Free Potato Day at Rainshadow Organics. January 1, 2014 from 10am to 3pm. 70955 NW Lower Bridge Way, Terrebonne 97760.

We grew 100 tons of organic potatoes this year in 14 different varieties. You’ve seen them in Whole Foods around the Pacific Northwest. After the terrible cold where we saw -27 degree temperatures, many of our potatoes froze in our cellar.  We have 18 tons and about 80% of that is good, but needs to be sorted. We want to extend these potatoes to our community. Come to the farm with boxes and take potatoes for your family and friends. They should keep in a cool dark place well into spring. Considering the hard work and tremendous loss this year, we will happily take donations for potatoes, but we are most interested in finding them good homes. Help us sort potatoes to take to food banks and neighbor impact. This is a great way to start the new year. The weather should be beautiful. Meet some new people. Spend time with your local farmers. Continue the season of giving.

 

Here we are hauling our potato seed from Irish Eyes Garden Seeds in Ellensburg, Washington.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is Rebecca in the potato fields as they were setting their many colors of flowers and producing an incredible crop of potatoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is our first box of potatoes… the beginning of tremendous abundance.  And to the right is the scene that continued for 38 days straight.  80 quarter-mile-long rows.  7 days a week.  8 hours a day.  2 days short of biblical…

 

Here are eleven of our fourteen varieties…

German Butterball, Viking Purple, Purple Majesty, Peter Wilcox, Rose Gold, Yukon Gold, Chieftan, Terra Rossa, Butterfinger, French Fingerling, Purple Peruvian.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We harvested the potatoes into one-ton totes that we stacked into our hundred-year-old potato cellar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hauled three 30-ton loads of potatoes to Othello Washington to be washed at Pacific Produce.  This is where it all fell apart.  They charged us five times more than they quoted, because it took so long to run so many varieties through their washing/packing facility.  That was the entire profit.  And hence the $50,000 loss at the farm this year… Hard investments that were never recouped…

We learned a lot…  We were both too small and too big.  We will be scaling more appropriately next year where we can wash and pack our own product and be able to sell it here locally.  We live, love, and grow for Central Oregon….

 

They say you are supposed to eat a peck of dirt before you die………..  come and get it.