ONLY FIVE SHORT YEARS AGO.....THE SILVER BIRCH TEA ROOM
If anyone had told me five years ago that I would be growing and selling herbs now, and enjoying it, I probably would have laughed. I probably would have thought to myself ‘what a funny idea’. Looking back over the last five whirlwind years, I take a few minutes to reflect on all the changes that have happened on our farm and realize that growing herbs wasn’t such a funny idea after all.
Our farm was established by our family over 80 years ago and tobacco was the main crop until five years ago. In 2003, we took an abrupt turn and started growing potted herbs in our old tobacco greenhouses. Four years ago our store, Heritage Line Herbs, our country store, opened for business. Then...the Silver Birch Tea Room.
The Silver Birch Tea Room came into existence in 2006. My daughter, Melissa, was working in Vietnam and wrote home many times about the beautiful tea gardens in that country. They were so peaceful - full of flowers and plants and water gardens were included in the settings. Most were under glass cover. Over time the idea for our tea room formed. Our summers are so warm that we decided against putting the tea room under glass. Instead we liked the idea of an open air tea room, with lots of plants, especially herbs and why not a waterfall? The waterfall grew to a creek with a bridge and a pond at the end. Let’s Landscape, a local landscaping business, drew up the plans and work began in July. First the waterfalls, creek bed and pond were formed. The gardens were laid out and walkways circled the gardens. Larger stone areas were made for the tables and chairs, each area being a far enough distance from another to allow privacy at each table. A gazebo was built in the event of poor weather. Then the grasses, flowers and herbs were planted. We had no idea at the time how beautiful the gardens would become.
It’s a Tuesday afternoon, the sun is shining, the birds are singing and the tea garden is filled to capacity. The menu consists of over 100 varieties of tea, fair trade organic coffee as well as Lavender Lemonade, appetizers, salads, entrees and desserts – all made with herbs that we grow here. Everything is home-cooked on the farm in our ‘inspected’ kitchens and local produce is used as much as possible. The server calls in to find out what the beautiful purple flower beside the Silver Birch Tree is – Hopley’s Purple Oregano. She also wonders if there is cilantro in the lasagna – no, we don’t use cilantro, but there are four herbs in this tantalizing dish. The seasoning on the salad – why, our own Scent-Sational Salad Seasoning, of course. No the lavender lemonade is not made from a mix and yes, the lemon thyme cheesecake is made from the herb lemon thyme.Pineapple Sage Pound Cake – comes from the beautiful pineapple sage plant that we grow here and the Chocolate Mint Dip dolloped on the fruit is our secret recipe, but we will say that the herb, chocolate mint is an important ingredient in this dip.
In a corner near the waterfalls, two women enjoy High Tea Supreme which includes appetizers, dainty sandwiches, desserts, clotted cream and scones, all made here and all using our herbs. The tea is bottomless and for anyone not really wanting tea, there is always a cup or two of organic fair trade coffee.
Two young girls gently rock back and forth on the garden swing, waiting for their mother’s to finish the ‘Herbal Tease’ platter they are sharing. The girls have just finished glasses of Lavender Lemonade and Lemon Verbena cookies and are wondering where Basil, the black cat, is. No one wants to tell them that he is in the barn for now because his favourite past-time is sitting on one of the chairs at a table and trying to steal food off of the plates.
A family has finished their lunch and stroll towards the store, taking in the sights and sounds of the gardens as they go. Butterflies are everywhere, a hummingbird can be seen flitting above the pineapple sage and honey bees are happily at work in the lavender garden.
Five years ago, if someone had told me I would be growing herbs now I probably would have laughed.