Harbour City Highlights

Agri-tourism

Lush summer is prime time for a country tour

In the summer, the rural roads around Nanaimo reveal lush greenery and working farms where growers are into their peak season. It’s prime time for an Island visit. Along the country roads in Cedar and Yellow Point, locals put up signs selling their free-range eggs for $3.00 a carton, leaving the eggs outside in coolers and trusting buyers to help themselves and leave behind the proper coin.

And while you’re in the area, the best Pacific Northwest guidebooks will steer you in the direction of the Mahle House Restaurant, a heritage home converted to a cozy dining room in Cedar, about 20 minutes south of Nanaimo. The successful Mahle House has been operated by owners Delbert and Ginny Horrocks and Delbert’s sister Maureen Loucks, the restaurant’s chef, for 21 years. Out back, their organic vegetable and herb garden sprouts fresh arugula and other greens, and the owners have a regular gardener to tend and harvest the seasonal bounty of beets, zucchini, tomatoes, artichokes, fresh herbs and edible flowers.

Just past the Mahle House on Sundays from May through October, the Cedar Farmer’s Market is held in a wide open field next to the popular English pub, the Crow & Gate (a destination in itself). Local food producers, plant growers and artisans display their wares under shaded tents.

Continue down winding Yellow Point Road to a family-run cranberry farm and take a self-guided or guided tour during harvest season that includes a snack, lunch or cooking party. Yellow Point Cranberries produces more than 20 specialty cranberry preserves from its yield of farm fresh fruit and sells its yummy homemade products on-site.

At Hazelwood Herb Farm, four sizable nurseries yield roughly 500 varieties of herbs on a scenic plot of land along Yellow Point Road, just north of Ladysmith. By mid-February shoots of sorrel, chives and loveage are already pushing through the earth. By summer, marshmallow plants will reach 10 feet and the fennel will need 12-foot stakes to keep it standing tall. Hazelwood Herb Farm opens April 1 each year and by June, herbs will be harvested to make jellies, chutneys, tea blends and spice rubs, eye creams and bath salts. Enduring favourites in Hazelwood’s product line are the frozen pesto and flavoured beer bread mixes (just add a bottle of brew and bake) available in the gift shop right through to Christmas.