By John Francis,
Bruce Peninsula Press
Just after closing time on April 3, Garden in Thyme’s greenhouse, store and bakery on Ferndale Road burned to the ground. The culprit was a brand-new space heater.
Owners Molly and Danny Bridge were determined to rebuild, but quickly ran into a problem — all the contractors were booked for years in advance.
So they decided to do it themselves. Well, not entirely themselves, just mainly themselves. “We’ve had a lot of help from the community” Danny tells me. “In fact, the support has been just crazy.” Relatives and friends have all pitched in when and where they could. They are especially grateful to Cory and Wes Rydall and Pat Boyle who found time even though they were overbooked; without them the project simply couldn’t have gone ahead.
But go ahead it did. They hope it will be finished before Thanksgiving. All they need is for their commercial ovens to arrive, Ontario Hydro to sign off and the Department of Health to inspect and approve.
“Molly’s been pickling like crazy all summer,” Danny says. She has done 200 cases of Mason jars and will fill all the new shelves on opening day. (She would have done more but like so many things, Mason jars are on back-order.)
The new facility is fully winterized. The Bridges plan to open from the beginning of March to Christmas, offering baked goods, jams and pickles plus fruit and vegetables in season.
