Rising River Farm
13208 201st Ave SW Rochester, WA 98579 360-273-5368
info@risingriverfarm.com www.risingriverfarm.com

July 23rd *** Box 6

Hey Folks,
Jennifer and the kids are gone for the week, so here I go again with my once a year stab at writing the newsletter. For me to write the newsletter is such an unnatural act, it is something I dread more than going to the dentist…so please bear with me as I try to capture a coherent thought or two.

Please Note: This is the time of year to place your pickling cucumber orders. Please call us ASAP if you are interested, so that you can get on the fast growing list.

Here is a rough summary of how the vegetables get from the field to you.

(Monday) We do very little harvesting on Mondays. Mostly we try to stay up on the weeding projects, this week we weeded carrots (three beds), beets (two beds) and dill (four beds). Greg harvested the summer squash and then joined myself, Jonathon and Meghan in the broccoli, where we harvested approx. 100lbs. We like to harvest these two crops three times a week (M-W-F) so they don’t get too big and become less appealing.

(Tuesday) We started at 6 A.M. as usual. When we harvest on Tuesdays we also are getting some crops for the Thurs. and Fri. market days, so not everything we harvest goes into the CSA boxes. Rita, Sergio and Lillian harvested 132 bunches of beets and 47 bunches of chard. Rigo harvested some green onions for market and then joined up with Sergio and Rita in the basil patch the basil is just starting to kick into gear. Jonathon and Greg moved irrigation pipe ( a thankless, daily task) and harvested 8 boxes of lettuce before moving to harvesting herbs (Greg bunched dill and Jonathon bunched cilantro and parsley).. Isaac harvested the 145 Kohlrabi bulbs and then headed out to the potatoes to harvest 8 crates of French Fingerlings. Meghan harvested dill with Greg and then they met up with Isaac and myself in the potatoes. From about 10 A.M. until the end of work 3 P.M., we harvested snow peas, shell peas snap peas and green beans. Rita was the only exception as she left the bean patch to harvest about 17 pints of Sungold tomatoes (and one red tomato, still a week or two away from having some yummy slicing tomatoes for your CSA box.

(Wednesday) It’s 7:32A.M and the day is overcast and very cool, one could even say it is cold out (especially if you looked at the calendar and saw that it was late July). Rigo, Rita and Sergio have been bunching carrots since 6 A.M (we will have bunched and washed 625 bunches of carrots before the day is done) and were joined by Meghan (bunching), after she helped box up Broccoli, and Jonathon (washing) after he and Isaac moved 26 lengths of forty foot irrigation pipe. Isaac has since cut and boxed 100 heads of lettuce and is now transplanting various crops in the greenhouse. Lillian who helped Isaac in the lettuce after she harvested some artichokes (not many unfortunately) is now harvesting chard from a bed that the cucumber beetles have had their way with. She will soon be joining Greg (who earlier cut the broccoli and harvested the summer squash) in the barn to help with the parceling out of the vegetables for your weekly CSA boxes.
So, there you have it, a summary of the harvest for this week’s box.

Some of you (probably most of you are tired of getting Kohlrabi in your CSA boxes. I apologize for yet again putting them on the harvest list. It kind of just happened and by the time I remembered that you all were probably needing a break from them Isaac had already had them in the cooler. Needless to say you will not get them next week.

Basil is in your box this week it is in the same bag as snow peas (flat edible pods) and snap peas (the full edible pods).

At each site this week will be a stack of magazines that the folks at Edible Seattle gave to us to give out, I have only perused it, so I am not entirely sure how much I endorse it. It seemed like a very informative magazine that could help folks understand sustainable/organic/small scale farming issues and also be helpful with ideas for using fresh seasonal produce. Let us know what you think.

And Finally, I want to tell you about Potatoes, French Fingerlings to be exact, this variety of potatoes is quickly becoming our favorite one. Not only is the taste amazing (and this is coming from someone who suffers from allergies during most of the summer) but the yield is bountiful and the blemishes are few and far between. You can look forward to getting potatoes of some type for the rest of the season. Also, in the same bag with the potatoes are shell peas (this is possibly the last week of these …so enjoy).

Hope you all enjoyed reading this more than I enjoyed writing it…Thanks again for supporting our farm,
Jim


Kassey’s Potato Salad:

2 lbs potatoes-reds or French fingerlings ideally
½ bunch fresh dill
1 bunch carrots cut into rounds
½ lb shell peas
chopped pickles (3 or 4)
1 cup pickle juice
1 cup mayo
salt and pepper to taste