First Rain Farm

Guess what? We have 1 Summer veggie & fruit CSA share left to purchase for the 2021 season! If you have been thinking about it then now is the chance to head to our website to sign-up. [email protected] or link in profile to get more details. Thank you to all who have already signed up. We are ecstatic that our 30 family CSA share has filled up so early and we really look forward to providing you with abundance throughout the summer and early fall. @dr.meatballs

The mom goats and their kids are out to pasture for the first time! It’s always such a lovely feeling to see them munching on spring grass and basking in the sunshine

Rhubarb is a loved perennial here at the farm and we have had just a small patch up until this week. Tuesday we planted 200 bed feet of rhubarb plants that will provide us with delicious stalks for many years to come! We will let the plants put their energy into building their roots this season so that we will have a strong harvest next year!

The new farm sign is up and we absolutely love everything about it! Locust posts from the property were placed by Tim, the sign boards were salvaged old growth cedar boards that were sanded and stained a mahogany and the metal holding the sign up on both sides was salvaged from the barn as well! Thank you @miss_moth_design for your amazing work on this sign that represents the farm perfectly! Amanda was so wonderful to work with and is a true artist

Mama goat life photo by @roseannbathphoto

Have you secured your local food source for the summer and fall growing season? Would you like to support a small organic farm in your area and in return gain the benefits of the freshest produce grown on the lands where you live? Would you like the ease of on-farm pickup? Would you enjoy the variety of seasonally changing produce to try new things and see what it truly means to eat in season? We would love to provide that for you! Sign-up for our 22 week CSA starting June 2nd and ending October 27th. Link in profile or head on over to www.firstrainfarm.com to sign-up

Goats have amazing birthing and mothering instincts and most of the time we barely need to intervene in any of the process. Other times we do have to help the kids drink milk from teats that are too low to the ground where the kids can’t reach them with ease. Our goat Poppins has really large, really low teats so three times a day we have to make sure the kids get a good drink and eventually they will become stronger and more able to figure it out on their own. Photo by @roseannbathphoto of @kat_vanwagner helping with a feeding

We planted these rainbow carrots back in August knowing that in January we would be distributing them to @sierraharvest for their harvest of the month! The time is here and wow are these some beautiful and delicious carrots They will be going to all of the Nevada county school lunch programs to educate children about local food! Thank you to Sierra Harvest for including us in this very important endeavor and we may just decide to grow these for ourselves in the future.

Happy Birthday Tim! First Rain Farm exists because of you and your vision and purpose to feed the community and steward the land. You are a Capricorn at its finest and we are all so lucky to have you Today we started with sourdough waffles with peaches and blueberries and then snow tubing up at Donner Ski Ranch with the family Here is to another year around the sun.

We have so much great produce coming your way tomorrow at the @nevadacityfarmersmarket 9am-noon Here are some scenes from this mornings harvest. It starts off frosty but then warms up pretty quickly. We will also have our value added products(jam, tomatoes and hot sauce) which make great holiday gifts!

First Rain Farm vegetable & berry CSA 2021 We are so excited to share that we are offering a small amount of CSA shares this upcoming season. The share will be 22 weeks long starting Wednesday June 2nd and ending Wednesday October 27th. This will be a $30 value box each week filled with our rotating abundance over the season and with some reoccurring staples as well. What are the benefits of signing up for our CSA? You save 10% as compared to market prices, on-farm easy and safe pick-up & receiving fresh organic veggies and fruit from your local small farm! Head over to www.firstrainfarm.com to sign up and to find out more information. #organicfarming #csa #nevadacity

This is our new field up the road from the farm that we will be transforming into a seed growing field. We have been grazing the goats nearby during the day and then bringing them back here at night to deposit manure and urine for fertility to the soil. We love seeing them all running together as a herd

An all time favorite photo of Tim and @sashacscott bringing the goats out to pasture in the summer of 2018. Not much has changed! Photo taken by @rachelle_lerude

Back in the early days when both Tim and Kat first started falling in love with goats. The first photo is of Tim in 2009 milking his goat in Nevada City, CA & the second photo is of Kat in 2009 with one of her first goats Molly in Bremen, Maine. Who knew then that our love of goats would still be going strong and that we would be doing it together now

Hello friends, we are posting this morning to inform you that one of our employees has tested positive for COVID-19. This employee did work the market in Nevada city on 11/21 before she knew she was positive. All the other staff have so far tested negative and we have all quarantined or are quarantining for the appropriate time frame before going into public places. We will be at the market this Saturday 12/5 with two employees who have not been exposed in at least two weeks and have tested negative. Please feel free to email us at [email protected] with any further questions or concerns that you may have Our employee is doing well and getting better by the day and will be taking as much time as needed for full recovery

We are excited to share over the next month some upcoming projects with you all! First up is our new lease agreement on this field about a quarter of a mile up the road from the farm. Over the next few months we will be building the infrastructure we need to farm here. This includes clearing small trees, fencing, and bringing water to the field. We are excited to use our goats this winter to build fertility on the site by grazing them in surrounding areas during the day and bedding them down on the field at night, thus collecting much of their manure and urine where we can use it! This field will give our seed growing a boost in providing us with an isolated field to avoid cross pollination issues between similar crops. Stay tuned for updates over the next few months

Fall leeks are a new crop for us and they didn’t size up as much as we were hoping but it’s not always just about size! These beautiful bunches and lots more will be headed to @nevadacityfarmersmarket tomorrow 8:30-1pm. It’s our last weekly market until next May so come say hi and support all of the local goodness that we have here in Nevada County

Our Scarlet Nantes carrots are so incredibly sweet and 100 bunches will be at the @nevadacityfarmersmarket this Saturday. We sold out within a few hours last week, so get there early

We love parsnips around here! We throw them in soups, roast them with other root veggies and mash them with lots of butter. What are your fav ways to use these sweet roots?

Temps are getting cooler this weekend. Do you have your firewood? We have 2 cords of hardwood(madrone)$350 and 4 cords of soft wood(pine & cedar) $200 with local delivery included.

Here’s a baby goat from last spring to put a smile on your face

Fresh ginger sale! Tomorrow at the @nevadacityfarmersmarket we will be bringing lots and lots of fresh ginger and offering a reduced price. $15/lb and if you buy 5lbs or more than you will get it at $12/lb! It’s the season to stock up for the upcoming colder months ahead when you and your loved ones may need a little warming up. We will include a handout with helpful ways to preserve it and a recipe on how to make a simple fire cider See you tomorrow!

A First Rain Farm gift certificate is just one of the 59 items still available for bidding on to support the @coalitionforracialjusticenc. Our community is amazing and we are so proud to be a part of this auction and event! Link in bio

We are excited to share with you all our first go around at some value added goodies from the farm! @ceceiliasgardens took our fresh produce and made these delicious items for you all to try and share! San Marzano tomatoes oven roasted, blackberry strawberry jam, raspberry jam and Padron pepper hot sauce. We hope to have these available for purchase at the @nevadacityfarmersmarket soon and possibly this weekend. We will keep you posted

Nothin’ beats fall carrots! It’s our first time growing these purple carrots called Dragon. We are growing them as a seed crop for 2021 for @redwoodseeds @southernexposureseed @plantgoodseed @sandiegoseedcompany & Quail Seeds. We have a little to spare for the @nevadacityfarmersmarket tomorrow along with our bunches of the classic Scarlet Nantes. See you there!