Rainy Glen Farms

Get know Bates Family Foods LLC and Rainy Glen Farms.

Welcome to 2023! Although this is typically a time of introspection, folks who grow food are already actively engaged in all the things it takes to ensure the harvest. January usually sees seed catalogues crowding into mailboxes, encouraging planning for the upcoming gardening season...and don’t forget National Seed Swap Day, the last Saturday of January every year. This year it will be January 28th; mark your calendar, and plan to attend the Seed Swap Event at our local seed bank, Bringing In The Seeds, hosted by the Mountain View Timberland Regional Library. Bringing In The Seeds is open any time the library is open, and is always looking for seeds and plants starts and cuttings specifically for Seed Swap Day.

One of our East Lewis County producers is already working in the field, despite the weather and whirlwind of the holiday season. Mark and Noel at Rainy Glen Farm in Glenoma are bundled up and busy, harvesting winter crops for their customers (Yes! They have produce available now!) enhancing their infrastructure, potting up strawberry starts, going through their seed inventory and getting crop location and rotation planned for the year. This year, they will be offering a CSA box in addition to their farm stand on Miller Road. The CSA will run from late April to mid November.

Rainy Glen Farm broke ground in December of 2020 and have improved and expanded ever since (so mush so that they are looking to hire part time help for the season this year). 2021 saw the 20x36 greenhouse go up, and strawberries, thornless blackberries, boysenberries and marionberries put in. Reclamation work on the small orchard of plums and apples was begun, all while planting the annual vegetables that is the mainstay of the farm. The farm is also home to Bates Family Foods, LLC which has year round availability of pickled vegetables and jams, made from vegetables and berries grown on the farm. Asparagus, beans, beets, carrots, cucumber and a garden medley are in 16 ounce jars, and the 9 ounce jam jars include strawberry rhubarb, strawberry, raspberry, marionberry, blackberry, boysenberry and three different pepper jellies. You can currently get sugar pumpkins, carrots, parsnips, beets, kale and arugula at the farm, in addition to the jarred items listed above. The farmers are available between 8a and 5p Monday through Friday, and 11a to 4p on Sundays. Call or text (253) 549-3171 for availability, or message them through Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/batesfamilyfoods.biz

A Little Light Reading:

Eating Close to Home: A Guide to Local Seasonal Sustenance in the Pacific Northwest by Elin England

Eating Close to Home is both a discussion of why we need to relocalize our diets and a compilation of recipes, cooking and food storage tips that will enable you to do so. The book is an invitation to experience the delights of preparing wonderfully simple food from ingredients that still remember the soil that nourished them, so that they in turn can nourish you. Internet Drill Down: Never heard of a CSA? Here’s a basic understanding and a little history. https://www.insider.com/guides/kitchen/what-is-a-csa

Editor’s Note: CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Typically, this is by direct farm sales of shares or boxes of farm fresh produces to local residents.

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