Can you believe it, the CSA is halfway done!

I swear it was only yesterday, or maybe last week, that the summer CSA started. Now we are at the mid point and the variety feels like it is exponentially growing every week.

Cast your mind back to that first week of June and how excited we all were for the chard, spinach, green onions, and curly kale that we were getting. So many crisp, fresh greens. Now we are munching on cucumbers, summer squash, green beans, and (gasp!) tomatoes.

Before I dive into the week at Rainshadow, let us all just say a huge

Each week we see you, your family, and your friends. Your smiles are huge. Your excitement is palpable. You are excited for everything we have to offer. You are ready to try a new to you vegetable or recipe. Life is busy on the farm, but when I am walking around on little solo meanders in the 2-acre, or checking on the height of the corn in the 25-acre, or watching Amiga and Ginny munching on the cover crop, thoughts of you and your excitement trickle in and through my mind.

We grow food and farm because we hold organic, nutrient-dense food primary. You also believe in these things and the importance of local agriculture and supporting your local economy. Our gratitude to you is immense. So thank you! We can’t wait to tell you in person on Wednesday.

This week we finished the last of our transplanting for the 2021 growing season. That means that everything we are planning on growing for the summer CSA and everything we are planning on storing for the winter CSA is in the ground. Everything! In Sarahlee’s words, “now we can slow down for a moment and just harvest and weed.” Because somethings never change and even if you aren’t planting, you continue to harvest and weed.

Now that we have everything seeded or transplanted, I thought it might be fun to do a key to the 25: what we have planted where and why. Our farm is a year round operation and one of the cornerstones of it is the 25-acre and the variety and amounts of things we can pump out of it.

A – Wheat crop: we grow 2 varieties of wheat every year. This year we are growing our soft white and hard white wheat. We turned the water off about 3 weeks ago to dry it out for threshing. After the wheat has been harvested we grind it on site with our electric stone mill.

B – Storage Crops: we grow beets, parsnips, carrots, potatoes, celeriac, winter squash, dried beans, onions, and garlic to store for our Winter CSA. The longer these crops stay in the ground, the sweeter they become, so we plant them as early as we can and wait as long as possible to harvest them. The tail end of September and the month of October is a race against the first frost as we harvest, wash, and store all these vegetables to eat November-May.

C – Summer CSA crops: we have talked about successions before. An important part of our succession planning revolves around the 25-acre. The lettuce, carrots, beets, summer squash and other crops we plant out here allow us to have a wider variety of crops for a longer period of time in our Summer and Full Diet CSAs as well as be able to sell to our local partners: Whole Foods, Food4Less, Locavore, Jackson’s Corner, and Spork.

D – Tibetan Black Barley: this is our first crop of Tibetan Black Barley and we are excited to see it flourishing right now. This will add another grain to our offerings.

E – Cover Ccrop: Our cover crop consists of 37 different varieties of plants this year. Each plant contributes a little something to the soil’s microbiome that allows the nutrient density to recover and replenish, the natural defenses of the soil to rebound, and it gives our dairy cows a lush pasture to graze until next spring when we disc it in and add all of that biomass back into the soil.

Some images from the past week. We hosted a wedding in the garden under the lights. It was a beautiful and special evening full of delicious food! We are also seeing the variety and amounts of vegetables increase as the summer tsunami of vegetables continues. Farmer Nat and Farmers Sarahlee and Simon hold some of our harvest from last week. (photo credit: Sarahlee Lawrence & Alison Holland

We did it! Finished transplanting for real this time! This last patch of the 25 acre is our late summer season brassicas! We can’t wait to share them with you in September and beyond! These brassicas include cabbages for our winter CSA! (photo credit: Sarahlee Lawrence & Alison Holland)

While we won’t know exact numbers and types of species until they are caught, we are expecting Steelhead, Chinook, and maybe some Sockeye. The Coho run will be starting sometime around then, so we could see a few of those trickling in.

This fish is delivered unfrozen from the banks of the Columbia River below the confluence with the Deschutes River and filleted in the kitchen.

Let us know if you would like to pre-order any fish. It will be fresh and unfrozen on Thursday afternoon, Friday and Saturday available at the Farm Store for pickup and frozen starting Saturday evening for delivery with your CSA the next week.

Price:

• Whole Fish: $16.50/lb
• Filleted Fish: variable price depending on size of fish. I will know more on Thursday after we fillet. A filleted fish at Rainshadow is 2 full fillets from 1 fish. At this time we aren’t selling a single fillet or the classic salmon steak style fillets you are used to at the grocery store. 

Want to order fish?

1. Reply to this email with your preference: Steelhead, Chinook, or Sockeye, and about what size you are looking for. I will try to work within those parameters.
   • Sockeye are usually 3-7#
   • Steelhead are usually 5-10#
   • Chinook are usually 10-25#
2. Fish will be sold on a first in inbox, first served basis. (If you wanted fish last time and didn’t get it, you are at the top of this week’s list.)
3. I will reach out to you on Thursday afternoon/evening with what we have and confirm your order.
4. Come to the Farm Store Friday & Saturday to pick up your fresh fish or we will freeze and you can pickup later at the Bend Farmers Market or the Farm Store.
5. I will send out more information when I know what I have.

1. Get your vegetables into a fridge ASAP and consider bringing a cooler with an ice pack in it to pickup.
2. As soon as you are home, fill your sink up with cold water and soak all your vegetables. You might even want to toss ice in the water to really refresh them. Take the tops off your carrots, radishes, and beets right away and soak them separately.
3. Store your greens and herbs (but not basil, it wilts and turns brown when it gets wet) right out of the sink by wrapping them in a damp towel and placing them in the crisper. (I will often wash my greens and herbs and then wrap them in a damp, but not dripping towel, and put them in the crisper or anywhere in the fridge.)
4. Salad spin your salad after it has soaked and store it in a Tupperware with a damp towel.

Meat CSA

We now have everyone caught up on chickens! Yay! I hope you are all enjoying your chicken, either in the slow cooker, oven, or on the grill.

This week we will be doing another mix and match pork and beef bag featuring our beef short ribs. If you don’t get them this weed, then you can expect them in the next CSA!

Enjoy these slow cooked in a pressure cooker or crockpot or braised. Short ribs love being cooked low and slow! Here are a few recipes options for you.

Slow Cooker Beef Short Ribs from the Stay at Home Chef blog
Braised Beef Short Ribs in Red Wine Sauce from the Recipe Tin Eats blog
Asian Short Ribs {Slow Cooker or Oven Braised} from the A Little and a Lot blog

Recipes

Did you know that we have a recipe blog at Rainshadow? Our CSA member Cheyenne (@theprimalfocus on Instagram) turns our vegetables and meats into delicious and unique recipes which we publish on our blog. She also has a great Instagram feed full of her creations which are very inspiring!

Definitely check out the Recipe Blog on our webpage for some inspiration, but here is a selection of some of the more seasonally appropriate ones. But check out the blog. We post new stuff every couple months.

Interns and staff making pickles (photo credit: Sarahlee Lawrence)

Veggie IDs

Broccoli and Cauliflower are both members of the cole family (this family includes cabbage, Brussels sprouts, Napa cabbage, collards, kale, and kohlrabi too). All of the cole vegetables contain bioflavonoids that help reduce the risk of cancer.

Broccoli is usually a deep green while our cauliflower comes in purple, orange, or white. Both are harvested in small or large heads depending on its size when it was time to harvest it.

To store: Wrap both loosely in a plastic bag and keep it in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator. Store for a week.

To prep: Soak head upside down in cold salted water (1 teaspoon salt to 8 cups of water) for 30 minutes to remove any hidden field worms. Any critters will float to the top. You can eat the stalks, leaves, and head of broccoli. Break the head into florets of desired size. Then use a peeler or paring knife to cut the tough skin off the broccoli stalk, and cut into equal size pieces. The stalks will require a few extra minutes of cooking time.

broccoli

Cauliflower

Add-Ons

Email us if you would like us to pack you anything extra from the store for pickup with your CSA. You can pay when you pick up at the Farm Store or our Farm Stand at the Bend Farmers Market.

Pickles/Fermented Veggies:

• Pickled Roma Dilly Beans: $16/quart
• New options coming soon: Chef is busy pickling cucumbers and beans, making pesto, fermenting carrots and beets, and making zucchini relish.

Flours and Wheat Berries:

• 2 lb bags hard red, hard white, soft white flour: $5/bag
• 2 lb bag buckwheat flour: $7/bag
• 2 lb bag corn flour: $12/bag
• 2 lb bag rolled Tibetan black barley: $5/bag
• 3 lb bag hard red wheat berries $5/bag

Meat: 

• $5/lb: beef liver
• $8/lb: ground beef
• $10/lb: chuck roast, brisket, and short ribs
• $11/lb: cubed round steak
• $12: Top Sirloin Steaks
• $14/lb: Rib Steak, t-bone, ribeye
• $15/lb: boneless New York Strip

The vegetable tsunami is here. Come prepared to make some big decisions about what exactly you want to bring home with you this week! There are so many options and delicious meals in your future!!!

See you on Wednesday!

Please email us let us know if you can’t make Wednesday or if someone else is picking up for you. We can’t wait to see you on Wednesday!