Rising River Farm
13208 201st Ave SW
Rochester, WA 98579 360-273-5368
contact@risingriverfarm.com
www.risingriverfarm.com
August 22 ***** Box 10
Hello,
It is 6:00 a.m. I’ve got a mug of hot coffee and the kids are asleep. Brad just rolled by on the tractor to go loosen carrots with the digger bar for your bunches today. The crew is slogging behind in raingear-coffee and twist ties in hand. We spent the entire day yesterday harvesting for you boxes and this morning they’ll get a few last minute items before we start packing them.
This summer is reminding me of the first summer I spent here in WA (coming from Oklahoma) back in 1993. It was cool, cloudy and drizzly well into August. I remember questioning whether or not I could live in a place that didn’t have a “real” summer. The oppressive heat of the south was actually sounding attractive to me. But I am glad I stayed. Even though there is no hot sun to send us off swimming in the river (or even wearing shorts) the veggies are happy so I am too. Walking through the fields you wouldn’t really know we are having an Octoberish August. Rigo, Rita, and Sergio picked 6 flats of sungolds, 5 crates of tomatoes, a big box of green peppers, and lots of eggplant. (We will be rotating the sungolds, toms and eggplant around each week.) The slicing cucumbers are outrageously prolific. It is almost frightening. You’ll be getting at least one today as well as a lemon cucumber. These round, yellow cukes look like a lemon (with squinting and a little imagination) but do not taste like lemon. I never peel these. Just slice and eat. I was flipping through the farm cookbook and recalled that cucumbers are a wonderful addition to Tabouli (43) though it is not mentioned in the recipe. I’ll include another cucumber recipe at the end of the letter. Keep in mind that tabouli is a versatile recipe. Use red onion instead of scallion and add or subtract any veggie you want. Speaking of red onions, you will get your first one today. It is sweet and pungent. Use sparingly in raw situations or make sure you all eat some so you’ll all have onion breath together!
I’ll take you on a walk through the fields to give you an update on things. First you will come to the tomatoes and friends. All seem unfazed by the lack of BTU’s. I suppose it is still pretty warm. Next we have newly sprouting beets, herbs, and spinach. Then come the big beets we are currently harvesting from. I’ve noticed some beet bunches in the barter box lately. Don’t forget to try the chocolate beet cake in the farm cookbook!!!!! The sea of winter squash looks healthy and lush. The paths have long since been overgrown. Popcorn looms 8+ feet high. It is always dicey growing it as it takes a very long dry season, but when it works we enjoy it all winter long and usually give some out to the CSA either in the fall or the following spring, depending on when it is harvested and cured. Carrots, carrots everywhere. We grow lots of carrots. I plant 3 -300ft long beds (3 rows each) every 2 weeks from late April through July (weather permitting) to ensure a steady supply through December if we are lucky. As our crew (who must meticulously weed and thin them) will attest, that is a lot of carrots! Scattered throughout this field are dill plants left to go to flower for pickling. In the afternoon they are alive with bees and ladybugs.
Moving on to the other field, you will see long hills where the potatoes lie in wait. The crew cut the tops back to halt their growth and make the skins set up. We’ll do the big harvest in a few weeks. The zucchini and crookneck are cranking out the squash and we are finding abundance even though mice ate ¼ of all the seed I planted. And here I thought this would be the year of barely any squash. I should have known better. Both patches of pickling cukes are on now. Despite the volume of cukes we pick, there are no more smalls available. I have about 50 orders for smalls from now until September. We almost always have mediums and sometimes mini’s, but probably no smalls. Be sure to contact us next July to get on the schedule early. In the new field we have thousands of onions and shallots sizing up nicely (though later than usual). Soon we’ll knock the tops over which will cause the papery skins to form. Then we can harvest them for curing. Brassicas (the broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, etc. family) are next. The next broccoli is almost ready. Cabbages will be ready later in the fall. We just put out some more kohlrabi to be enjoyed later in the season. Due to the fact that the brassica family is such a bad bug magnet (aphids, flea beetles, cabbage moths, root maggots just to name a few…) we limit the amount of this family that we grow. We are on to bean patch #4. Two more plantings are following in their footsteps, so you should be seeing them for a while longer. Then there is the corn. It is like a skipping record-it is just stuck there on the verge of ripeness and refuses to mature until the sun comes out. It is driving me crazy! Finally over to the last field where you’ll see row upon row of cauliflower (almost ready), brussel sprouts (not ready until November) and leeks. The rest of the potato patch is there as are the artichokes, which I forgot to mention last week. And thus concludes our field tour….

Invariably I forget to mention something crucial in the newsletter about a new veggie (luckily it is all harvested fresh and will actually hold up for when I get you a recipe a week later!) Last week for example I failed to mention artichokes, which some of you got. These are called Green Globe and were started from seed this spring after last year’s were so aphid infested that we tilled them in out of shock and horror. They are smaller than their grocery store counterpart but are wonderful to eat. (They also last a long time in the fridge so if yours is still lurking in there use it up) Steam them for about 20 minutes or until you can pierce the stem base easily with a fork. Pull off the two outer layers of leaves and discard as those don’t tend to yield much meat. Dip the stem end of the other leaves in melted butter or another mild dip and scrape the leaf through your teeth which will scrape off the meat. Don’t actually eat the leaves. When you get through all the leaves you’ll find a fuzzy center, Scrape out the “fur” also called the choke (for a reason) and the you are at the heart which you can dip in the dip and enjoy.