A tour of Barnston Island Herbs : Tiny Bites

A tour of Barnston Island Herbs

Leave a Comment Karen HamiltonNovember 26, 2008

Did you have more than a passing interest in the parents of the people you grew up with? Not I. What my friends’ parents did for a living was outside the periphery; like my the goings-on of my own family’s elders, such details did not figure largely in the adolescent cosmos of puppy love and schoolyard drama.

But you grow up, start your career, and realize that some of the adults in your circle have led very interesting lives and pursued professions that now converge with your own interests. This is the case with Mr. and Mrs. Hoffmann: parents to my good friend Dave and grandparents to my cute-as-a-button godson*. To those outside of my set of childhood friends, Peter and Jennifer Hoffmann are better known as the owners of local purveyor Barnston Island Herbs.

The Hoffmanns are two people that I had long wanted to feature on Tiny Bites for their committment to growing local, pesticide-free greens for the Lower Mainland’s food and hospitality industries. My husband and I had the privilege of spending a day with the Hoffmann family on their farm on Barnston Island, and managed to sneak in a tour of the greenhouses while Dave got dinner ready for us all.

Jennifer kicked off the tour inside the farm’s main warehouse, where Barnston Island’s live culinary herbs are packaged in their soil trays to their final destinations. Live herbs are not their only specialty: over the years, the in-house product line has expanded to include fresh cut herbs, baby vegetables, baby lettuces, specialty fruits and mushrooms, and edible flowers. What Barnston Island doesn’t grow is imported from near and far (I spotted tomatoes from Origin Organic, for which Barnston Island acts as supplementary distributor).

We strolled past the labelling station into a small room filled with galoshes and rugged gardening wear. This gear was carefully squared away into cubbyholes pertaining to specific greenhouses. By having staff switch to clothing especially designated for certain growing zones, the farm mitigates the risk of contaminating crops with seeds or insects that are helpful for some plants and harmful for others.

The same room housed their stock of biological controls: beneficial insects used in place of chemical alternatives. The entire farm is kept free of pesticides, and staff rely instead on ladybugs, mites, and tried-and-true flypaper to cull fungi and pests that threaten the crops. We saw these helpers in action as we began our walkthrough of the holding houses that were safe for visitors to enter.

Video Aside: Tamara Taggart featured Barnston Island Herbs in her Taste of Home series about eating local. Watch Tamara help Peter release a new batch of ladybugs onto one of their crops.

Taste of Home featuring Barnston Island Herbs (May 26, 2008)

Because none of the leaves were sprayed with chemicals, Jennifer encouraged us to sample the greens that we came across. We happily snacked on the angular New Zealand spinach, the frondy French lavender, the peppery nasturtiums, and a host of other herbs and micro greens. The array of edible flowers were too pretty for me to despoil, though my husband did make the mistake of eating the not-for-consumption leaves of a scented geranium.

Once we had our fill (literally) of the holding houses, we returned to the Hoffmann residence to help Dave with dinner preparations. He had gone ahead of the tour group to grab basil, rosemary, chili pepper, garlic, purple potatoes, and cippolini onions from their sizeable pantry, and was even kind enough to have them arranged photogenically for my camera’s return.

There’s nothing quite like a meal made with the freshest of ingredients. Dave prepared figs, frisée, pea shoots, and more into a light salad that I could not stop shovelling into my mouth.

My husband grilled up rosemary and chili lamb chops, prawn skewers dusted with garlic and basil, and kept an eye on the potatoes and onions that were sauteeing on the side.