that open their doors to their public, providing a glimpse into the passion and hard work that goes into producing the agricultural products that we often take for granted.

One type of farm that rarely opens its doors is a dairy farm, whether the farmers are raising cows, sheep, or goats. The main reason is that biosecurity is a big issue in the dairy industry; everything must be kept very clean to ensure a safe milk supply. In fact, you are a bigger risk to the animals than the animals are to you, so there’s too much risk for most dairy farms to provide regular tours of their operations.

However, you will occasionally run across opportunities to tour a dairy farm – usually one-time events that are easier for the farmers to manage. So when I saw that the Cheese Festival was offering a bus tour that included two dairy farms, I immediately signed up. One of the tours was for a cow dairy farm, and the other was for a dairy goat farm.

Sadly, the dairy goat farm tour was cancelled at the last minute, due to a tragic event on the farm. Read the rest of this entry »